US after losing territory in War of 1812.

It's the "going for" New England part that is ASB. The British do not have some sort of massive conscripted army, and weren't interested in the war enough to embark on a years-long campaign of taking cities to try and force the annexation of some significant territory anyway.

Umm, not even playing on the high unpopularity the War of 1812 had in New England, or even at least co-opting the Federalist Party?

Not to mention that if you're trying to win a war, invading the regions that are the least involved and which hold no special strategic significance doesn't make much sense, unless you want your army bogged down in fighting they could have otherwise avoided entirely.

Like I said - the War was very unpopular in New England, as it was basically leading the region towards economic suicide. Someone could have taken advantage of it - if not outright seceding on its own, then at least bedding with the former enemy, as demonstrated by Block Island, or at least breaking the economic blockade.
 
Umm, not even playing on the high unpopularity the War of 1812 had in New England, or even at least co-opting the Federalist Party?



Like I said - the War was very unpopular in New England, as it was basically leading the region towards economic suicide. Someone could have taken advantage of it - if not outright seceding on its own, then at least bedding with the former enemy, as demonstrated by Block Island, or at least breaking the economic blockade.

Are you referring to the Hartford Convention? Because there has been research done showing that the Convention might have been more about keeping the militia under local control and regional differences than any serious attempt at seceding (Hickey 1977). Any time the British showed up in New England, the militia would be there to greet them with open arms - Block Island looks like a case of the British walking in and taking over (at least from Wikipedia's article :eek:). Maybe if the war drags on for a few more years, is more brutal, and New England is ignored completely by the rest of the country does it secede. Going back to the British - even if they're technically not a colony - is going to leave a bad taste in their mouth to say the least, however. It could be done, but it would need a lot of earlier POD's.
 
Umm, not even playing on the high unpopularity the War of 1812 had in New England, or even at least co-opting the Federalist Party?

Military invasion would be a poor way to play on that.

Like I said - the War was very unpopular in New England, as it was basically leading the region towards economic suicide. Someone could have taken advantage of it - if not outright seceding on its own, then at least bedding with the former enemy, as demonstrated by Block Island, or at least breaking the economic blockade.

As HurrahPraga points out, secession was unlikely enough, and suggesting it was seen as treasonous by many even within New England. Actually doing it, and then joining forces with the British against the other states is implausible with this POD. Anyone suggesting it would be denounced as a secret Tory. (there was enough of that thrown at war opponents OTL) The population would never go along with it, there would probably be literal murders in the streets.

In order for something like this to happen you need a much more radical POD. An inter-state conflict ending with Federal troops killing New Englanders might do the trick. This has to happen before the war starts, though.
 
Nitpick: There weren't really any un-settled, un-populated parts of Northern New York at the time of the War of 1812.

Really, taking territory from an already incorporated state is complicated, especially this early in US history. Maine is probably the only serious possibility, and it's going to have serious political ramifications even then, although those are probably going to be limited to an earlier, more sour divorce of the province from Massachusetts and entry into the Union as a state.

You need a really, really clear and total victory over the US to do more. Imagine what it would take to get France to cede Brittany to someone.
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http://www.statemapsonline.com/images/maps/new-york/New-York-State-Population-Density-Map.jpg

Draw a line from Watertown across, and most of northern New York is STILL unpopulated.

Also, Britain wouldn't take all of Maine, just bits of it.
 
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http://www.statemapsonline.com/images/maps/new-york/New-York-State-Population-Density-Map.jpg

Draw a line from Watertown across, and most of northern New York is STILL unpopulated.

Also, Britain wouldn't take all of Maine, just bits of it.

WRT New York: A 2000 map is unreliable when it comes to talking about population density in 1812.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/exploration_1800.jpg

This is from 1820, but if you look up the towns that make up the area from the New Hampshire border to Lake Ontario, most of them were founded prior to 1812 and many of them already had significant populations by the 1810 census. There is a wide open area centered on modern Hamilton County, an area that actually stayed very under settled for more than a century and to this day is very thinly populated, but it's not contiguous with the Canadian border. The interceding area had 30,000 some people living in it already.

WRT Maine: Yeah, that's what I mean. The overall point I have here is that any state's population that lost territory would instantly lose any kind of trust in the national government and the other states would be much more wary, too, unless the national government subsequently commits to getting all of the lost territory back whole-heartedly. Maine is the exception because it was an under-represented appendage of Massachusetts at the time. In a scenario where Maine loses territory in the War of 1812, it merely loses all trust in the government in Boston, leading to an earlier, less amiable split between Massachusetts and the Maine province.
 
Anything but one is ASB. Even scenario one is setting up for a third Anglo-American war sometime down the line.


Agreed that scenarios 2-4 are extremely, extremely unlikely, since Britain wasn't looking to reconquer anything and had long ago decided that the American colonies were more trouble than they were worth.

I also agree that scenario 1 makes war likely, though it could just be a continual low level brushfire war with American settlers attempting to move into the region. Which also makes its unlikely, IMHO, because the British aren't stupid.
 
Only Option A is plausible, unless one is looking for the Union to dissolve in its entirety, and even those gains are going to be tough to hold.
 
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