Grey Wolf
Donor
This was a dream I had last night 
Seemingly analogous to independent Texas, one had an independent California running its own affairs for maybe twenty years in the middle of the nineteenth century. The quest now is to find a POD to bring this about
Perhaps a good one would be to look at whether these 20 years could be from say 1845 to 1865. This requires playing with US history but not necessarily disastrously.
The Mexican War of 1845-47 was one of the most naked acts of aggression from the United States ever. Don't just take my word for that, look up and read the comments from men like Abraham Lincoln. There was strong opposition on moral grounds to a war that was quite clearly fought along the lines of 'sell us 1/3 of your territory or we will come and take it from you'. As with the 2003 Iraq war, despite their forthright opposition and distaste for the policy, the opposition within Congress buckled before the idea of being seen as unpatriotic and voted through the necessary appropriations for the war.
Could we change the 1840s so that we do not have in power a president with so aggressive an agenda as Polk ?
And doing this, can we then bring California into being as an independent state in the same way as Texas managed to achieve this ten years previously ?
I don't think this is impossible. The Bear Flag Republic was declared independent of Mexico and existed for short period of time before being formally occupied by American troops. Without US forces, the Californians, bolstered by goldminers etc, could perhaps do a Texas and fight off Mexican attempts to hold them back. Maybe San Diego will remain part of Mexican-retained Baja California (Mexico never accepted it was part of Upper California) and independent California will revolve around San Francisco
We could then postulate an independent existence for a couple of decades before the march of Manifest Destiny overtakes it...
Grey Wolf
Seemingly analogous to independent Texas, one had an independent California running its own affairs for maybe twenty years in the middle of the nineteenth century. The quest now is to find a POD to bring this aboutPerhaps a good one would be to look at whether these 20 years could be from say 1845 to 1865. This requires playing with US history but not necessarily disastrously.
The Mexican War of 1845-47 was one of the most naked acts of aggression from the United States ever. Don't just take my word for that, look up and read the comments from men like Abraham Lincoln. There was strong opposition on moral grounds to a war that was quite clearly fought along the lines of 'sell us 1/3 of your territory or we will come and take it from you'. As with the 2003 Iraq war, despite their forthright opposition and distaste for the policy, the opposition within Congress buckled before the idea of being seen as unpatriotic and voted through the necessary appropriations for the war.
Could we change the 1840s so that we do not have in power a president with so aggressive an agenda as Polk ?
And doing this, can we then bring California into being as an independent state in the same way as Texas managed to achieve this ten years previously ?
I don't think this is impossible. The Bear Flag Republic was declared independent of Mexico and existed for short period of time before being formally occupied by American troops. Without US forces, the Californians, bolstered by goldminers etc, could perhaps do a Texas and fight off Mexican attempts to hold them back. Maybe San Diego will remain part of Mexican-retained Baja California (Mexico never accepted it was part of Upper California) and independent California will revolve around San Francisco
We could then postulate an independent existence for a couple of decades before the march of Manifest Destiny overtakes it...
Grey Wolf