Donald Trump has time and again raised the threat of annexing Canada since his inauguration to a 2d time period as president.
The president’s rhetoric about making Canada “the 51st state” would possibly appear to undertaking self belief, a Twenty first-century imaginative and prescient of manifest future, a trust in america’ proper and legal responsibility to enlarge.
Trump isn’t the primary American chief to dream of northern enlargement. To me, a historian of early U.S.-Canadian members of the family, 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 struggle helped flip American eyes northward. All over the 18th century, England’s Colonial inhabitants in North The united states doubled each and every 25 years. Successive generations of Colonists alongside the Jap Seaboard needed to compete with each and every different, and with Indigenous other folks, for sources, arable land and industry.
Those unsatisfied, land-hungry Colonists clamored for enlargement, instigating a sequence of wars towards each the French and Spanish empires for keep watch over of the northeastern part of the continent, culminating within the French and Indian Warfare, from 1754 to 1763.
Whilst those Colonists have been animated via their thirst for enlargement, that they had little else unifying them. Many American citizens these days are acquainted with the “Join, or Die” caricature Ben Franklin published, that includes a segmented snake with each and every phase representing one of the vital Colonies. On the other hand, few notice that it used to be now not crafted right through the Revolution to unite Colonists towards Britain, however in 1754, to rally divided British Colonists of their warfare towards France.
This well-known symbol urging the American Colonies to unite used to be in improve of a warfare towards France, now not Britain.
Benjamin Franklin by way of Wikimedia Commons
Britain completed conquering Canada in 1763, however the empire by no means totally supported Colonial enlargement northward. Within the 1750s and 1760s, British troops forcibly got rid of French colonists from Acadia in Nova Scotia and recruited hundreds 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 disappointed via the monetary value 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 success. Apprehensive that Colonists may impress a pricey warfare with Indigenous other folks, Parliament issued the Proclamation of 1763, which tried to give protection to homeland via discouraging Colonial enlargement westward. Many Colonists became towards 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 licensed an American invasion of British-occupied Quebec. In a letter addressed to “Friends and Brethren” of Canada, Washington himself implored Canadians to enroll in 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 ways from united of their revolt. Historians estimate that round 20% of the white Colonial inhabitants, greater than 500,000 other folks, remained unswerving to Britain, and a fair higher quantity was hoping to stay impartial.
The tricky realities of conquest additionally became many squaddies towards the invasion of Canada. In past due October 1775, just about 1 / 4 of the underfed and overworked troops beneath the command of soon-to-be turncoat Benedict Arnold deserted their laborious adventure via inside 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 run efforts to assault Canada.
American troops conflict with British squaddies 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
War with Britain over land and industry within the early 1800s reopened previous 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 give an explanation for, he was hoping that warfare would lend a hand unify a polarized country. His gamble paid off, however most effective after fighters from New England flirted with the speculation of secession to barter their very own finish to struggle.
When the preferred editor and columnist John O’Sullivan referred to as for the annexation of Texas and warfare with Mexico in 1845, he additionally urged the annexation of Canada would naturally apply. The anti-expansionist reaction united pacifists, abolitionists and plenty of non secular and literary figures, serving to deepen the divides that might result in the Civil Warfare.
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 grasp the sensible hurdles of including a brand new state or brush aside the speculation altogether.
A Canadian demonstrates in Washington, D.C., towards President Donald Trump’s insurance policies on Feb. 17, 2025.
Dominic Gwinn/Heart East Pictures/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
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 ended in political defeat. In 1911, a invoice developing loose industry with Canada handed Congress with the improve 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 either side of the aisle tried to stir standard sentiment towards 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 solution that might authorize the president to start negotiations for annexation.
Their method to defeating the industry settlement labored, no less than in Canada. Within the common election of September 1911, fearful Canadian citizens ousted the Liberal Birthday 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 pass directly to defeat each the incumbent Taft and previous President Theodore Roosevelt. The bluster led to not luck and victory, however loss and defeat.
