Quote:
Originally Posted by Dazrin
As an American I was surprised by this too. I have heard the joke about Canada being the 51st state but never really gave it much thought other than as commentary about how similar we are in many respects.
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I'm not going to cite all the posts that expressed something similar, but there's a reason for your surprise that the US wanted to annex Canada as late as 1911. It's not true.
In fact, since the end of the War of 1812, the US had abandoned the incursion into Canada as a policy objective (among other issues, it wasn't working out). It's worth noting that during the War of 1812 Canada was British and Britain was the enemy, for good reasons such as the suppression of US trade and the impressment of its nationals on the high seas.
In 1871, the US and the UK were signatories to the Treaty of Washington, to clear up hanging issues related to the US Civil War and including matters related to Canada (mostly swapping the right of the US to navigate on the St. Lawrence for a similar right for Canada on Lake Michigan). But the point is that Canada had been self-governing since 1867 although Britain continued to control Canada's foreign relations and by signing the treaty, the US in effect acknowledged Canadian sovereignty.
Bacon took some bombast on the part of a few individuals, such as the occasional posturing speech in Congress that resulted in no votes or legislation and inflated that into serious US aims on Canada to serve his narrative about two countries at loggerheads. It was no worse and no different from a Canadian campaigning on the basis of a perceived US threat, even if one didn't exist (and I'm taking Bacon's claims into account here, even though I don't trust him). In fact, the two countries rubbed along. Issues? Most certainly. Did many Canadians resent US neutrality in the Great War? Of course. But these were not two countries which were enemies under the skin.
However, the story Bacon wants to sell is how the explosion served to transform two countries, one with aggressive aims and the other a resentful and fearful object, into friends. At best, he grossly overstates this. I see it as exploitative, again, of a tragedy and his way of making the story about the US in order to sell to the US market. But it's erroneous history, where he inflates passing emotions and posturing into policy. The last serious American designs on the British territory to its direct north dated a century earlier than Bacon claims and the US never planned an annexation of Canada.