AHC: Southern secession from the USA, without the Mexican war/Mexican cession as a catalyzing issue?

[raharris1973]

The alternate history challenge this time is to have North - South sectional tensions, likely over slavery, or issues related to and inseperable from slavery, get so bad that southern states secede from the USA [sound like OTL so far], but with the following proviso: In this timeline, there is no US-Mexican war, no resulting US annexation of Mexico's northern provinces/territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico from between the Rio Grande and the Pacific Ocean, and thus no debate between Slave states and Free states in the east on whether slavery should be legal in those lands.

The debate over legality or lack of legality of slavery in lands acquired in the Mexican war was not the first thing to make slavery a sectionally divisive issue, but it catalyzed debate over slavery and defensiveness and paranoia over protection of slaveholder property rights in a way that had been put on ice since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, reopening and restoring an issue to national political salience that the Whig-Democrat divide was almost designed to ignore. The debate over slavery extension, starting over California and New Mexico (then Utah) territory, spurred the limitationist Wilmot Proviso, the forerunner of the 'Free Soil' movement, which turned out to be a far broader and more influential political argument and coalition for antislavery and abolitionist folk to align themselves with than the pure abolitionism the Liberty Party represented. The Wilmot Proviso spurred southern reaction to keep open first, Mexican Cession territories open to slavery via the mechanism of Popular Sovereignty (Compromise of 1850), and later the Great Plains by the same means (1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act), and then all territories by judicial fiat (Dred Scott).

I am not saying you cannot have a southern secession in the 1860s or later) without the annexation of the American southwest from Mexico, but you would have to construct an alternate path to substitute for some key catalysts and milestones at a minimum. So you "win" the challenge if you can make a southern secession happen by no later than 1880. And you double win it if you can have the southern secession rebellion get crushed by the north and result in the forceful abolition of slavery, but within all the parameters outlined above.

[Max Sinister]

No expansion into the Caribbean either?

Let's see. Until 1858, the slave states weren't outnumbered in the senate. IOTL, thanks to gaining Texas, they were even one state ahead for short time. But when Wisconsin got in, the free states got even. Without Texas, they'd be ahead even. Earlier Secession/ACW?

[raharris1973]

Jun 24, 2023 12:05:59 GMT Max Sinister said:

No expansion into the Caribbean either?

Let's see. Until 1858, the slave states weren't outnumbered in the senate. IOTL, thanks to gaining Texas, they were even one state ahead for short time. But when Wisconsin got in, the free states got even. Without Texas, they'd be ahead even. Earlier Secession/ACW?

Without an American California, I wonder if settlement and development, and statehood, of Oregon (statehood 1858), and especially Washington (statehood only 1889!) would have been more rapid since those areas, agriculturally rich and with a wealth of marine and forestry resources, would have been the full extent of the US Pacific coast? On the other hand, they lacked one element that accelerated the rush to settle/develop California, gold!

[stevep]

   There is another possible basis for secession which doesn't actually involve slavery and hence could actually have had broader support.  That is the opposition in much of the south and west - which initially meant basically along the Mississippi valley - against the very high tariffs applied on imported goods to support the early industrial interest in the NE states.  That was the basis for the initial clash between S Carolina and President Jackson in the Tariff of Abominations clash.  A lot of other states had opposed the high tariffs and if something had been different you might have had a secession, still largely based in the south in this period.  This would be before Texas became independent, let alone the war against Mexico that added the current US SW to the country so that wouldn't be an issue and depending on events such a conflict may not have occurred.

[raharris1973]

Jun 25, 2023 9:59:35 GMT stevep said:

   There is another possible basis for secession which doesn't actually involve slavery and hence could actually have had broader support.  That is the opposition in much of the south and west - which initially meant basically along the Mississippi valley - against the very high tariffs applied on imported goods to support the early industrial interest in the NE states.  That was the basis for the initial clash between S Carolina and President Jackson in the Tariff of Abominations clash.  A lot of other states had opposed the high tariffs and if something had been different you might have had a secession, still largely based in the south in this period.  This would be before Texas became independent, let alone the war against Mexico that added the current US SW to the country so that wouldn't be an issue and depending on events such a conflict may not have occurred.

A tricky thing about a tariff based civil war, at least one provoked by the tariff of abominations at the time of the Jackson Administration, is that South Carolina was pretty isolated in its extreme talk of championing its anti-tariff preferences by extreme measures such as nullification or secession, and even it had some internal divisions.  

Jackson was personally popular in so many of the western and southern states where tariffs were less popular.  There were exceptions/defections from a southern anti-tariff front. Louisiana, with its internationally uncompetitive sugar sector, favored the tariff. Western states in general, while less fond of the tariff did appreciate the need for raising federal revenue, and certainly for expending it on internal improvements like canals and turnpikes.

I don't know, maybe if one gets the same northeastern based Congressional majority in favor of the tariff, but in a situation where a contested election has put a non military, northeastern man in the White House, you could end up with a secession around this time over the tariff, and possibly Indian Removal Act as well?

[stevep]

Jun 25, 2023 22:03:25 GMT raharris1973 said:

Jun 25, 2023 9:59:35 GMT stevep said:

   There is another possible basis for secession which doesn't actually involve slavery and hence could actually have had broader support.  That is the opposition in much of the south and west - which initially meant basically along the Mississippi valley - against the very high tariffs applied on imported goods to support the early industrial interest in the NE states.  That was the basis for the initial clash between S Carolina and President Jackson in the Tariff of Abominations clash.  A lot of other states had opposed the high tariffs and if something had been different you might have had a secession, still largely based in the south in this period.  This would be before Texas became independent, let alone the war against Mexico that added the current US SW to the country so that wouldn't be an issue and depending on events such a conflict may not have occurred.

A tricky thing about a tariff based civil war, at least one provoked by the tariff of abominations at the time of the Jackson Administration, is that South Carolina was pretty isolated in its extreme talk of championing its anti-tariff preferences by extreme measures such as nullification or secession, and even it had some internal divisions.  

Jackson was personally popular in so many of the western and southern states where tariffs were less popular.  There were exceptions/defections from a southern anti-tariff front. Louisiana, with its internationally uncompetitive sugar sector, favored the tariff. Western states in general, while less fond of the tariff did appreciate the need for raising federal revenue, and certainly for expending it on internal improvements like canals and turnpikes.

I don't know, maybe if one gets the same northeastern based Congressional majority in favor of the tariff, but in a situation where a contested election has put a non military, northeastern man in the White House, you could end up with a secession around this time over the tariff, and possibly Indian Removal Act as well?

  I think it would need someone other than Jackson who was known for his hard line on disputes and also as you say popular across much of the south and west.  Possibly also less of a firebrand in S Carolina who instead seeks to gain alliances with other states unhappy with the tariff.  - Ironically reading the link I posted I hadn't realized that some southern politicians actually supported the tariff and deliberately made it as extreme as it was in the expectation that it would be so unpleasant to such a large proportion of the population that it would be totally rejected.  As a result they basically shot themselves in the foot when it was still passed.

  Didn't know about Louisiana being less productive in sugar production and hence supporting the tariff.  From what I've read most of the opposition was against tariffs on manufactured goods because European products, especially but not solely from Britain were so much cheaper at this point.  Know the US has a long history of protectionism on both manufacturing and primary products however.

[raharris1973]

Jun 24, 2023 12:05:59 GMT Max Sinister said:

No expansion into the Caribbean either?

Let's see. Until 1858, the slave states weren't outnumbered in the senate. IOTL, thanks to gaining Texas, they were even one state ahead for short time. But when Wisconsin got in, the free states got even. Without Texas, they'd be ahead even. Earlier Secession/ACW

Going by what you say, I will roll forward and assume there is a mid-nineteenth century southern secession and Civil War, even in the alternate timeline where William Henry Harrison lived through his Presidential term and consecutive Whig presidencies in the 1840s opposed to Texas annexation prevented annexation long enough for Texas to lose interest in being annexed, thus negating the Mexican-American war.

Let's imagine that southern paranoia about imbalance in the Senate by the late 1850s forces through something like the Kansas-Nebraska Act and 'Popular Sovereignty' and 'Bleeding Kansas' proxy warfare, and Taney Court overreach provoking the emergence of 'Republican' Free Soil politics in the north. The Republic of Texas cites the emergence of Free Soil and abolition politics as one reason for its loss of interest in being annexed into the USA by the 1850s [the key factor enabling this stance is simply the growth of its agricultural export profits, above all cotton, but also cattle products, providing sufficient revenue to make republic financially solvent]. If not in 1856, by 1860 at the latest we have the no slavery expansion, 'Republican' candidate win the Presidency and their party get the House majority.

This causes secession and Civil War.

Under these circumstances, I would ask:

Could the existence of an independent Republic of Texas as a pro-CSA tilting neutral, not supporting the US blockade, significantly increase the CSA's chances for survival?

Presuming not, and the Union still prevails in about four years or less, would a lot of slaveholders have transferred or sold their human property or purchased lands in Texas, with a rush of Confederate supporters fleeing the falling Confederacy for asylum in Texas at the end of war? Could the availability of the 'outlet' of Texas, still under old familiar southern laws on slavery, tariffs, and other questions, weaken the Ku Kluxers and redeemers in the south and the overall resistance to reconstruction? What timescale would Texas be on for its own emancipation?

[miletus12]

Jun 26, 2023 1:25:57 GMT raharris1973 said:

Could the existence of an independent Republic of Texas as a pro-CSA tilting neutral, not supporting the US blockade, significantly increase the CSA's chances for survival?

Three-cornered war with a larger chance of Franco-British intervention. And that could metastasize. This could spiral out of control with the European idiots in power at the time into a world war. Russia and Britain were still sore at each other, over the Crimean War. The French in Mexico would obviously put Texas between two fires and an angered Union might feel encircled.

It would be "ugly".

[stevep]

Jun 26, 2023 14:37:38 GMT miletus12 said:

Jun 26, 2023 1:25:57 GMT raharris1973 said:

Could the existence of an independent Republic of Texas as a pro-CSA tilting neutral, not supporting the US blockade, significantly increase the CSA's chances for survival?

Three-cornered war with a larger chance of Franco-British intervention. And that could metastasize. This could spiral out of control with the European idiots in power at the time into a world war. Russia and Britain were still sore at each other, over the Crimean War. The French in Mexico would obviously put Texas between two fires and an angered Union might feel encircled.

It would be "ugly".

  Russia wouldn't get involved in such a conflict as its leadership realised it was still too weak.  It might seek to use distraction of Britain and/or France to make a move somewhere else, although it would be difficult to tell where.  Possibly in the Far East with an earlier move toward the Amur border while Britain is distracted?

  Its possible that such a three sided war could pull in either Britain or France or possibly both.  Either because here Lincoln/his equivalent doesn't have the sense to back down if something like the Trent incident happens or possibly because Texas is an internationally recognised state [other than by Mexico] if the union was to take some act of war against it and that causes a wider conflict.  The other issue, assuming butterflies doesn't prevent Napoleon III's intervention in Mexico and interactions between the pro-French conservatives in Mexico and Texas is drastically different, which might mean close relations between the two prompts Paris to aid the latter if its attacked.

[miletus12]

Jun 26, 2023 15:21:32 GMT stevep said:

  Russia wouldn't get involved in such a conflict as its leadership realised it was still too weak.  It might seek to use distraction of Britain and/or France to make a move somewhere else, although it would be difficult to tell where.  Possibly in the Far East with an earlier move toward the Amur border while Britain is distracted?

A bit of history.

KnowledgeNuts > Blog > Misconceptions > How The Russian Navy Saved The Union In The Civil War
Misconceptions

How The Russian Navy Saved The Union In The Civil War

In A Nutshell

A little-known alliance between the US and Tsarist Russia led to the Russian fleet showing up in force in New York and San Francisco. It arrived at a crucial time in 1863 when Britain and France were on the verge of intervening in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. An actual world war was on the horizon that would “wrap the world in flames” as Secretary of State William Seward put it. The mighty Russian presence deterred the Anglo-French from invading, and the Union was saved.

The Whole Bushel

In the summer of 1863, the year of the battles at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, came the latest crisis to plague the relationship between the US and Britain during the American Civil War. Two powerful ironclads called the Laird rams, intended for the Confederacy and capable of breaking the Union blockade of the Southern ports, were under construction in Britain. US ambassador Charles Francis Adams warned British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell that if the warships were ever delivered to the rebels, “It would be superfluous of me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.”

The tangled diplomacy between the US and Britain had one major war scare before. In late 1861–62, two Confederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, were taken off the British ship Trent by the US Navy as they were on their way to London and Paris to seek European intervention. War hysteria gripped Britain, and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston ordered troop deployment to Canada in anticipation of conflict. In any case, the British strategy hinged on their overwhelming naval force. Provoking the secession of Maine was also discussed, as well as plans to bombard and burn Boston and New York. The latter was considered by the Admiralty “the true heart of US commerce . . . To strike her would be to paralyze all the limbs.” Tensions were eased, but not eliminated, when Mason and Slidell were released.

The private secretary to Ambassador Adams, his son Henry, had the impression that Lord Russell was determined to break up the Union. The British ruling class actually sympathized with the North’s intention of freeing the slaves. But President Abraham Lincoln initially shelved that idea to keep the border states in the Union. He thus lost the support of the aristocracy. All the while, Britain felt that a divided US was in the British interest, making her North American possessions more secure. She was officially neutral, but it was a neutrality that masked an unmistakable hostility.

In October 1862, an ultimatum was issued to North and South to end the war or face “more resolute action” from the British. Whether that meant military action is unclear, but the implication was the ultimate survival of the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. France, meanwhile, was mirroring Britain’s hostile neutrality. Napoleon III had designs on Mexico, and a weak US would give her a free hand in America.

Union morale was therefore at its lowest ebb in 1863, despite the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. In the midst of the Laird rams crisis, rescue came from an unlikely source—Tsarist Russia.

At this time, Russia was also facing its own insurrection from her subject Poles, who were supported by Britain and France. Facing the same hostile coalition brought the governments of Lincoln and Tsar Alexander II together. Alexander had also freed the Russian serfs and thus sympathized with the Union cause. On September 1863, the Russian Baltic Fleet arrived in New York and the Far East Fleet in San Francisco.

The real reason Russia sent her fleet to the US might be self-serving: She didn’t want it bottled up in case the threatened war with Britain over Poland erupted. But its presence was nonetheless salvation for the Union in its hour of desperation. “God bless the Russians!” exulted Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. After the war, Oliver Wendell Holmes hailed Alexander “who was our friend when the world was our foe.” The Russians showed themselves willing to fight for the US. When the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah prepared to attack San Francisco, the Russian admiral gave orders to defend the city in the absence of Union warships.

The British realized that with Russia on the US side, the cost of military intervention would be too high. Besides, the Union victories of 1863 signaled that the Confederacy was a losing cause. Had the British attacked, it might have meant a world war in which the US and Russia, allied perhaps with Prussia and Italy, would face Britain and France supported by Spain or Austria. The First World War exploding in the 1860s was a distinct possibility.

Fortunately, Britain and France backed down before the Russian presence. The Laird rams never made it into Confederate hands, and the Union was saved.

Show Me The Proof
Featured image credit: Punch, 1863
“U.S. Civil War: The US-Russian Alliance that Saved the Union,” by Webster G. Tarpley
“The Bilateral Effect of the Visit of the Russian Fleet in 1863,” by Tom Delahaye
“The US/Russian Alliance during the Civil War,” by Craig L. Barry
The History Buff’s Guide to the Civil War, by Thomas R. Flagel

Every little bit helped Mister Lincoln.

In those days, God looked out for fools, drunks and the British Empire.

[miletus12]

A pig almost caused the US and UK to go to war

The author of a new book tells us that story and 4 other strange tales of the US-Canadian border.

By Emily St. James@emilyvdw Updated Apr 20, 2016, 12:55pm EDT A pig almost caused the US and UK to go to war

Emily St. James was a senior correspondent for Vox, covering American identities. Before she joined Vox in 2014, she was the first TV editor of the A.V. Club.
The United States and Canada have longstanding plans to invade one another.

Now, whether those plans would actually work is another matter. And it's clear that both nations drew them up mostly as theoretical exercises rather than serious military strategy.

But they exist nonetheless — and have for decades. They're the centerpiece of Kevin Lippert's terrifically fun new book about the history of border tensions between the two nations, War Plan Red, available from Princeton Press. We might think of the US and Canada as having the longest peaceful border in the world, a fact that's been true for decades, but for many, many years, the two countries were constantly either thinking about or actually moving forward with plans to attack.

I spoke with Lippert about the long history behind his book, and we discussed five fascinating facts about the strange story of US-Canadian border squabbles.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

1) The US strongly considered annexing Canada after the Civil War

After purchasing Alaska, Secretary of State William Seward got it in his head that Canada might be his next big buy.

Kevin Lippert
In the late 19th century, after the Civil War, the US had a large army at its disposal, 500,000 battle-proven men, against a proto–Royal Canadian Mounted Police of about 300 men and 100 livestock. This was amid increasing tensions, particularly between the two great transcontinental railroads, the Canadian Pacific and the Northern Pacific.

Secretary of State [William] Seward had just purchased Alaska and hoped to write out a check for Canada, too. A group of Irish Americans mounted a series of small border raids to try to capture Canada to trade with Britain for Ireland's independence, and early conspiracy theorists suggested that a group of Québecois were involved in Lincoln's assassination.

All this led to a bill introduced in Congress in 1866 to annex Canada. The bill was never voted on, dying a quiet death in committee — plus ça change. Though there were several prior almost-shots-fired skirmishes between the countries, from the Lumberjack War to the Trent Affair, these larger forces of commerce, American Manifest Destiny, and mutual mistrust brought us as close to annexing Canada as we ever were in the second half of the 19th century.

On the other side, in spite of some chest thumping on the part of Canadian nationalists calling themselves "Canada Firsters" — some of whom hoped for a "rattling good war with the United States" to prove their macho credentials — and the massing of troops along the border during the Trent Affair, Canada never mounted a credible threat to annex or invade the United States.

2) The US and the British almost went to war over a pig

I was most amazed that one near-miss involved a British military official's pig. Seriously?

Kevin Lippert
Called in one book "the Most Perfect War in History," this is a crazy story of overreaction.

In 1859, Americans and British were both effectively squatting on San Juan Island, off the coast of Washington State, one of many areas with a poorly defined boundary. One day, an American farmer saw a pig rooting around his potato patch, so he naturally shot it dead with his rifle.

"THE PIG WAR WAS CONCLUDED WITH ONLY ONE SHOT FIRED AND ONE CASUALTY, THE HUNGRY BRITISH PIG"
Quickly, there ensued an argument about liability and compensation, which turned into a military standoff: The British sent five warships and 2,000 men, while the Americans (led by George Pickett — later of the ill-fated Pickett's Charge in the Civil War), rushed in one warship and 500 men, an early version of the Falklands escalation in the 1980s.

With the clear military advantage, British Rear Admiral [Robert L.] Baynes was given the order to engage the Americans, but he refused, saying that "to engage two great nations in a squabble about a pig" was foolish. His calm head presumably averted a rout of the American forces, which likely would have led to a larger conflict. In the end, though, the Pig War was concluded with only one shot fired and one casualty, the hungry British pig.

3) The US thought it was "owed" Canada after the Revolutionary War and took years to get over that idea
Saskatchewan Roughriders v Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The US spent many years coveting Canada, but that was long before our neighbor to the north was its own nation. Photo by Dave Sandford/Getty Images
Todd VanDerWerff
Why were Americans so sure they could simply waltz into Canada and take it over? There are many times in your book where you talk about an American plan that fell to ruin because of hubris.

Kevin Lippert
This was a combination of several factors. More than one American commander believed he and his troops would be welcomed as liberators by grateful Canadians also hoping to throw off British rule, a mistaken idea on several different occasions (for different reasons).

"THE WAR OF 1812 IS ONE SORRY KEYSTONE COPS EPISODE AFTER ANOTHER"
Also, Canada was largely an abjectly poor and agricultural country without a standing army (until 1899), so we thought it would be an easy fight (or march) against a bunch of backwoodsmen (many of whom liked their whiskey). Turns out, we didn't underestimate Canadian (and British) fighting mettle as much as we underestimated our own incompetence. The War of 1812 is one sorry Keystone Cops episode after another.

From almost day one, many Americans believed Canada was somehow "owed" us, that it had slipped between our fingers in the Paris Peace Treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, and that we had only to take what was somehow rightfully ours. It was, as you say, an incredible sense of hubris.

4) Canada wanted to provoke a war the US feared, and the two nations still have (minor) border squabbles from time to time

At first glance, the two nations' invasion plans seem very similar. How did they differ?

Kevin Lippert
The main difference was in intention. The Canadians imagined a series of lightning raids followed by a rapid retreat, blowing up roads and bridges behind them — to sting like a bee and run away like a butterfly — in the hope of buying enough time for Britain to sail to its rescue.

The Americans, on the other hand, saw a long war of attrition in which Britain could quickly mass more than 2 million men, noted for their "ability to fight to a finish." Canada's plan looked to provoke the war that American planners feared: a massive buildup of men to our north and ships off our shores.

Todd VanDerWerff
After something like a century of possible military buildup, though, Canada and the US eventually lapsed into peace. How did that happen?

"[WAR BETWEEN THE US AND CANADA] WOULD BE THE POLITICAL EQUIVALENT OF SETTING A FIRE IN YOUR OWN LIVING ROOM TO GET RID OF THE MICE"
Kevin Lippert
I think we slipped quietly into peace while nobody was paying attention: Our common interests were too closely aligned — especially after World War II, when we became more or less equal partners in NORAD and sat together worrying about a Soviet nuclear attack.

Also, our economies became so intertwined and our border so porous that the idea of conflict between us became self-defeating. It would be the political equivalent of setting a fire in your own living room to get rid of the mice. It's worth noting, too, that all tensions between us are not gone. There are still several areas of border under dispute, including Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine and, most touchily, the Northwest Passage.

5) One Canadian thought invading forces would be greeted in the US as, at the least, bartenders
Border Patrol Works Along Vermont - Canada Border
After decades of peaceful relations, the US-Canadian border is largely a bare line amid a bunch of trees, though it's still patrolled for signs of illegal entry. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Todd VanDerWerff
What were you most surprised to find in your research for this book?

Kevin Lippert
First, that these plans even existed. From our modern perspective, the very idea seems laughable, but it was all quite serious at the time.

The part I liked the most were the field notes of Lt. James Sutherland "Buster" Brown, author of the Canadian invasion scheme, from his visit to Vermont. [Brown's complete notes are reprinted in Lippert's book.] He found Vermonters affable but fat and lazy, and no impediment to a Canadian invasion.

My favorite line is his quip about Camel's Hump, the mountain in Vermont, to which he said to a local, "You people here are like the camel; you can go seven days without a drink," an allusion to Prohibition: Brown thought invading Canadians might be welcomed as bartenders, if not exactly liberators.

Todd VanDerWerff
So when it all goes down and Canada invades the US, what's your survival strategy?

Kevin Lippert
Shit, where would we go? Canada is most Americans' safety net — if Bush/Obama/Trump/whoever is elected, I'm moving to Canada! — and without it, where to run and hide? France and Italy are already overrun, I think, and not without their own problems. Iceland?

"WOULDN'T [CANADA INVADING THE US] BE LIKE INVITING YOUR WEALTHY, BUT HIGHLY NEEDY AND SCREWED-UP UNCLE TO COME AND LIVE WITH YOU IN THE HOPE YOU MIGHT SOMEDAY INHERIT HIS MONEY?"
And who would welcome American refugees fleeing a war with its neighbor in this day and age, after we're closing the door on others looking for exactly the same? I joke in the book that a war with Canada would likely be a passive-aggressive economic or cyber one: the shutting down of cellphone networks, internet service, and ATMs. I think most of us, if deprived of wireless access and our ATM machines, would quickly surrender. I suspect I would.

And being part of Canada would have its own benefits: They are a happier and healthier country than ours, with a more functional health care system, a less dysfunctional government, and fewer nut-job politicians. And the world's second-largest supply of oil, and 20 percent of the world's fresh water.

What I don't understand is why Canada would even consider invading the United States: Wouldn't it be like inviting your wealthy, but highly needy and screwed-up uncle to come and live with you in the hope you might someday inherit his money? I suspect a few months in, you'd give [him anything] to have him leave. Maybe the best strategy for assuring our long-term independence from Canada is to shack up with them for a bit. They might even give us the Northwest Passage and Machias Seal Island to go away.

War Plan Red is on sale wherever books are sold.

I must point out to miodern people that the British government and ruling class was actually America's ENEMY in those days.  Adams had to work British working class public opinion to keep the misruling meddling British upper class in check and out of American affairs. 

[raharris1973]

Jun 26, 2023 15:21:32 GMT stevep said:

  The other issue, assuming butterflies doesn't prevent Napoleon III's intervention in Mexico and interactions between the pro-French conservatives in Mexico and Texas is drastically different,

This is a big assumption.

Remove Mexico's defeat at America's hands from the historical equation, and French military intervention in Mexico becomes far from a certain thing at all.

[stevep]

Jun 26, 2023 15:41:28 GMT miletus12 said:

Jun 26, 2023 15:21:32 GMT stevep said:

  Russia wouldn't get involved in such a conflict as its leadership realised it was still too weak.  It might seek to use distraction of Britain and/or France to make a move somewhere else, although it would be difficult to tell where.  Possibly in the Far East with an earlier move toward the Amur border while Britain is distracted?

A bit of history.

KnowledgeNuts > Blog > Misconceptions > How The Russian Navy Saved The Union In The Civil War
Misconceptions

How The Russian Navy Saved The Union In The Civil War

In A Nutshell

A little-known alliance between the US and Tsarist Russia led to the Russian fleet showing up in force in New York and San Francisco. It arrived at a crucial time in 1863 when Britain and France were on the verge of intervening in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. An actual world war was on the horizon that would “wrap the world in flames” as Secretary of State William Seward put it. The mighty Russian presence deterred the Anglo-French from invading, and the Union was saved.

The Whole Bushel

In the summer of 1863, the year of the battles at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, came the latest crisis to plague the relationship between the US and Britain during the American Civil War. Two powerful ironclads called the Laird rams, intended for the Confederacy and capable of breaking the Union blockade of the Southern ports, were under construction in Britain. US ambassador Charles Francis Adams warned British Foreign Secretary Lord Russell that if the warships were ever delivered to the rebels, “It would be superfluous of me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.”

The tangled diplomacy between the US and Britain had one major war scare before. In late 1861–62, two Confederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, were taken off the British ship Trent by the US Navy as they were on their way to London and Paris to seek European intervention. War hysteria gripped Britain, and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston ordered troop deployment to Canada in anticipation of conflict. In any case, the British strategy hinged on their overwhelming naval force. Provoking the secession of Maine was also discussed, as well as plans to bombard and burn Boston and New York. The latter was considered by the Admiralty “the true heart of US commerce . . . To strike her would be to paralyze all the limbs.” Tensions were eased, but not eliminated, when Mason and Slidell were released.

The private secretary to Ambassador Adams, his son Henry, had the impression that Lord Russell was determined to break up the Union. The British ruling class actually sympathized with the North’s intention of freeing the slaves. But President Abraham Lincoln initially shelved that idea to keep the border states in the Union. He thus lost the support of the aristocracy. All the while, Britain felt that a divided US was in the British interest, making her North American possessions more secure. She was officially neutral, but it was a neutrality that masked an unmistakable hostility.

In October 1862, an ultimatum was issued to North and South to end the war or face “more resolute action” from the British. Whether that meant military action is unclear, but the implication was the ultimate survival of the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. France, meanwhile, was mirroring Britain’s hostile neutrality. Napoleon III had designs on Mexico, and a weak US would give her a free hand in America.

Union morale was therefore at its lowest ebb in 1863, despite the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. In the midst of the Laird rams crisis, rescue came from an unlikely source—Tsarist Russia.

At this time, Russia was also facing its own insurrection from her subject Poles, who were supported by Britain and France. Facing the same hostile coalition brought the governments of Lincoln and Tsar Alexander II together. Alexander had also freed the Russian serfs and thus sympathized with the Union cause. On September 1863, the Russian Baltic Fleet arrived in New York and the Far East Fleet in San Francisco.

The real reason Russia sent her fleet to the US might be self-serving: She didn’t want it bottled up in case the threatened war with Britain over Poland erupted. But its presence was nonetheless salvation for the Union in its hour of desperation. “God bless the Russians!” exulted Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. After the war, Oliver Wendell Holmes hailed Alexander “who was our friend when the world was our foe.” The Russians showed themselves willing to fight for the US. When the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah prepared to attack San Francisco, the Russian admiral gave orders to defend the city in the absence of Union warships.

The British realized that with Russia on the US side, the cost of military intervention would be too high. Besides, the Union victories of 1863 signaled that the Confederacy was a losing cause. Had the British attacked, it might have meant a world war in which the US and Russia, allied perhaps with Prussia and Italy, would face Britain and France supported by Spain or Austria. The First World War exploding in the 1860s was a distinct possibility.

Fortunately, Britain and France backed down before the Russian presence. The Laird rams never made it into Confederate hands, and the Union was saved.

Show Me The Proof
Featured image credit: Punch, 1863
“U.S. Civil War: The US-Russian Alliance that Saved the Union,” by Webster G. Tarpley
“The Bilateral Effect of the Visit of the Russian Fleet in 1863,” by Tom Delahaye
“The US/Russian Alliance during the Civil War,” by Craig L. Barry
The History Buff’s Guide to the Civil War, by Thomas R. Flagel

Every little bit helped Mister Lincoln.

In those days, God looked out for fools, drunks and the British Empire.

  As your own source says

The real reason Russia sent her fleet to the US might be self-serving: She didn’t want it bottled up in case the threatened war with Britain over Poland erupted

  Note that in such a case, if war breaks out the Russian fleet is still bottled up effectively because if it takes hostile action against Anglo-French forces supporting the Polish rebellion, if such a war came about, that could well mean war with the union as its operating from their bases.  Probably Lincoln would be forced to disarm the ships

  Britain didn't issue an ultimatum to the US at this period and a lot of the rest of that reference is the sort of BS that American exceptists often spout without actual facts supporting it.  About the only thing it does get kind of right was the widespread anger in Britain when the USN stopped a RN mail steamer to seize 4 passengers.  It does fail to mention that this act prompts complaints about the US actions from just about every other major power, including Russia.  This crisis was only ended when Lincoln saw sense and despite popular support for Wilkes's piracy backed down and released the hostages.

  Given that Russia had 'freed' its serfs, albeit with some limitation while Lincoln was still in the early years of the war committing himself to maintaining slavery, as your source also mentions that doesn't suggest a basis for a liberal alliance.

  It could be said Britain did make a major error in terms of not finding a basis for war with the north and seriously crippling a state that had a long history of open hostility to the UK.  At this period god did seem to look out for the American empire.

[stevep]

Jun 26, 2023 15:41:41 GMT miletus12 said:

A pig almost caused the US and UK to go to war

The author of a new book tells us that story and 4 other strange tales of the US-Canadian border.

By Emily St. James@emilyvdw Updated Apr 20, 2016, 12:55pm EDT A pig almost caused the US and UK to go to war

Emily St. James was a senior correspondent for Vox, covering American identities. Before she joined Vox in 2014, she was the first TV editor of the A.V. Club.
The United States and Canada have longstanding plans to invade one another.

Now, whether those plans would actually work is another matter. And it's clear that both nations drew them up mostly as theoretical exercises rather than serious military strategy.

But they exist nonetheless — and have for decades. They're the centerpiece of Kevin Lippert's terrifically fun new book about the history of border tensions between the two nations, War Plan Red, available from Princeton Press. We might think of the US and Canada as having the longest peaceful border in the world, a fact that's been true for decades, but for many, many years, the two countries were constantly either thinking about or actually moving forward with plans to attack.

I spoke with Lippert about the long history behind his book, and we discussed five fascinating facts about the strange story of US-Canadian border squabbles.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

1) The US strongly considered annexing Canada after the Civil War

After purchasing Alaska, Secretary of State William Seward got it in his head that Canada might be his next big buy.

Kevin Lippert
In the late 19th century, after the Civil War, the US had a large army at its disposal, 500,000 battle-proven men, against a proto–Royal Canadian Mounted Police of about 300 men and 100 livestock. This was amid increasing tensions, particularly between the two great transcontinental railroads, the Canadian Pacific and the Northern Pacific.

Secretary of State [William] Seward had just purchased Alaska and hoped to write out a check for Canada, too. A group of Irish Americans mounted a series of small border raids to try to capture Canada to trade with Britain for Ireland's independence, and early conspiracy theorists suggested that a group of Québecois were involved in Lincoln's assassination.

All this led to a bill introduced in Congress in 1866 to annex Canada. The bill was never voted on, dying a quiet death in committee — plus ça change. Though there were several prior almost-shots-fired skirmishes between the countries, from the Lumberjack War to the Trent Affair, these larger forces of commerce, American Manifest Destiny, and mutual mistrust brought us as close to annexing Canada as we ever were in the second half of the 19th century.

On the other side, in spite of some chest thumping on the part of Canadian nationalists calling themselves "Canada Firsters" — some of whom hoped for a "rattling good war with the United States" to prove their macho credentials — and the massing of troops along the border during the Trent Affair, Canada never mounted a credible threat to annex or invade the United States.

2) The US and the British almost went to war over a pig

I was most amazed that one near-miss involved a British military official's pig. Seriously?

Kevin Lippert
Called in one book "the Most Perfect War in History," this is a crazy story of overreaction.

In 1859, Americans and British were both effectively squatting on San Juan Island, off the coast of Washington State, one of many areas with a poorly defined boundary. One day, an American farmer saw a pig rooting around his potato patch, so he naturally shot it dead with his rifle.

"THE PIG WAR WAS CONCLUDED WITH ONLY ONE SHOT FIRED AND ONE CASUALTY, THE HUNGRY BRITISH PIG"
Quickly, there ensued an argument about liability and compensation, which turned into a military standoff: The British sent five warships and 2,000 men, while the Americans (led by George Pickett — later of the ill-fated Pickett's Charge in the Civil War), rushed in one warship and 500 men, an early version of the Falklands escalation in the 1980s.

With the clear military advantage, British Rear Admiral [Robert L.] Baynes was given the order to engage the Americans, but he refused, saying that "to engage two great nations in a squabble about a pig" was foolish. His calm head presumably averted a rout of the American forces, which likely would have led to a larger conflict. In the end, though, the Pig War was concluded with only one shot fired and one casualty, the hungry British pig.

3) The US thought it was "owed" Canada after the Revolutionary War and took years to get over that idea
Saskatchewan Roughriders v Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The US spent many years coveting Canada, but that was long before our neighbor to the north was its own nation. Photo by Dave Sandford/Getty Images
Todd VanDerWerff
Why were Americans so sure they could simply waltz into Canada and take it over? There are many times in your book where you talk about an American plan that fell to ruin because of hubris.

Kevin Lippert
This was a combination of several factors. More than one American commander believed he and his troops would be welcomed as liberators by grateful Canadians also hoping to throw off British rule, a mistaken idea on several different occasions (for different reasons).

"THE WAR OF 1812 IS ONE SORRY KEYSTONE COPS EPISODE AFTER ANOTHER"
Also, Canada was largely an abjectly poor and agricultural country without a standing army (until 1899), so we thought it would be an easy fight (or march) against a bunch of backwoodsmen (many of whom liked their whiskey). Turns out, we didn't underestimate Canadian (and British) fighting mettle as much as we underestimated our own incompetence. The War of 1812 is one sorry Keystone Cops episode after another.

From almost day one, many Americans believed Canada was somehow "owed" us, that it had slipped between our fingers in the Paris Peace Treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, and that we had only to take what was somehow rightfully ours. It was, as you say, an incredible sense of hubris.

4) Canada wanted to provoke a war the US feared, and the two nations still have (minor) border squabbles from time to time

At first glance, the two nations' invasion plans seem very similar. How did they differ?

Kevin Lippert
The main difference was in intention. The Canadians imagined a series of lightning raids followed by a rapid retreat, blowing up roads and bridges behind them — to sting like a bee and run away like a butterfly — in the hope of buying enough time for Britain to sail to its rescue.

The Americans, on the other hand, saw a long war of attrition in which Britain could quickly mass more than 2 million men, noted for their "ability to fight to a finish." Canada's plan looked to provoke the war that American planners feared: a massive buildup of men to our north and ships off our shores.

Todd VanDerWerff
After something like a century of possible military buildup, though, Canada and the US eventually lapsed into peace. How did that happen?

"[WAR BETWEEN THE US AND CANADA] WOULD BE THE POLITICAL EQUIVALENT OF SETTING A FIRE IN YOUR OWN LIVING ROOM TO GET RID OF THE MICE"
Kevin Lippert
I think we slipped quietly into peace while nobody was paying attention: Our common interests were too closely aligned — especially after World War II, when we became more or less equal partners in NORAD and sat together worrying about a Soviet nuclear attack.

Also, our economies became so intertwined and our border so porous that the idea of conflict between us became self-defeating. It would be the political equivalent of setting a fire in your own living room to get rid of the mice. It's worth noting, too, that all tensions between us are not gone. There are still several areas of border under dispute, including Machias Seal Island off the coast of Maine and, most touchily, the Northwest Passage.

5) One Canadian thought invading forces would be greeted in the US as, at the least, bartenders
Border Patrol Works Along Vermont - Canada Border
After decades of peaceful relations, the US-Canadian border is largely a bare line amid a bunch of trees, though it's still patrolled for signs of illegal entry. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Todd VanDerWerff
What were you most surprised to find in your research for this book?

Kevin Lippert
First, that these plans even existed. From our modern perspective, the very idea seems laughable, but it was all quite serious at the time.

The part I liked the most were the field notes of Lt. James Sutherland "Buster" Brown, author of the Canadian invasion scheme, from his visit to Vermont. [Brown's complete notes are reprinted in Lippert's book.] He found Vermonters affable but fat and lazy, and no impediment to a Canadian invasion.

My favorite line is his quip about Camel's Hump, the mountain in Vermont, to which he said to a local, "You people here are like the camel; you can go seven days without a drink," an allusion to Prohibition: Brown thought invading Canadians might be welcomed as bartenders, if not exactly liberators.

Todd VanDerWerff
So when it all goes down and Canada invades the US, what's your survival strategy?

Kevin Lippert
Shit, where would we go? Canada is most Americans' safety net — if Bush/Obama/Trump/whoever is elected, I'm moving to Canada! — and without it, where to run and hide? France and Italy are already overrun, I think, and not without their own problems. Iceland?

"WOULDN'T [CANADA INVADING THE US] BE LIKE INVITING YOUR WEALTHY, BUT HIGHLY NEEDY AND SCREWED-UP UNCLE TO COME AND LIVE WITH YOU IN THE HOPE YOU MIGHT SOMEDAY INHERIT HIS MONEY?"
And who would welcome American refugees fleeing a war with its neighbor in this day and age, after we're closing the door on others looking for exactly the same? I joke in the book that a war with Canada would likely be a passive-aggressive economic or cyber one: the shutting down of cellphone networks, internet service, and ATMs. I think most of us, if deprived of wireless access and our ATM machines, would quickly surrender. I suspect I would.

And being part of Canada would have its own benefits: They are a happier and healthier country than ours, with a more functional health care system, a less dysfunctional government, and fewer nut-job politicians. And the world's second-largest supply of oil, and 20 percent of the world's fresh water.

What I don't understand is why Canada would even consider invading the United States: Wouldn't it be like inviting your wealthy, but highly needy and screwed-up uncle to come and live with you in the hope you might someday inherit his money? I suspect a few months in, you'd give [him anything] to have him leave. Maybe the best strategy for assuring our long-term independence from Canada is to shack up with them for a bit. They might even give us the Northwest Passage and Machias Seal Island to go away.

War Plan Red is on sale wherever books are sold.

I must point out to miodern people that the British government and ruling class was actually America's ENEMY in those days.  Adams had to work British working class public opinion to keep the misruling meddling British upper class in check and out of American affairs. 

  As the author states the basic problem was American imperial desires.  It was the one seeking war and conquest with the exception of the Pig War crisis, which as the source notes the British commander de-escalated because he thought the entire situation pointless.   On the other hand some Americans were pushing for a war with Britain to 'unit' a nation increasingly divided over the issue of slavery.  He also doesn't mention the situation in 1844 when a Presidental campaign was made on the basis of annexing by force the entire Columbia/Oregon region currently under joint UK-US administration.

  While a lot of the article is clearly tongue in cheek one factual error should be pointed out.  The Canadian plan for hit and run raids was not to trigger a war but to in the event of a US attack seek to disrupt as much of it as possible by destruction of infrastructure so that as much as possible of Canada could be protected until British aid arrived.  As quoted

The main difference was in intention. The Canadians imagined a series of lightning raids followed by a rapid retreat, blowing up roads and bridges behind them — to sting like a bee and run away like a butterfly — in the hope of buying enough time for Britain to sail to its rescue.

  Hence its somewhat misleading to have part 4 headed with "Canada wanted to provoke a war".

  To correct your own point.  Much of the American leadership viewed Britain as a target to be attacked, which meant it was often painted as an enemy by them.  Rather like Putin's behaviour in regards to Ukraine and its backers.  As the article points out the threat to peace invariably came from the US.

[miletus12]

The basic problem is perception. Mister Lincoln was not fooled. All that mattered was that Palmerston and Napoleon III were.