DBWI: United BNA

So, in the mid 1860s there was an effort to unite the colonies of British North America. Sadly though, it started floundering after it's main champion "John A. Macdonald" died in a fire in Britain. Now we're stuck with the upper part of North America divided between Dominions, Republics, and the American state of Cascadia. Could a united British style nation have worked? Or was the idea of some colonies banding themselves together to ASB to ever be achieved?
 
A shorter and less bloody Civil War might make the US appear as a bigger threat to British North American sovereignty. Maybe that could force the colonies to stick together. I don't see Canada* sticking around, though. It's just too French and too culturally different from the rest of BNA.

OOC:

* OTL Quebec

Also, you could've just asked the mods to move the other thread.
 
A shorter and less bloody Civil War might make the US appear as a bigger threat to British North American sovereignty. Maybe that could force the colonies to stick together. I don't see Canada* sticking around, though. It's just too French and too culturally different from the rest of BNA.

OOC:

* OTL Quebec

Also, you could've just asked the mods to move the other thread.

Yeah I don't see the French Region sticking around for long. I mean they were the first colony to break and form a Republic (Other than the US of course).

OOC: Meh. Doesn't matter.
 
It might have survived if the US was threatening the colonies in some way - e.g wanting to invade them or cutting vital trade agreements towards them. Alternatively, the US could have been more powerful, making them feel threatened despite reality - maybe it could have conquered the Philippines or Puerto Rico. However, I find it unlikely that the US would do either of these. They even considered giving some of the Arizona Territory back to Mexico because nobody wanted to live there.
 
Why? The US would see it as an act of semi-agression by the British, and the British would rather sell goods to the USA than pretend that making a single nation out of the Northern frozen third of North America would act as much of a buffer anyway.

Now, maybe if you could prevent Seward from purchasing the British holdings west of the Rockies, that might help. No matter what, without a Pacific Coast, there wouldn't be much hope for a unified British North America. Now, how do you get a Canadian Cascadia while the USA still has Washington and Alaska on either side, that's another issue.

The other is how would you unify the holdings? Ontario may be a little miniature version of Britain, but Quebec is too French and the Maritimes too Celtic. It's been no small miracle that the three of them weren't absorbed into the USA - how would a unified BNA succeed if the USA or the British Empire could not?
 
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