Lincoln Survives Assassination

There are a lot of good questions here. I will answer them one by one. But first I do have to say that alternate history is fiction and necessarily requires imagination.

The British mostly recognized the Southern rebels for economic reasons (remember in 1861 it looked as though neither side was capable of forcing the other to surrender and bu 1862 the rebels seemed capable of holding out) and war in the Americas was just as bad for the British as it was for the US. The British certainly didn't like the blockade but submitted to it (officially, but yes ship yards built blockade runners and warships, something they had done for ages and would definitely not stop doing just because they were asked, Palmerston had no say in that).

[They did eventually get around to seizing the Laird rams after a direct threat of war conveyed by the US ambassador. And fitting out warships was against the Queen's neutrality proclamation. They actually had to take the CSS Alabama to St. Helena (or the Azores?) to couple it with its guns. A very large monetary settlement was later paid after arbitration in Geneva.)

Was there probably some idea of vengeance for recognizing the rebels in 1830? Probably, but the British government at the time saw this as another proof showing the weakness of the Republican system and recognized the other side as a belligerent in the hopes of mediating the conflict, not in the hopes of overtly supporting the Confederacy.

(Perhaps. I will have to go back to Amanda Foreman's World on Fire and one other book I read on US/UK ACW era relations. But the effect was to open the UK's worldwide system of coaling stations and ports to the nascent CSN. The CSS Alabama was welcomed with fanfare into port in Cape Town and in Australia. And yes, I would not doubt that resentment for recognition of the Canadian rebels in the 1830's played a part.)


Yes but even here the Fenians will not have enough men to do as you are proposing. I'm not quite sure how many men the Fenians had available to them in real life (something like 1500 if I'm correct?) but even twice that number is not enough to seriously inconvenience the British once reinforcements arrive.

(10K men were across the river in Buffalo, prevented from crossing by the gunboat USS Michigan, the only warship on the demilitarized lakes. About 800 made it into Canada with no artillery. 150K Irishmen fought for the Union with 7 Irish generals.)

Remember, the early Fenian victories were against poorly trained and disorganized Canadian militia (who still managed to give them some hurt) and then they retreated in the face of British regulars. Not the force I would be hedging my bets on.

Once they come into contact with British regulars my prediction sits firmly with the British for victory.

(True, the militia did well facing off against experienced veterans and through overwhelming numbers were able to push them back. ITTL, the invasion force will be the entire 10K with artillery and sufficient supplies. In winter, Ontario and Quebec cannot be reinforced without US acquiescence. Having the Grand Trunk end in Portland and a canal around rapids on the St. Lawrence be on the US side did not show great foresight. I read a whole book on preparations for war in New Brunswick. Even though the governor general did his best, militia was hardly strong enough to resist an invasion.)



If the Fenians are attacking in winter they are extra doomed. The Canadian winter is not known for its niceness and attempting to march a large force across the frontier and supply it is a hazardous proposition at best. They can dig in all they like but they suffer greatly, and the British know this and let them wither on the vine while massing troops in the Maritimes and shipping them up on sleds or slowly moving their forces into proper winter quarters while waiting to crush the poor Fenians in the spring.

(This is true and I have to do some more research on winter fighting. In the BROS thread, the writer stated that winter battles did take place and winter warfare, while difficult, was possible. With open rail lines in the rear and perhaps a small city or village to shelter in, resupply and billeting would not seem to be so difficult. There is a long debate on the BROS thread about how many troops could be quickly dispatched to Canada and how many local militia could be mustered. I think the author makes a good case for his calculations there so I will not dive into it here.)

The British could easily repeat the mobilization they had undertaken from the Trent affair. That alone is going to crush the Fenians, especially now that the British have modern arms stockpiled in the aftermath.

(The mobilization during the Trent affair was how many men? 10K?)

It is important to remember the British are unlikely to be blindsided by this. They will know the Americans are supporting the Fenians (through spies or through rumor and hard to hide preparations) and will supply, garrison, fortify the frontier accordingly.

(Now this is past true. The British were very good at spying and made their protests to the US gov. but still managed to be somewhat blindsided by the 1866 invasion. The Fenians boasted of their plans in newspapers but still the frontier was not secure. The real deterrent to a successful invasion was US enforcement of neutrality.)

Ship troops across the Atlantic, quarter them in the Maritimes, ship them up river on sleds or very slowly march them between winter quarters awaiting the thaw? Fairly easy.

(Maybe. I have not gotten to this question in my research yet.)

Not much of a conundrum? They can protest Sewards actions and lodge formal diplomatic complaints, respond by covertly supporting Maximillian and Nappy III in Mexico to distract the US, and first and fore mostly crush the Fenians making it a moot point.

(Well, formal diplomatic complaints only go so far. They were passed back and forth during the ACW. The British were in on the invasion of Mexico in the beginning but withdrew early. See my comments on Grant's insistence on expelling the French from Mexico and Seward's finesse of the situation above. Note that the possibility of this contingency is good reason to keep reserve units actively drilling.)

Remember, the Fenian raids solidified Canadian and British ties and Canadian identities. Making them worse only helps that.

(True. The Act of Union did come just one year later and partly in response to the Fenian threat. I have to further study the 1830 and 1840's era rebellions in Canada including the annexation proclamation. Note that I have eschewed, as I think L would have, an outright conquest. Just breaking the ties between the UK and Canada or splintering Canada is a US victory.)

The British behavior in the ACW was not particularly atrocious, nor was it against the grain for how European powers behaved for centuries. Supplying arms and warships to a belligerent power is the prerogative of British manufacturers, not Her Majesty's Government. Lincoln and Seward both know this and attempting to punish the British is in poor taste, not to mention economically and politically dicey. There wasn't exactly a pent up bottle of anti-British feeling in the US post-ACW.)

(And this is just the American posture. What are you complaining about?, the question is posed. Is this not how things work? For warships, the UK government did forbid it. I have to look further and see about small arms. The seizure of the Laird rams was an extrajudicial act, without any sort of due process before the fact, done in the face of a threat of war. Without recognition as belligerents, the CSN would not have been resupplying in British ports, tended by British coal tenders... And exactly, citizens may do as they will. How much more so if by UK law they are not American citizens at all but UK citizens? The UK cannot have it both ways. And by this logic, if US officers on leave man ships or lead men, they are just acting in their private capacity? No?

In 1860, I would say no, there was not a great deal of anti-British feeling. One of the princes visited the US to great fanfare and a warm welcome. But St. Albans, the Trent Affair... There were open clamorings in the newspapers for war. And keep in mind, ITTL the operations of the CSA's Canada cabinet and the presence of Booth prior to his assassination attempt come to light.)

Not only would this be 100% different (seriously, harboring an invading army, supplying them, and officially recognizing them? Not what Britain did at all) and the British would know it. It was one thing for British private citizens to do the things as discussed, but it's another for the whole US government to do it!

(Not really. The UK did just that to a smaller extent, manufacturing and supplying warships, financing the rebels. There is nothing more ITTL than recognition as belligerents, just what the UK did.)

[I have to go for now but will finish up later. Good questions all though some of them I have addressed before. Thanks for helping me flesh out my TL. Cheers.)

I doubt Lincoln would have done much differently personally. Increased financial support to the rebels, increasing arms shipments, increased diplomatic pressure on the French. Why risk an unpopular war?



I admit Lincoln was a great politician, but this is unlikely.



This is a blatant act of war. Not to mention the British aren't stupid.



I don't quite follow here. The Americans are blatantly starting a civil war in this scenario. That wouldn't be fooling anyone.



1) I'm skeptical. Who is financing this and why? the US certainly isn't going to foot the bill to bankroll a Fenian army and navy in the wake of a civil war. Nor do I suspect they would be willing to keep the money flowing if the Fenians face defeat (try selling that to the people at home)

2) The British were more neutral in the ACW than you give them credit for. Here the Americans are basically being the political equivalent of rabid dogs.

3) Ok this is absurd. These are men who have just fought a long conflict against each other. What incentive do they have to suddenly join a cause that is not their own, to fight alongside one another against a power that has done them no wrong, and in what is a blatant invasion of a foreign land?

Where is this untapped well of seething anti-British sentiment, where is the pent up rage against the Queen that Northerners and Southerners are suddenly willing to put aside 4 years of warfare against one another to go and fight Great Britain?



This is blatant aggression by the US, this is absolutely not the same thing GB did in the ACW.



A few major questions:

1) Why do L and S think this is a good idea? If the US was fine settling the post-war hostilities with diplomacy and legal procedures why do L and S (already tired from war) look to go starting another one? They had political capital, not that much!

Also why jeopardize trade with your largest trading partner? It makes no sense in the aftermath of the war with the British being eager to get back to business as usual.

2) How large are you actually envisioning this Fenian force being? Anything less than 50,000 is far far to little to meet even the what the US thought would be necessary to conquer/occupy Canada successfully.

If it is 50,000 where do the men come from? There aren't that many radical Irishmen in the US, and there certainly aren't that many sincerely anti-British people within a years gathering effort in the Union. This addresses my 'where is this supposed wellspring of anti-British sentiment' question.

3) Why do the British in this scenario seem so oblivious? There's not a chance in hell they don't catch a slight whiff of this coming and don't pre-plan accordingly.

Not taking a minuscule force of Irish radicals seriously is one thing. Not seeing the US trying to intentionally bolster a larger one is another entirely.

L and S are acting far too belligerent and almost cartoonishly evil here for something they gain with far less effort easier in OTL.
 
I think I have answered most of the questions from the last poster. Please read back in the thread and you will find other answers there. Cheers.
 
Four problems still remain:

1) Your comparison of the British actions in the ACW is still invalid as you are making sponsoring the Fenians US policy, the exact opposite of what Her Majesty's Government did in OTL

2) The Trent affair accurately shows that Britain could quickly ship 17,000+ men to Canada easily under the conditions you describe thus dooming the Fenians to failure (two addendums here, one is that the British had also raised 24,000 plus militia in the same time period and would have been able to ship 23,000+ more regulars. I also would not recommend using BROS as a reliable source for the British abilities as I was one of the ones pointing out some of the flaws in the authors work, an interesting scenario it might be)

3) The Mexican problem remains a pressing concern, more pressing than potentially starting a war with Britain because Seward feels like acting like a fool.

4) You still can't arrive at a probable reason why L and S would risk this. They are dependent on British trade and good relations with Britain are good for both of them, and I doubt L sincerely believes that adding more potential rebels to the Union is a good idea and can't see him doing anything but shooting down this idea if Seward has it.
 
Four problems still remain:

1) Your comparison of the British actions in the ACW is still invalid as you are making sponsoring the Fenians US policy, the exact opposite of what Her Majesty's Government did in OTL

[Not really. Just a loophole to a neurtrality proclamation. Like letting an obvious warship out of port as long as it is fitted out with guns somewhere else. Don't go to the border armed but if you cross the border...]

2) The Trent affair accurately shows that Britain could quickly ship 17,000+ men to Canada easily under the conditions you describe thus dooming the Fenians to failure (two addendums here, one is that the British had also raised 24,000 plus militia in the same time period and would have been able to ship 23,000+ more regulars. I also would not recommend using BROS as a reliable source for the British abilities as I was one of the ones pointing out some of the flaws in the authors work, an interesting scenario it might be)

[With proper support, I think 50K men could be fielded and sustained. The BROS numbers looked quite plausible to me.]

3) The Mexican problem remains a pressing concern, more pressing than potentially starting a war with Britain because Seward feels like acting like a fool.

[I am afraid you are off on your dates here. The French began their withdrawal on May 31, 1866, a few months before my POD.]

4) You still can't arrive at a probable reason why L and S would risk this. They are dependent on British trade and good relations with Britain are good for both of them, and I doubt L sincerely believes that adding more potential rebels to the Union is a good idea and can't see him doing anything but shooting down this idea if Seward has it.

[Dependent? For what? The UK had some bad harvests during the ACW years and were importing shiploads of Yankee grain, no?

And remember, no conquest. Invasion by proxy and a referendum. Not necessarily a perfectly fair election but what elections were fair at this time? And administered by UK subjects according to UK law on UK soil, rebels though they may be. If they choose independence in free association with the US or the UK, ok.

Why? Check out Seward's speech I noted above and L's statement to Grant at Hampton Roads. Why? Bc the nation born of revolution against imperial oppression has now made its policy to support free people when they rebel against the same empire as happened in Canada in the 1830's and 1840's, India in 1857 and Jamaica in October 1866. But support in just those ways that all nations you say acted in.]
 
Update on Development:

I have found that my subject is so vast that to do it well I am going to have to deal with the two POD's in different works. For now, I am more focused on what may have been different in regards to reconstruction if L had survived assassination and Seward escaped unharmed from the attempt.

The story is told primarily through the experiences of the Wilsmith family of Taylor County, Georgia, a location I chose because it was the site of early peach plantations, the home of General John B. Gordon and some interesting characters who justified slavery from the pulpit and with secular arguments. There is some family conflict with the basic issue being that the patriarch of the family has sired two boys by a slave woman who one of two white children helps escape just before the outbreak of war. This young man goes on to work with Seward and L to determine the best policy for reconstruction and serves as an unwitting spy.

I have started outlining but am not ready to post a full outline.

For now, I am posting my reading list which has now come to 21 books, some of which are true bears. I will give myself credit for effort.

Please let me know any recommendations you may have for the subject matter of my novel.

And feedback on this question that I have yet to research is appreciated:

How did plantation owners and their families deal with the reality of slave children who were in fact children of the slave owner? Denial? A reality that cannot be broached? Imagine yourself as a brother, sister or father of of one these children. Now this is a moral, historical and psychological dilemma!

Without further ado, here is my reading list:

Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement
Phillip W. Magness, Sebastian N. Page

A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War
Amanda Foreman

Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War-An Alternate History
Peter G. Tsouras

Troublous Times in Canada A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870
John A. (John Alexander) MacDonald

A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril-An Alternate History
Peter G. Tsouras

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Doris Kearns Goodwin

Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man
Walter Stahr

Lincoln on Race and Slavery
Gates Jr., Henry Louis

"What Shall We Do with the Negro?": Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America
Paul D. Escott

Spies of the Civil War: The History of Espionage In the Civil War
Howard Brinkley

The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
Douglas R. Egerton

Fenians were Dreadful Men: The 1867 Rising in Ireland
Padraig Ó Concubhair

Turning Back the Fenians: New Brunswick’s Last Colonnial Campaign (New Brunswick Military Heritage Series)
Robert Dallison

Assassination of Lincoln: a History of the Great Conspiracy
Thomas Mealey Harris

Pinkerton's War: The Civil War's Greatest Spy and the Birth of the U.S. Secret Service
Jay Bonansinga

Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama
Stephen Fox

The Irish General: Thomas Francis Meagher
Paul R. Wylie

Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War)
Mitchell Snay

THE MOST COMPLETE COLLECTION OF WRITTEN WORKS & SPEECHES BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS [Newly Illustrated]
Frederick Douglass

American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
Michael W. Kauffman

(In progress)
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Perennial Classics)
Eric Foner

Great Britain and the American Civil War
by Ephraim Douglass Adams
 
[Dependent? For what? The UK had some bad harvests during the ACW years and were importing shiploads of Yankee grain, no?(1)

And remember, no conquest. Invasion by proxy and a referendum. Not necessarily a perfectly fair election but what elections were fair at this time? And administered by UK subjects according to UK law on UK soil, rebels though they may be. If they choose independence in free association with the US or the UK, ok.(2)

Why? Check out Seward's speech I noted above and L's statement to Grant at Hampton Roads. Why? Bc the nation born of revolution against imperial oppression has now made its policy to support free people when they rebel against the same empire as happened in Canada in the 1830's and 1840's, India in 1857 and Jamaica in October 1866. But support in just those ways that all nations you say acted in.](3)

(1) Not much more than usual that I'm aware of. Though that brings up the point that GB is the US's greatest trade partner/investor so the US simply couldn't afford to not trade with them. Hobbling your own economy is a poor plan.

(2) It would be a farce and everyone on God's green earth would know it. Zero legitimacy and more than likely zero local support. Not to mention that it stands zero chance of getting that far in the first place.

(3) Yet OTL he pursued no such policy, and for good reason. He and Lincoln must be drinking loads of mercury to even contemplate this as a good idea post war during Reconstruction.
 
(1) Not much more than usual that I'm aware of. Though that brings up the point that GB is the US's greatest trade partner/investor so the US simply couldn't afford to not trade with them. Hobbling your own economy is a poor plan.

(2) It would be a farce and everyone on God's green earth would know it. Zero legitimacy and more than likely zero local support. Not to mention that it stands zero chance of getting that far in the first place.

(3) Yet OTL he pursued no such policy, and for good reason. He and Lincoln must be drinking loads of mercury to even contemplate this as a good idea post war during Reconstruction.

Perhaps what I am lacking is a POD similar to BROS and Britannia's Fist. As per my last post above, the subject I have chosen is far too broad for one book that is not an epic. This is my first so I am narrowing the scope to something more manageable.

But as for one, check it out. I am not going to go look for a direct citation from my massive reading list above but I can state as a fact that there were grain shortages in Britain during the ACW period.

Perhaps it would be farcical but you have to accept that applying the same logic acts that Britain and its citizens undertook during the ACW could not be considered acts of war in good faith. What's good for the goose is good for the gander as some used to say. These acts of financing, selling weapons and having citizens take part in a conflict are no more farce when undertaken by American politicians and businessmen than they were when what you say was just business as usual as such was undertaken across the pond. There is nothing new. And following British legal theory on the inalienability of citizenship that had been something of a point of contention since prior to the War of 1812.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on the ability to defend Canada.

What I would envision is something truly radical: The American nation under the leadership of Lincoln actually attempts to live up to its creed of freedom and equality on an international level. The US is a nation born of revolution against imperial oppression. Britain was attempting to hold in bondage a large part of the world through the use of violence and terrorism. Everywhere there was rebellion (Ireland, Jamaica, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa). America did have a civil war in which rebels were brought into line but these were not colonized peoples but the descendants of the original makers of the country's governmental compact. Perhaps there is a sentimental remembrance of something like the "good old days" that some Southern Americans harbor when they imagine slaves were held but well treated, recipients of a generous paternalism. All of these nations are independent now.

It is far from realpolitik or perhaps, depending on your viewpoint, closer than anything possibly could be. The reasoning could be that set out in the Montreal Annexation petition which I have cut and pasted from BROS, pg. 20.

Most of the argument for annexation is along economic lines, but this is interesting:

In place of war and the alarms of war with a neighbor, there would be peace and amity between this country and the United States, Disagreements between the United States and her chief, if not only rival among nations, would not make the soil of Canada the sanguinary arena of their disputes, as, under our existing relations, must necessarily be the case. That such is the unenviable condition of our state of dependence upon Great Britain, is known to the whole world, and how far it may conduce to keep prudent capitalists from making investments in the country, or wealthy settlers from selecting a foredoomed battle-field for the home of themselves and their children, it needs no reasoning on our part to elucidate.

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Active enforcement of the Monroe doctrine, a push of a sometime hostile power from the region through proxies is hardly unimaginable.

But for now, I am focused on the initial issue for my first book, which is as much historical novel as it is alternate history.
 
Perhaps what I am lacking is a POD similar to BROS and Britannia's Fist. As per my last post above, the subject I have chosen is far too broad for one book that is not an epic. This is my first so I am narrowing the scope to something more manageable.

But as for one, check it out. I am not going to go look for a direct citation from my massive reading list above but I can state as a fact that there were grain shortages in Britain during the ACW period.

Lacking any reason for Lincoln and Seward to be so rabidly antagonistic to Britain and flying in the face of practical political goals does torpedo any attempt at plausibility so there is that yes.

I'll accept that there were grain shortages but once again point out that America couldn't afford to not ship grain to them (see the War of 1812 for the delicious irony of how dependent US business was on GB which continued well into the 1890s before both the perception and reality changed).

Perhaps it would be farcical but you have to accept that applying the same logic acts that Britain and its citizens undertook during the ACW could not be considered acts of war in good faith. What's good for the goose is good for the gander as some used to say. These acts of financing, selling weapons and having citizens take part in a conflict are no more farce when undertaken by American politicians and businessmen than they were when what you say was just business as usual as such was undertaken across the pond. There is nothing new. And following British legal theory on the inalienability of citizenship that had been something of a point of contention since prior to the War of 1812.

Once again though I must point out that this couldn't be more radically different from what HMG did in the ACW. There you had the government being strictly neutral (merely sending out offers to mediate the conflict) and not even extending the meanest level of support to the Confederacy in any practical way. Yes private citizens and companies in GB did support the rebels through economic means but once again that was not the policy of HMG at all.

Here you have it as American policy to encourage rebellion, arm rebels, and recognize a rebel state. It couldn't be more radically different and disproportionate to the British position.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on the ability to defend Canada.

Well no, let's grant your premise for a moment that the US can (somehow) secretly arm and organize some 50,000 men and assemble them on or near the border without tipping off the British. Then let us assume these men can successfully all organize and march towards the nearest town and annex it. Unless they capture York or Kingston they don't gain any legitimacy (and these all being American volunteers they have absolutely zero love from the locals). They've captured this town, beaten off a few militia assaults and dig in, next they proclaim a republic and the US recognizes it (which no doubt causes considerable ire in London over this extremely rude tactic).

Now what?

This 50,000 man force cannot capture all of British North America (nor the truly important cities like Halifax or Montreal and Quebec) and not all of these 50,000 men will want to stay on once the going gets tough (they have literally no stake in it) and never mind the original Fenian plans were insane to begin with. Once Britain organizes a force to crush them (and they will) people are going to desert and will be lucky if they aren't lynched by the locals on their way home.

Unless the US seriously wants to risk war over what is obviously a doomed venture (which would have absolutely no majority support amongst the American electorate - we've already had five years of War to unify the country Mr. Lincoln why do we have to go die in a foreign land for a cause we don't believe in?) the adventure would fall apart with the die hard fanatics being crushed in battle and the remainder captured.

The military and political realities are against this adventure being practical, plain and simple.

What I would envision is something truly radical: The American nation under the leadership of Lincoln actually attempts to live up to its creed of freedom and equality on an international level.

Radical and (pardon the bluntness) utterly stupid. Lincoln would have had enough problems keeping the South from descending into Jim Crow laws without attempting to add building an international reputation for meddling on top of it. Not to mention Lincoln was an incredible realist and nothing here smacks of realism.

The US is a nation born of revolution against imperial oppression(1). Britain was attempting to hold in bondage a large part of the world through the use of violence and terrorism(2). Everywhere there was rebellion (Ireland, Jamaica, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa)(3). America did have a civil war in which rebels were brought into line but these were not colonized peoples but the descendants of the original makers of the country's governmental compact. Perhaps there is a sentimental remembrance of something like the "good old days" that some Southern Americans harbor when they imagine slaves were held but well treated, recipients of a generous paternalism. All of these nations are independent now(4).

(1) That's cute.

(2) While British imperialism was not exactly sunshine and roses they weren't exactly holding their empire together through strength of arms. The Canadians wanted to be governed by Britain (excepting the French whom Britain had little use for) and the other 'white dominions' weren't exactly rearing to rebel and none were ever hot beds of anti-imperial sentiment (excepting Ireland but that's really a special case with a long history). I'll give you that those non-whites under British rule weren't exactly lucky, but Britain didn't really go out of her way to mistreat them either.

(3) Yes there was rebellion and the US had done a piss poor job of supporting any ones that they could have out of realpolitik and general apathy for ages. Nothing really going to change that.

(4) I think you're effectively trying to manufacture a sentiment which doesn't and never has existed in the American psyche except among a small group of radicals. Most Americans care what is going on directly around them versus what is happening in India or Ireland. They have real problems right on their doorstep, what's happening in Ireland or New Zealand doesn't really effect them nor could you get the average American in 1866 to really care that much I think.

It is far from realpolitik or perhaps, depending on your viewpoint, closer than anything possibly could be. The reasoning could be that set out in the Montreal Annexation petition which I have cut and pasted from BROS, pg. 20.

Most of the argument for annexation is along economic lines, but this is interesting:

In place of war and the alarms of war with a neighbor, there would be peace and amity between this country and the United States, Disagreements between the United States and her chief, if not only rival among nations, would not make the soil of Canada the sanguinary arena of their disputes, as, under our existing relations, must necessarily be the case. That such is the unenviable condition of our state of dependence upon Great Britain, is known to the whole world, and how far it may conduce to keep prudent capitalists from making investments in the country, or wealthy settlers from selecting a foredoomed battle-field for the home of themselves and their children, it needs no reasoning on our part to elucidate.

While an interesting footnote in Canadian history (from 1849, well before your POD), the important thing to remember is that this document gained no traction politically in Canada at large and the reasons for signing the document had disappeared by the 1850s while rebellion among the Francophones in BNA was seen as a losing proposition (not in the least because of the lack of US support) and a political solution was seen as acceptable and preferable.


Active enforcement of the Monroe doctrine, a push of a sometime hostile power from the region through proxies is hardly unimaginable.

Well considering the US didn't apply the Monroe doctrine to BNA or Great Britain once in its history, I find that hard to swallow, and what does attempting to push the British from North America gain them exactly? Not very much.
 
Lacking any reason for Lincoln and Seward to be so rabidly antagonistic to Britain and flying in the face of practical political goals does torpedo any attempt at plausibility so there is that yes.

I'll accept that there were grain shortages but once again point out that America couldn't afford to not ship grain to them (see the War of 1812 for the delicious irony of how dependent US business was on GB which continued well into the 1890s before both the perception and reality changed).



Once again though I must point out that this couldn't be more radically different from what HMG did in the ACW. There you had the government being strictly neutral (merely sending out offers to mediate the conflict) and not even extending the meanest level of support to the Confederacy in any practical way. Yes private citizens and companies in GB did support the rebels through economic means but once again that was not the policy of HMG at all.

Here you have it as American policy to encourage rebellion, arm rebels, and recognize a rebel state. It couldn't be more radically different and disproportionate to the British position.



Well no, let's grant your premise for a moment that the US can (somehow) secretly arm and organize some 50,000 men and assemble them on or near the border without tipping off the British. Then let us assume these men can successfully all organize and march towards the nearest town and annex it. Unless they capture York or Kingston they don't gain any legitimacy (and these all being American volunteers they have absolutely zero love from the locals). They've captured this town, beaten off a few militia assaults and dig in, next they proclaim a republic and the US recognizes it (which no doubt causes considerable ire in London over this extremely rude tactic).

Now what?

This 50,000 man force cannot capture all of British North America (nor the truly important cities like Halifax or Montreal and Quebec) and not all of these 50,000 men will want to stay on once the going gets tough (they have literally no stake in it) and never mind the original Fenian plans were insane to begin with. Once Britain organizes a force to crush them (and they will) people are going to desert and will be lucky if they aren't lynched by the locals on their way home.

Unless the US seriously wants to risk war over what is obviously a doomed venture (which would have absolutely no majority support amongst the American electorate - we've already had five years of War to unify the country Mr. Lincoln why do we have to go die in a foreign land for a cause we don't believe in?) the adventure would fall apart with the die hard fanatics being crushed in battle and the remainder captured.

The military and political realities are against this adventure being practical, plain and simple.



Radical and (pardon the bluntness) utterly stupid. Lincoln would have had enough problems keeping the South from descending into Jim Crow laws without attempting to add building an international reputation for meddling on top of it. Not to mention Lincoln was an incredible realist and nothing here smacks of realism.



(1) That's cute.

(2) While British imperialism was not exactly sunshine and roses they weren't exactly holding their empire together through strength of arms. The Canadians wanted to be governed by Britain (excepting the French whom Britain had little use for) and the other 'white dominions' weren't exactly rearing to rebel and none were ever hot beds of anti-imperial sentiment (excepting Ireland but that's really a special case with a long history). I'll give you that those non-whites under British rule weren't exactly lucky, but Britain didn't really go out of her way to mistreat them either.

(3) Yes there was rebellion and the US had done a piss poor job of supporting any ones that they could have out of realpolitik and general apathy for ages. Nothing really going to change that.

(4) I think you're effectively trying to manufacture a sentiment which doesn't and never has existed in the American psyche except among a small group of radicals. Most Americans care what is going on directly around them versus what is happening in India or Ireland. They have real problems right on their doorstep, what's happening in Ireland or New Zealand doesn't really effect them nor could you get the average American in 1866 to really care that much I think.



While an interesting footnote in Canadian history (from 1849, well before your POD), the important thing to remember is that this document gained no traction politically in Canada at large and the reasons for signing the document had disappeared by the 1850s while rebellion among the Francophones in BNA was seen as a losing proposition (not in the least because of the lack of US support) and a political solution was seen as acceptable and preferable.




Well considering the US didn't apply the Monroe doctrine to BNA or Great Britain once in its history, I find that hard to swallow, and what does attempting to push the British from North America gain them exactly? Not very much.

Oh well, ok, I'll just be honest: I think it would be funny to have long armed Lincoln punch Queen Victoria in the snout, just for tradition's sake.
 
The British could respond by naming some of the more aggressive tribes of American Indians as belligerents and supply them with modern arms.
 
That would not be enforcing the Monroe Doctrine, that would be throwing the Monroe Doctrine away.

I think that there is an argument that once a colony declares its independence and no foreign troops are on the colony's soil, a reassertion of control would be equivalent to new colonization. Note that in the actual text the US acknowledges the independence of former colonies and states it will not tolerate interfere with them.

I have doubt that some clever lawyer could have put it in terms that were palatable to the American people.
 
Limiting myself to the events of 1856-1857, I'd say that more than 100,000 indians (british-leaning sources) or several millions (indian sources) might somewhat object.

Why limit yourself? Boston, South Carolina, Jamaica... Everywhere the Empire existed rebellion had to be put down by force of arms and generally with great brutality. But there was vengeance at Cowpens, was there not?
 
Getting the country in the 1860s to go to war over a bunch of Irish Catholics would be quite a trick. I don't know that much about the period but I think the best you'd be able to do is use them as a pretext.

There's Canada. And it's sitting right there, so far from London, ready for a land grab. Lincoln has been enfeebled because of his injuries and if they play their cards right, a small group of rich industrialists can egg on the Fenians to create a major crisis that will cause the British Empire to overreact.

If you can get the British army charging over the border after an armed band of Irish miscreants, who knows? You could get your war. The hatred for England was already there. I have no idea if this is even remotely feasible but it's about as possible as a revolution-exporting Abraham Lincoln.
 
Update on Development:

I have found that my subject is so vast that to do it well I am going to have to deal with the two POD's in different works. For now, I am more focused on what may have been different in regards to reconstruction if L had survived assassination and Seward escaped unharmed from the attempt.

The story is told primarily through the experiences of the Wilsmith family of Taylor County, Georgia, a location I chose because it was the site of early peach plantations, the home of General John B. Gordon and some interesting characters who justified slavery from the pulpit and with secular arguments. There is some family conflict with the basic issue being that the patriarch of the family has sired two boys by a slave woman who one of two white children helps escape just before the outbreak of war. This young man goes on to work with Seward and L to determine the best policy for reconstruction and serves as an unwitting spy.

I have started outlining but am not ready to post a full outline.

For now, I am posting my reading list which has now come to 21 books, some of which are true bears. I will give myself credit for effort.

Please let me know any recommendations you may have for the subject matter of my novel.

And feedback on this question that I have yet to research is appreciated:

How did plantation owners and their families deal with the reality of slave children who were in fact children of the slave owner? Denial? A reality that cannot be broached? Imagine yourself as a brother, sister or father of of one these children. Now this is a moral, historical and psychological dilemma!

Without further ado, here is my reading list:

Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement
Phillip W. Magness, Sebastian N. Page

A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War
Amanda Foreman

Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War-An Alternate History
Peter G. Tsouras

Troublous Times in Canada A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870
John A. (John Alexander) MacDonald

A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril-An Alternate History
Peter G. Tsouras

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Doris Kearns Goodwin

Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man
Walter Stahr

Lincoln on Race and Slavery
Gates Jr., Henry Louis

"What Shall We Do with the Negro?": Lincoln, White Racism, and Civil War America
Paul D. Escott

Spies of the Civil War: The History of Espionage In the Civil War
Howard Brinkley

The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
Douglas R. Egerton

Fenians were Dreadful Men: The 1867 Rising in Ireland
Padraig Ó Concubhair

Turning Back the Fenians: New Brunswick’s Last Colonial Campaign (New Brunswick Military Heritage Series)
Robert Dallison

Assassination of Lincoln: a History of the Great Conspiracy
Thomas Mealey Harris

Pinkerton's War: The Civil War's Greatest Spy and the Birth of the U.S. Secret Service
Jay Bonansinga

Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama
Stephen Fox

The Irish General: Thomas Francis Meagher
Paul R. Wylie

Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War)
Mitchell Snay

THE MOST COMPLETE COLLECTION OF WRITTEN WORKS & SPEECHES BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS [Newly Illustrated]
Frederick Douglass

American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
Michael W. Kauffman

(In progress)
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Perennial Classics)
Eric Foner

Great Britain and the American Civil War
by Ephraim Douglass Adams

Actual text flows forth occasionally. I understand how writers spend years producing books. One year after I decided to write, I am at about thirty pages now. The research continues to include the books listed below with about ten to fifteen more on the list before I set myself to writing without further inquiry but for clarification. Recommendations are appreciated.

James A. Michener's Writer's Handbook
[Now this was a master novelist.]

Lincoln: A Novel
Gore Vidal

Reminisces of the Civil War
General John B. Gordon

Toxic Parents: Overcoming their Hurtful Legacy
Susan Forward
[I included this book in my list in order to develop some idea of how children who have grown up in situations like what I described above would react. Certainly, my characters operate in a time before the development of modern psychology but I would submit that they were no less human or necessarily less sensitive than people of today.]

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and The Making of American Capitalism
Edward E. Baptiste
[An in depth and well researched analysis of the effect of slavery on the development of the American economy and international trade.]
 
Well, maybe. Lincoln suggested moving the entire population of freedmen into Texas at point. I considered Montana but found that the land was fairly barren, suitable for grazing only mostly. The first homestead taken out there was after the war by a few years. The deal was 640 acres or so with a promise that the land be irrigated. So many ranchers came out, grazed their herds for three years for free then gave up the claim. I rejected Montana bc the logistics were just too difficult with no railroad at the time. There is also no suggestion of Montana or other territories that I have found in the historical record.

Florida is in the southeast and has a tropical climate. Keep in mind that the 19th century mindset was that the slaves should be kept in a place of "suitable climate." This meant a tropical place, similar to Africa.

Something else I am considering as the time line plays out is the possibility of an ideologically energized population of freedmen. Freed from the bonds of slavery, would there not have arisen, especially if cultivated by charismatic leaders, a sense that slavery must be extinguished wherever it existed? And it existed just 90 miles south in Cuba. Jamaican freedmen were subjected to economic oppression and apartheid and were brutally suppressed when they rebelled. What effect would the existence of a Free State in Florida have on the debate, highly favored by Grant, about annexation of Santo Domingo?


Note that there was plenty of open land west of the Mississippi River. Nebraska and Kansas, Colorado and Texas had large expanses of open space. Given that the freedmen disproportionately came from an agricultural background, this may be the easiest option if the idea is to allow blacks political capital.

Note that redistributing land in the south was the other option (40 acres and a mule) but that would mean the constant headache of southern reprisals at the gentry losing their patrimonies.

Really, the OTL was the worst possible option.
 
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