Poll: Emancipation

[Valcazar]

I'm sure there are literally 100's of PH D theses and CanHist courses on that very point.

Probably.

An aggressive USA would actually force Canada to stay very close to the UK for protection. There is a large military build-up of UK forces in Canada during the ACW and those chaps are specifically there to kill Americans, if the latter come north.

And yet that fear resulted in Confederation instead of clinging to the UK.

But nothing happens and the Army of the Potomac disbands and doesn't change direction and head north over the Canadian border. The redcoats go home and the Canadian colonial authorities figure that they can chance going it on their own. So I do not think there is any connection at all between US unity and Canadian confederation.

I read it the other way. The scare of the Union maybe invading during the war and then winning and united with Manifest Destiny in action means they go " Fuck, we better all gang together and make it harder for them to invade before they figure 'fuck it! we're on a roll! let's take canada!"

Texas is the 22nd richest state in the U.S. It might even be even richer if it wasn't part of the union.

Now, sure. Like I said, they were desperately broke. If they had managed to hold on until they discovered oil and oil was valuable, it could have changed everything.

 

[mandrill]

Probably.

And yet that fear resulted in Confederation instead of clinging to the UK.

I read it the other way. The scare of the Union maybe invading during the war and then winning and united with Manifest Destiny in action means they go " Fuck, we better all gang together and make it harder for them to invade before they figure 'fuck it! we're on a roll! let's take canada!"

Now, sure. Like I said, they were desperately broke. If they had managed to hold on until they discovered oil and oil was valuable, it could have changed everything.

The colonies could never take on the US. They needed a large British garrison to have any hope of holding out. Unification would have given them no military advantage. It was only AFTER the US threat evaporated that they could move away from the UK.

The inside scoop on Confederation is that the UK told them to do it because they could defend themselves (from no real threat whatsoever) once the USA was disinterested in annexing Canada.

 

[Valcazar]

The colonies could never take on the US. They needed a large British garrison to have any hope of holding out. Unification would have given them no military advantage. It was only AFTER the US threat evaporated that they could move away from the UK.

The inside scoop on Confederation is that the UK told them to do it because they could defend themselves (from no real threat whatsoever) once the USA was disinterested in annexing Canada.

Like you say, I'm sure someone has a PhD thesis about it.
I find it interesting we have an almost opposite perception of what went down, but I've never dug into it so I will leave it with a "could be!" for now.