A lot of interesting comments here.
Saying that the Americans were purely egalitarian and the British aristocratic isn't exactly accurate. Americans were just as aristocratic but the system was less entrenched so that egalitarians could be more prominent. Even today the U.S. can be quite classist.
A BNA would likely be split into several dominion like entities that have their own character. Some would be similar to OTL Canada, others New Zealand, others Australia, and some like regions of the U.S.
A Dixie region would probably be fairly aristocratic and might have an apartheid system. New England is probably more cosmopolitan and a mix of urban Canada and urban New England.
Areas with significant native citizens could be like New Zealand and the natives holding a Maori status, or like Australia where they were historically ostracized and disenfranchised, or like OTL US with a mix of policies that nevertheless reduced them to reservations and semicitizens.
Frontier regions will depend what the frontier is - Mexico, Wilderness/Outback, native kingdoms, etc.
Good point, and I can believe Dixie being more aristocratic in particular.
I can see regionalism develop more as some may want to emulate British aristocracy more (like the South) and some may emulate more of the 19th-century radicals/Whigs/Liberals (Northeast). A national North American identity will take time to develop, though regional identities will take hold. Geography and culture playing out more to make distinguished provinces that would make a BNA nationalism/continentalism a strongly competing current of thought; like British (basic identity) and Southerner (regional identity) vs British and North American (nationalistic somewhat). This of course assumes a federation or confederation of any or all British American colonies, which could happen if it is tolerable to have a weak enough union for Britain it likes. The American Revolution provided a national focal point, it being a long struggle.
I would think so as well.
Would BNA politics be similar to Britain, with pro-parliament Whigs and pro-monarchy Tories as Dems and Repubs, respectively?
Possibly, yes.
Slavery would be the tricky thing to figure out on when it ends and how emancipation goes about. 1830s with gradual emancipation (the Slavery Abolition Act), or later? An ACW but quicker for the British to win given the lack of serious military of the pro-slavery groups, the seceding Southern provinces unless they participated in some wars before the BNA civil war? And what about integrating the freed slaves, to mitigate second-class citizenship/a new de facto system of oppression? Is an emancipation date of around the mid 1830s highly improbable, or could it happen but with internal conflict? Would Britain be willing to have an early emancipation or go with a later one?
Sadly, an emancipation date around OTL would, in fact, be fairly improbable, and I'll explain why a little further on.
I can also see a more robust welfare state and more gun control given parliamentary government would be a major influence on the federal and provincial governmental structures. Of course, this would lead into discussions about BNA governmental systems as it federates and adds more provinces.
Gun control, possibly.....not sure about a welfare state, though.
Let me push back a little bit. Some might survive, but consider that: 1) The Canadians weren't that great to Natives either (look up the native schools); 2) the Tasmanian Aborigines were wiped out.
Sadly, good point. Though, to be frank, I'd largely chalk that up to being thanks to imperialism. (So, to add, I'd argue that a republican Canada + Australia would likely have been significantly less willing to treat the indigenous peoples so poorly)
I think you need to game this out a bit more since it's highly contingent. Here's one issue that gets glossed over. The northern states in OTL abolished slavery due to the Revolutionary rhetoric and enlightenment. So slavery survives longer in the Northern States, surely?
Sadly, that is a real possibility.
While it's true that Enlightenment debates around US independence did play a role in forcing the Founding Fathers (and their British opponents) to look at contradictions in arguments for liberty, abolitionist sentiment was already widespread (as you might expect for anything that is visibly repulsive to witness as an outsider). James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, frequently argued it was a violation of the Gospel. The judge in the Somerset vs Stewart court case in 1772 declared slavery "so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law". Outside of workers, owners and investors, it appears slavery was looked upon negatively. The vast difference in abolitionist sentiment between the pre- (ambivalent) and post-reform (overwhelmingly strong) parliaments demonstrate the different in class perspectives.
Unfortunately, re: the bold, I'm afraid this was not quite true as of yet in the *Revolutionary era. Don't get me wrong, it certainly did have it's supporters then, as well as prior roots going back a fair few decades: Oglethorpe in particular was indeed a very early sympathizer of abolitionism(and was no doubt considered rather radical for his day). But in regards to the Somerset case, it is undoubtedly clear that Lord Mansfield was, in the legal sense, only referring to eliminating slavery in England itself. And as I've pointed out in the past, the abolitionist movement did not truly take off and begin to enjoy actual widespread support until the 1780s and '90s, with the rise of Wilberforce, et al., and the American Revolution
did help give a major boost to that, even if not quite directly on the whole.
I would thus argue that the American Revolution was a catalyst for pushing the sentiment into a political movement. Given Enlightenment debates were ongoing, I think something in the next decade or two would have done the same thing. In addition, expansion of the suffrage with parliamentary reform is almost certain to make parliament much more abolitionist. Also, parliamentary reform was delayed by the French Revolution (and thus indirectly by the American). So my best guess would be that the slave trade lasts another decade or so, but full abolition is likely to happen on time or even sooner than OTL.
Re: the bold, I'm afraid not on this one, either. To add on an elaboration to my response to one of
@SashaBonaparte148 's questions(as well as a couple of
@Faeelin 's comments), the main reason it likely would have taken longer to abolish slavery in a "Patriots lose Revolutionary War" timeline-other than what I'd already pointed out above-is simply because, IOTL, the plantation side of the British Imperial economy was
majorly cut down after the U.S. broke away, hence, also significantly weakening pro-slavery support in Parliament, etc. as well; without that, the planters would retain significantly more influence, and as for mainland North America, it wouldn't just affect the South, but the North as well, as slavery still existed there as well(although, optimistically, Vermont might be allowed to keep their abolition law from 1777 once Britain re-incorporates them). (I
can say that it might well be plausible-depending on circumstances-that the international slave trade is eliminated only a decade later than OTL, but it might require a little bit of pushing for anybody writing a TL over this.)
So, while it
is possible to indeed have the abolition of slavery happen around 1837 or so-perhaps even a couple of years earlier-in this kind of scenario, it'd be fairly challenging to figure out what kind of ATL developments would lead to that conclusion.
But most people moved to America for land and higher living standards, not some abstract notion of liberty.
Some certainly did primarily due to economic considerations, yes. But there were quite a few who
were in part motivated to come to America precisely because of these values, especially in certain cases, like that of the Irish or the Germans in the 1850s.
Really, though, I'd just say that it's probably significantly more complicated than that, and probably would be better elaborated on elsewhere.
The settlement of the West would be justified instead by British notions of empire - spreading civilization, development and Anglican Christianity to savage peoples and untamed land.
I'd think this to be plausible based on my own reading of history-as far as I'm aware, this was true in Canada and Australia to at least some extent IOTL, much like how Manifest Destiny here in the U.S. had a fairly significant religious component as well.
Two major points
1) This PoD doesn't seem to involve no East India Company, and seemingly nothing that restrains that. So there will be a relationship between BNA and British India.
2) What impact does BNA have on the British Economic Model.
We're looking at Indian Labour, alternative economic models that work within the political agreements put forward - OTL it was easy enough to just have Britain as the Factory of Europe, but America is unlikely to accept just exporting to the UK, in fact the Eastern Seaboard will become a rival to that. Its political freedoms would likely restrain a tariff model - which leads me to belive that it will lead to an approach of treating colonies more or less as Tax Farming projects - let them do their thing, skim off the top, which will likely change both how BNA operates, but also British India - which in turn will impact BNA - I expect potentially via immigration from India (I love the idea of a British Indian Louisiana.)
There are benefits to this "enforced peace" form of Empire, Britain gets loads of money to act, but has significantly offloaded its obligations to local authorities, but as it isn't destined to ramp up industrial production at home it could well focus on increased efforts to colonise the Americas and other colonies - leading to a more widespread anglosphere, and a more anglo-american BNA.
Hmm.....I think an earlier wave of Indian influence might be interesting, too. IIRC,
@Glen might have done just that for his classic Dominion of Southern America TL, though I dunno if I remember that correctly or not.