Donald Trump has repeatedly raised the specter of annexing Canada since his inauguration to a second time period as president.
The president’s rhetoric about making Canada “the 51st state” could appear to project confidence, a Twenty first-century imaginative and prescient of manifest destiny, a perception in the US’ proper and obligation to increase.
Trump just isn’t the primary American chief to dream of northern enlargement. To me, a historian of early U.S.-Canadian relations, these designs recommend not energy, however weak spot and simmering divisions inside the US.
Early People’ lust for Canada
Even earlier than independence, social battle helped flip American eyes northward. All through the 18th century, England’s Colonial inhabitants in North America doubled every 25 years. Successive generations of Colonists alongside the Japanese Seaboard needed to compete with one another, and with Indigenous folks, for assets, arable land and commerce.
These sad, land-hungry Colonists clamored for enlargement, instigating a sequence of wars in opposition to each the French and Spanish empires for management of the northeastern half of the continent, culminating in the French and Indian War, from 1754 to 1763.
Whereas these Colonists have been animated by their thirst for enlargement, they’d little else unifying them. Many People at this time are conversant in the “Join, or Die” cartoon Ben Franklin printed, that includes a segmented snake with every part representing one of many Colonies. Nevertheless, few understand that it was not crafted through the Revolution to unite Colonists in opposition to Britain, however in 1754, to rally divided British Colonists of their warfare in opposition to France.
Benjamin Franklin via Wikimedia Commons
Britain finished conquering Canada in 1763, however the empire by no means absolutely supported Colonial enlargement northward. Within the 1750s and 1760s, British troops forcibly removed French colonists from Acadia in Nova Scotia and recruited thousands of Colonists from neighboring New England to maneuver north. These settlers had lengthy imagined the area wealthy in fishing and timber to be a land of opportunity. However disillusioned by the monetary price of sustaining their settlements, many of those Colonists returned to New England by the early 1770s.
Makes an attempt to settle different lands ceded by France have been no extra profitable. Fearful that Colonists would possibly provoke a costly war with Indigenous people, Parliament issued the Proclamation of 1763, which tried to guard place of birth by discouraging Colonial enlargement westward. Many Colonists turned in opposition to Britain in response, particularly these like George Washington, who had speculated within the land west of the Appalachian Mountains.
The failed invasion of Canada
Within the earliest months of the Revolution, the Continental Congress licensed an American invasion of British-occupied Quebec. In a letter addressed to “Friends and Brethren” of Canada, Washington himself implored Canadians to hitch invading troops. “The Reason behind America, and of Liberty, is the Trigger of each virtuous American Citizen,” he wrote. “Come then, ye beneficiant Residents, vary yourselves below the Normal of normal Liberty.”
However at house, Colonists have been removed from united of their rebel. Historians estimate that round 20% of the white Colonial population, greater than 500,000 folks, remained loyal to Britain, and a good bigger quantity hoped to stay impartial.
The tough realities of conquest additionally turned many troopers in opposition to the invasion of Canada. In late October 1775, almost 1 / 4 of the underfed and overworked troops below the command of soon-to-be turncoat Benedict Arnold deserted their arduous journey via inside Maine towards Canada. The soldiers who carried on prayed these deserters “would possibly die by the way in which, or meet with some catastrophe, Equal to the Cowardly dastardly and unfriendly Spirit they uncover’d in returning Again with out orders.”
The extra resilient troops who reached Quebec have been emphatically defeated by British forces in December, making Washington skeptical of any future efforts to attack Canada.
Charles William Jefferys, cover art for ‘The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton,’ Volume 12 by William Wood, 1916
Nineteenth-century divisions
Following American independence, tens of thousands of loyal Colonists sailed north to Canada, decided to construct British colonies that might grow to be what one in every of these refugees known as “the envy of the American States.” Their presence on the contested northern border was an unsettling reminder to the brand new American nation concerning the energy Britain nonetheless exerted on the continent.
Battle with Britain over land and commerce within the early 1800s reopened outdated divisions amongst People. Virginia Congressman John Randolph expressed his frustrations with renewed requires a northern invasion. “We have now however one phrase, just like the whip-poor-will, however one everlasting monstrous tone,” an exasperated Randolph famous, “Canada! Canada! Canada!”
The controversy over Canada was one of many points dividing the nation, and as President James Madison would later explain, he hoped that warfare would assist unify a polarized nation. His gamble paid off, however solely after opponents from New England flirted with the idea of secession to barter their very own finish to battle.
When the popular editor and columnist John O’Sullivan known as for the annexation of Texas and war with Mexico in 1845, he additionally recommended the annexation of Canada would naturally comply with. The anti-expansionist response united pacifists, abolitionists and quite a lot of non secular and literary figures, serving to deepen the divides that might result in the Civil Conflict.
Annexation discuss within the twentieth century
Trump’s posturing has served to unite Canadians and revive Canadian nationalism. Within the U.S., most individuals appear to understand the practical hurdles of including a brand new state or dismiss the idea altogether.
Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
One instance of annexation discuss from the twentieth century, nonetheless, would possibly function a warning to Trump, displaying how aggressive rhetoric towards Canada has led to political defeat. In 1911, a bill creating free trade with Canada handed Congress with the support of President William Taft, regardless of objections from protectionists in each events.
In an try and have the settlement defeated within the Canadian Parliament, U.S. opponents from either side of the aisle tried to stir widespread sentiment in opposition to the U.S. in Canada. Champ Clark, the Democratic speaker of the Home and a front-runner for the presidential nomination in 1912, seized on the second.
“I hope to see the day when the American flag will float over each sq. foot of the British North American possessions, clear to the North Pole,” Champ proclaimed on the House floor. William Stiles Bennet, a Republican, proposed a decision that might authorize the president to begin negotiations for annexation.
Their strategy to defeating the commerce settlement labored, at the very least in Canada. Within the normal election of September 1911, anxious Canadian voters ousted the Liberal Party, which had supported free commerce, and the new Conservative majority rejected the agreement.
Again house, nonetheless, the plan backfired. Woodrow Wilson, not Clark, secured the Democratic nomination in 1912 and would go on to defeat each the incumbent Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt. The bluster led to not success and victory, however loss and defeat.
