Plausibility Check: Independent Texas and California

Not really. It would already have neighbors with expansionist policies that out populate, out produce, and out finance it from the start. It wouldn't have the American starting advantage of having no real neighbors at all, it wouldn't have the Mexican advantage of starting as a single political unit however shakey, and it would have the huge disadvantages of being small and weak with more land than it can possibly control, let alone guard.

Plus, as I mentioned before the main heart of their economies would be still born. The US, Britain, and Mexico can swamp its markets with goods, they wouldn't enjoy the common-market/cheaper defense of being part either larger nation, the Californian economy would be kicked in the nadgers without the plentiful electricity of Washington, and there's no real resource in this union that isn't more common in the US or Mexico. Short of going into vassalage for another power, I'd give it a decade or three on the far end.

Gold in CA starts something going there. Oil in Texas in the same way. There's the hydroelectrics of the Hoover Dam. The agricultural wealth of the Imperial Valley and the Rio Grande Valley, which have year long growing seasons. There's a chance. It's incredibly shaky, but it's there.

Also, any scenario which sees TX or CA indepedent does so because the US loses its expansionist fervor. Which wasn't much of a fervor, since large sections of the country opposed the acquition of territory detrimental to their own interetests. Politics changes in some way (Jackson is killed at New Orleans, for example), and Manifest Destiny doesn't take hold or abolitionists take a stronger stance.

Britain was perfectly happy to invest in the USA and the USA perfectly happy to take the capital, despite the tarrif wall. If the RoT lacks the tarrif, which it probably would, then Britain might invest more readily there. Lack of the same constitutional restrictions and geography would make transcontinental rail far easier and quicker to build in the RoT than in the USA. If the US fights a Civil War, without which its own internal development will be dampened by more strict federalism, Texas has a decade to develop in blessed neutrality, and attract further immigrants.
 
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I think states of the RoT might tend to fluctuate a bit more, but there would be more of them than the number of US states in the current territory.
I might point out here that Texas is the only state in the US to, after having joined the US and accepted the Constitution, to threaten to invade and annex a neighboring state/federal territory. (This was during the South Carolina Crisis in Jackson's term.)

What does that mean? It means that Texas, from independence to after joining the US, has expansionist urges that far exceeded its grasp. The Republic of Texas-California would be the Republic of Texas with an area called California. And if California didn't like it, that's beside the point.
 
Gold in CA starts something going there.
Gold which ran out rather quickly OTL, and wasn't found till much later. I already mentioned that the US-California border would be much lower than the OTL one, and those gold fields would be an invitation to intrude, not a security. Texas broke off when a bunch of illegal American immigrants ignored the government and settled in search of a profit. Want to bet Texas has similar luck keeping people out?


Oil in Texas in the same way.
Except that oil came into relevance about three quarters of a century later, and the US has other sources of oil to tap before domestic supply can't meet domestic demand. It would eventually make Texas richer, but "eventually" doesn't help "now."
There's the hydroelectrics of the Hoover Dam.
Which was a huge mega-project built with Federal revenues in the 1930s, in land that Texas has no control over vis-avis the US, and whose construction was contrary to the traditional southern-conservative's belief on the government role in the economy. Whether Texas would have control of the land in the first place, have the money and industry to build it, or even have the political movement needed to do so are all open to debate.

The agricultural wealth of the Imperial Valley and the Rio Grande Valley, which have 365 growing seasons.
Whether one or either of those would be in Texas is doubtful. You might remember that Mexico only got out of the area after the Mexican-American War, and that until then Mexican forces were roaming the area despite years of border clashes? Texas doesn't have the strength to beat Mexico any more than Mexico now has the strength to beat the US.

There's a chance. It's incredibly shaky, but it's there.
An egg carton also has the chance to survive a tornado. A militia has a chance to drive off a professional military. "A chance" isn't nothing more than saying "it's physically possible." It's not something to base a judgement from.
 
Gold which ran out rather quickly OTL, and wasn't found till much later. I already mentioned that the US-California border would be much lower than the OTL one, and those gold fields would be an invitation to intrude, not a security. Texas broke off when a bunch of illegal American immigrants ignored the government and settled in search of a profit. Want to bet Texas has similar luck keeping people out?

Sure.

You simply set it up so it's northw orth coming. If all Mexicans who come in are basically third class citizens, problem solved!

Except that oil came into relevance about three quarters of a century later, and the US has other sources of oil to tap before domestic supply can't meet domestic demand. It would eventually make Texas richer, but "eventually" doesn't help "now."

Cotton; cattle, later on. I assume both Texas and California will have very protectionist economies, to help local industry develop.
 
Regarding manifest destiny, first it was thought up at a time where there was no other recognized government west of the Mississippi - the indians were just not thought of. So I would consider it possibile, if not likely, that as long as the US had some sort of access to the Pacific Ocean - even temporarily - that an independent Texas and California would be welcomed as long as they were perceived as republics.
 
Sure.

You simply set it up so it's northw orth coming. If all Mexicans who come in are basically third class citizens, problem solved!
Wrong. Not only are you asking the Texans to encourage Mexicans to come in and settle white man's land (let's just forget about the racism angle), but what about when the Americans from the east coast walk and sail into California once word of gold spreads? It would be impossible to keep them out. Trying to filter immigration when you can't enforce it is a major flaw that saw Texas break away in the first place. The only people who will obey those laws are the law-abiding people (who you want to come), while the people who do come and you can't stop are the ones who are, by definition, prone to breaking the law. The same American settlers who settled in Texas without permission with a copy of the Constitution and DoI in their back pockets are going to be settling the Northern parts of California, and follow the rivers inland. And just like the Texans, they aren't going to feel obliged to obey a weak, poor government.


Cotton; cattle, later on. I assume both Texas and California will have very protectionist economies, to help local industry develop.
Texas isn't a real cotton producer, and would be out produced and underpriced by the USA. And Texas would have the same problem the US had, only compounded: unlike in the US, where despite massive tariffs British goods were still cheaper and better quality than US industry, Texas is going to face Mexican, American AND British goods. And without the already-exploited resources that the colonies started with, such as the lumber that fueled the New England industries or the mines of the Appalachians or the cash and food crop plantations of the South.
 
Texas wouldn't be able to outcompete the south in cotton but would be a useful alternative for the UK, especially if the ACW took a similar form to OTL.

Once the cattle drives get large enough Texas has found a secure financial basis to at least a modest degree.
 
Wrong. Not only are you asking the Texans to encourage Mexicans to come in and settle white man's land (let's just forget about the racism angle)

I'm sure that the irony of this wouldn't be lost on some Texians. Also it should be noted that the original population of the Texan Republic was decidedly mixed between Anglos and Mexicans. There were plenty of Mexicans that died at the Alamo fighting against the tyranny of Santa Ana. These individuals are not forcibly marginalized until after annexation and the influx of new settlers.
 
The best way I think does involve them being in the US and then deciding to leave.
A confederate victory could well give us a independant Texas. The CSA was going to hell and Texas was quite a different place to 'the south', it could break away, most likely with support from other nations.

California...Keep Americans from moving west too much and make Mexico particularly bad early on and get today's situation early. Que: formation of Spanish Californian Republic.
 
Look up "How the West was Weird" it is a timeline that deals with both an independent California.

I think the best POD is the election of 1844. If Clay wins, then no Polk, no war with Mexico, and an independent Texas for at least another 4 years, and probably an independent California. The gold rush may give California the buillion to maintain independence, and the potential of fierce sectionalism in the United States could keep the National Parties (Whigs and Democrats) firmly in the non-expansionist camp.
 
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