Donald Trump has again and again raised the threat of annexing Canada since his inauguration to a 2nd time period as president.
The president’s rhetoric about making Canada “the 51st state” might appear to mission self belief, a Twenty first-century imaginative and prescient of manifest future, a trust in america’ proper and legal responsibility to increase.
Trump isn’t the primary American chief to dream of northern growth. To me, a historian of early U.S.-Canadian family members, those designs counsel now not energy, however weak point and simmering divisions within america.
Early American citizens’ lust for Canada
Even sooner than independence, social war helped flip American eyes northward. All over the 18th century, England’s Colonial inhabitants in North The united states doubled each 25 years. Successive generations of Colonists alongside the Jap Seaboard needed to compete with every different, and with Indigenous other people, for assets, arable land and industry.
Those unsatisfied, land-hungry Colonists clamored for growth, instigating a chain of wars in opposition to each the French and Spanish empires for keep watch over of the northeastern part of the continent, culminating within the French and Indian Battle, from 1754 to 1763.
Whilst those Colonists have been animated via their thirst for growth, that they had little else unifying them. Many American citizens as of late are acquainted with the “Join, or Die” cool animated film Ben Franklin revealed, that includes a segmented snake with every segment representing one of the crucial Colonies. Then again, few notice that it used to be now not crafted all through the Revolution to unite Colonists in opposition to Britain, however in 1754, to rally divided British Colonists of their conflict in opposition to France.
This well-known symbol urging the American Colonies to unite used to be in strengthen of a conflict in opposition to France, now not Britain.
Benjamin Franklin by means of Wikimedia Commons
Britain completed conquering Canada in 1763, however the empire by no means absolutely supported Colonial growth northward. Within the 1750s and 1760s, British troops forcibly got rid of French colonists from Acadia in Nova Scotia and recruited 1000’s of Colonists from neighboring New England to transport north. Those settlers had lengthy imagined the area wealthy in fishing and bushes to be a land of alternative. However upset via the monetary price of maintaining their settlements, many of those Colonists returned to New England via the early 1770s.
Makes an attempt to settle different lands ceded via France have been not more a hit. Anxious that Colonists may impress a pricey conflict with Indigenous other people, Parliament issued the Proclamation of 1763, which tried to offer protection to hometown via discouraging Colonial growth westward. Many Colonists became in opposition to Britain in reaction, particularly the ones 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 approved an American invasion of British-occupied Quebec. In a letter addressed to “Friends and Brethren” of Canada, Washington himself implored Canadians to sign up for invading troops. “The Cause of America, and of Liberty, is the Cause of every virtuous American Citizen,” he wrote. “Come then, ye generous Citizens, range yourselves under the Standard of general Liberty.”
However at house, Colonists have been a long way from united of their riot. Historians estimate that round 20% of the white Colonial inhabitants, greater than 500,000 other people, remained unswerving to Britain, and a good greater quantity was hoping to stay impartial.
The tough realities of conquest additionally became many infantrymen in opposition to the invasion of Canada. In overdue October 1775, just about 1 / 4 of the underfed and overworked troops below the command of soon-to-be turncoat Benedict Arnold deserted their laborious adventure via inner Maine towards Canada. The warriors who carried on prayed those deserters “might die by the way, or meet with some disaster, Equal to the Cowardly dastardly and unfriendly Spirit they discover’d in returning Back without orders.”
The extra resilient troops who reached Quebec have been emphatically defeated via British forces in December, making Washington skeptical of any long term efforts to assault Canada.
American troops conflict with British infantrymen and the French defenders of Quebec in December 1775.
Charles William Jefferys, duvet artwork for ‘The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton,’ Quantity 12 via William Wooden, 1916
Nineteenth-century divisions
Battle with Britain over land and industry within the early 1800s reopened outdated divisions amongst American citizens. Virginia Congressman John Randolph expressed his frustrations with renewed requires a northern invasion. “We have but one word, like the whip-poor-will, but one eternal monstrous tone,” an exasperated Randolph famous, “Canada! Canada! Canada!”
The talk over Canada used to be one of the problems dividing the country, and as President James Madison would later provide an explanation for, he was hoping that conflict would lend a hand unify a polarized country. His gamble paid off, however handiest after fighters from New England flirted with the speculation of secession to barter their very own finish to war.
When the preferred editor and columnist John O’Sullivan known as for the annexation of Texas and conflict with Mexico in 1845, he additionally instructed the annexation of Canada would naturally observe. The anti-expansionist reaction united pacifists, abolitionists and numerous spiritual and literary figures, serving to deepen the divides that might result in the Civil Battle.
Annexation communicate within the twentieth century
Trump’s posturing has served to unite Canadians and revive Canadian nationalism. Within the U.S., the general public appear to know the sensible hurdles of including a brand new state or brush aside the speculation altogether.
A Canadian demonstrates in Washington, D.C., in opposition to President Donald Trump’s insurance policies on Feb. 17, 2025.
Dominic Gwinn/Heart East Photographs/AFP by means of Getty Photographs
One instance of annexation communicate from the 20 th century, then again, may function a caution to Trump, appearing how competitive rhetoric towards Canada has resulted in political defeat. In 1911, a invoice growing loose industry with Canada handed Congress with the strengthen of President William Taft, in spite of objections from protectionists in each events.
In an try to have the settlement defeated within the Canadian Parliament, U.S. fighters from each side of the aisle tried to stir fashionable sentiment in opposition to the U.S. in Canada. Champ Clark, the Democratic speaker of the Space and a front-runner for the presidential nomination in 1912, seized at the second.
“I hope to see the day when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions, clear to the North Pole,” Champ proclaimed at the Space ground. William Stiles Bennet, a Republican, proposed a answer that might authorize the president to start out negotiations for annexation.
Their option to defeating the industry settlement labored, no less than in Canada. Within the normal election of September 1911, anxious Canadian citizens ousted the Liberal Celebration, which had supported loose industry, and the brand new Conservative majority rejected the settlement.
Again house, then again, the plan backfired. Woodrow Wilson, now not Clark, secured the Democratic nomination in 1912 and would move directly to defeat each the incumbent Taft and previous President Theodore Roosevelt. The bluster led to not good fortune and victory, however loss and defeat.
