Wank America Realistically

Hierosolyma

Banned
What I think is realistic

1. Keeping Cuba
2. Lower California, and possibly some more of NW Mexico
3. A more favorable Americo-Canadian border in the NE

What I think is semi-realistic

1. 54'40" and the Yukon
2. All of Northern Mexico

What I think is ASB

1. All of Mexico
2. All of Canada
3. Greenland and Iceland
4. Central America and the Carribean
 
Don't forget to throw in islands like the Marquesas.

What I think is realistic

1. Keeping Cuba
2. Lower California, and possibly some more of NW Mexico
3. A more favorable Americo-Canadian border in the NE

What I think is semi-realistic

1. 54'40" and the Yukon
2. All of Northern Mexico

"Semi realistic", seriously? Northern Mexico, is possible to absorb even if they'd be treated poorly for a while. There was even a plan to do just that. As for anything Canadian, that just means you need an anti-Anglo foreign policy that manages to keep the US out of wars with the British until the early 20th century. At that point Canada is toast, at least the Prairie Provinces.

What I think is ASB

1. All of Mexico
2. All of Canada
3. Greenland and Iceland
4. Central America and the Carribean

That's not ASB, it's just improbable.

1. It was an OTL plan but the resulting regime would be colonial in nature and need to fight intense resistance.
2. Possible early on assuming France/Spain do better in the American Revolution/Napoleonic Wars. Also possible after the early 20th century assuming anti-Anglo foreign policy. Note that Newfoundland had a movement to join the US.
3. Why? There seriously was a movement to acquire Greenland and its not impossible Denmark sells or is otherwise forced out of there. Iceland I doubt.
4. There is a famous TL here involving an America which was exactly this expansionistic...
 

Hierosolyma

Banned
1. It was an OTL plan but the resulting regime would be colonial in nature and need to fight intense resistance.
2. Possible early on assuming France/Spain do better in the American Revolution/Napoleonic Wars. Also possible after the early 20th century assuming anti-Anglo foreign policy. Note that Newfoundland had a movement to join the US.
3. Why? There seriously was a movement to acquire Greenland and its not impossible Denmark sells or is otherwise forced out of there. Iceland I doubt.
4. There is a famous TL here involving an America which was exactly this expansionistic...

#1 and #4 have the problem that mid-19th-century White Americans didn't want tens of millions of brown Spanish-speakers in the country. That's why "all of Mexico" failed in OTL, and also why we didn't annex Cuba and the Philippines.
 
#1 and #4 have the problem that mid-19th-century White Americans didn't want tens of millions of brown Spanish-speakers in the country. That's why "all of Mexico" failed in OTL, and also why we didn't annex Cuba and the Philippines.

But we did annex the Philippines. No reason you can't do the same with Mexico. Who said anything about treating them equally?
 

Hierosolyma

Banned
But we did annex the Philippines. No reason you can't do the same with Mexico. Who said anything about treating them equally?

We kept them as a colony, but never fully annexed them as states. There were millions more Mexicans than Filipinos, and the Mexicans are literally right on our border. No way that 25 million Americans can subdue 15 million Mexicans and Central Americans in perpetuity.
 
Greenland isn't impossible
Newfoundland
Cuba
Baja California
Maybe parts of Northern Mexico
other caribean islands
Maybe a presence in the azores or canaries doubtful but a slim outside chance.

Other possibilities could be a land connection to Canada. However since Canada are like the good brother you don't live but get to borrow the grill and use the pool when ever you want.. Eh.. Doesn't quite matter..

Phillipines were never really a long term option. Its vast, resource sucking and they wanted to be independent
 
Vice President George Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury Robert Walker, and Secretary of State James Buchanan were all in favor of All Mexico. President Polk according to several contemporary sources and modern research was also likely privately in favor of it as well. More importantly, perhaps, is that a large and growing faction in the Senate, increasingly dominant in the Northern states and having split the South, was also in favor of annexing Mexico:

The Slavery Question and the Movement to Acquire Mexico, 1846-1848 by John D. P. Fuller, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jun., 1934), pp. 31-48
In the Congress which assembled in December, 1847, the question of the acquisition of all Mexico appeared in the open for the first time. Among those who may definitely be numbered with the expansionists were Senators Dickinson and Dix of New York, Hannegan of Indiana, Cass of Michigan, Allen of Ohio, Breese and Douglas, of Illinois, Atchison of Missouri, Foote and Davis of Mississippi, and Houston and Rusk of Texas. The leadership in the fight, against imperialism fell not to the anti-slavery element but to pro-slavery Democrats. On December 15, Calhoun in the Senate and Holmes in the House introduced resolutions opposing the acquisition of Mexico. Other pro-slavery Democrats, Butler of South Carolina, and Meade and Hunter of Virginia, also registered their opposition.
In the Congress which assembled in December, 1847, the question of the acquisition of all Mexico appeared in the open for the first time. Among those who may definitely be numbered with the expansionists were Senators Dickinson and Dix of New York, Hannegan of Indiana, Cass of Michigan, Allen of Ohio, Breese and Douglas, of Illinois, Atchison of Missouri, Foote and Davis of Mississippi, and Houston and Rusk of Texas. The leadership in the fight, against imperialism fell not to the anti-slavery element but to pro-slavery Democrats. On December 15, Calhoun in the Senate and Holmes in the House introduced resolutions opposing the acquisition of Mexico. Other pro-slavery Democrats, Butler of South Carolina, and Meade and Hunter of Virginia, also registered their opposition.

Between October, 1847, and the following February the theme of the story underwent considerable alteration. By the latter date, as noted above, the National Era was advocating the absorption of Mexico, insisting that it would be free territory, and citing along with other evidence, Calhoun's opposition to annexation as proof that the anti-slavery interests had nothing to fear from extensive territorial acquisitions. In other words, the National Era was convinced that if there had been a "pro-slavery conspiracy" to acquire all Mexico, it could not realize its ends even though the whole country were annexed. This conviction seems to have come largely as a result of the propaganda, which was streaming from the northern expansionist press and the opposition of Calhoun.The editor probably reasoned that since Calhoun was opposing absorption the expansionists at the North must be correct. If the main body of the anti-slavery forces could be converted to this point of view, the movement for absorption which was growing rapidly at the time would doubtless become very strong indeed.

Care should be taken not to exaggerate the anti-slavery sentiment for all Mexico. It is evident that some such sentiment did exist, but there was not sufficient time for it to develop to significant proportions. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo had already been signed in Mexico when the National Era took up the cry of all Mexico with or without the Wilmot Proviso. In a short while the war was over and whatever anti-slavery sentiment there was for all Mexico collapsed along with the general expansion movement. Had the war continued several months longer it is not improbable that increasing numbers from the anti-slavery camp would have joined forces with those who were demanding the acquisition of Mexico. Their action would have been based on the assumption that they were undermining the position of the pro slavery forces. It was, not to be expected that those abolitionists, and there were undoubtedly some, who were using the bogey of "extension of slavery" to cover up other reasons for opposition to annexation, would have ever become convinced of the error of their ways. They would hold on to their pet theory to the bitter end.

To summarize briefly what seem to be the conclusions to be drawn from this study, it might be said that the chief support for the absorption of Mexico came from the North and West and from those whose pro-slavery or anti-slavery bias was not a prime consideration. In quarters where the attitude toward slavery was all-important there was, contrary to the accepted view, a "pro-slavery conspiracy" to prevent the acquisition of all Mexico and the beginnings of an "anti-slavery conspiracy" to secure all the territory in the Southwest that happened to be available. Behind both these movements was a belief that expansion would prove injurious to the slavery interest. Had the war continued much longer the two movements, would probably have developed strength and have become more easily discernible. Lack of time for expansionist sentiment to develop was the chief cause of this country's, failure to annex Mexico in 1848. Even as it was, however, there might have been sufficient demand for annexation in February and March, 1848, to have wrecked the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo had it not been for the opposition of pro-slavery Democrats led by Calhoun. Their attitude divided the party committed to expansion in the presence of a unified opposition. Whatever the motives which may be attributed to Calhoun and his friends, the fact remains that those who feel that the absorption of Mexico in 1848 would have meant permanent injury to the best interests of the United States, should be extremely grateful to those slaveholders. To them not a little credit is due for the fact that Mexico is to-day an independent nation.

I'd also include The United States and Mexico, 1847-1848 by Edward G. Bourne in the The American Historical Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Apr., 1900), pp. 491-502 as he largely came to the same conclusions as this aforementioned work did.

The issue of race is also rather overblown, I think, as the situation at the time was far different than currently thought of. The media at the time propagated the idea of romance between American men and Mexican women as a means of assimilating the Mexicans, even going as far as to write poetry on such. These sentiments did not stop at rhetoric, however, as such inter-marriages were actually common in the parts of the Mexican cession that had existing, sufficiently large populations and were, apparently, considered respectable. Essentially, everyone outside of Calhoun's Pro-Slavery faction didn't really care and it was pretty well understood Calhoun's stance was born out of fears of additional free states entering the Union as opposed to his rhetorical concerns of a threat to the WASP ruling elite of the United States.

As far as Mexican sentiment on the issue, the Federalists, one of the two major Pre-War factions in Mexico, were in favor of annexation:

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Winfield Scott also suggested this in his own correspondence:

[34] However, two years later, after the treaty of peace was signed at Guadaloupe on Feb. 2, 1848, and sixteen days later, after he was superceded in the command of the army by Butler, he could write, "Two fifths of the Mexican population, including more than half of the Congress, were desirous of annexation to the US, and, as a stepping stone, wished to make me president ad interim.'"

The United States Army in Mexico City, by Edward S. Wallace (Military Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1949), pp. 158-166) also states a desire for annexation among the well off of Mexico City, and goes into detail about the relationships cultivated between American soldiers and Mexican civilians.
 
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We kept them as a colony, but never fully annexed them as states. There were millions more Mexicans than Filipinos, and the Mexicans are literally right on our border. No way that 25 million Americans can subdue 15 million Mexicans and Central Americans in perpetuity.

Those 15 million Mexicans are fighting a guerilla war. Most of those 25 million Americans aren't. The US will likely still get a lot of immigration, in addition to the natural increase that will be higher than Mexico's. While it's obviously a bad idea, it's not impossible.

As for making the place into states, why is that so important here?
 

Hierosolyma

Banned
Those 15 million Mexicans are fighting a guerilla war. Most of those 25 million Americans aren't. The US will likely still get a lot of immigration, in addition to the natural increase that will be higher than Mexico's. While it's obviously a bad idea, it's not impossible.

As for making the place into states, why is that so important here?

Because if you make it into a state, it's easier to retain it in the long run. There are no large colonies anymore.
 
Those 15 million Mexicans are fighting a guerilla war. Most of those 25 million Americans aren't. The US will likely still get a lot of immigration, in addition to the natural increase that will be higher than Mexico's. While it's obviously a bad idea, it's not impossible.

In addition, Mexico’s population didn’t boom until around the 1930s, much later than the US’s. The power disparity would only serve to grow unless it’s decided to actually invest in Mexican welfare, something I find unlikely unless the government in power is properly integrating Mexico into a core region. And if the government is investing significantly in Mexican welfare, I don’t think a large scale revolt is likely.
 
So we're going with the actual history of the US not sounding like a Wank?
OTL by definition isn't a wank. Wanks are judged by the standards of OTL.

Now to address the point, while a lot of us are zeroing in on the North American continent, why not look further abroad. A more active approach in the Pacific. Keeping Naval Bases in Japan similar to treaty ports post wwii for example. Perhaps an even more active foreign policy in China resulting in land on the coast. That's to say nothing of Europe where OTL you have the Azores Islands actively seeking American Annexation during the late 19th- early 20th century and reaching it's height during wwi. Another wwii example would be Sicily in 1944 with the Party of Reconstruction also seeking American Annexation of the Island. The list of things like that goes on.
 
Canada is not quite ASB but needs a TON of justification.

Mexico is doable, though. Same for bits of the caribbean/central america/philippines.
 
If ya'll don't mind me posting another one...

Seward's Attempt to Annex British Columbia, 1865-1869 by David E. Shi (Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (May, 1978), pp. 217-238):
The Oxford professor, Goldwin Smith, who later emigrated to Canada, advised Seward that Canada "seems likely (unless our statesmen adopt a different policy) to fall into your hands of itself, perhaps before you want it." The London Times echoed Smith's assessment, reporting that Britain would not object if Canadians wished to join the United States, but if a union was promulgated by force, Her Majesty's government would protest. This was a common view of British scholars and politicians, who had little faith in Canada's future and even less regard for her aspirations for dominion.
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Between Russian America and Washington Territory lay the British colony of British Columbia. Until 1858 the area had been an underdeveloped and sparsely populated region, serving primarily as an outpost for the Hudson's Bay Company. In that year, however, the discovery of gold brought an influx of American miners. This rapid growth led to the formation of the Crown Colony of British Columbia. Its boundaries extended from the summit of the Rocky Mountains on the east to the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Georgia on the west, and from the Finlay branch of the Peace River and the Nass River on the north to the 49th parallel on the south. Vancouver Island remained a separate colony until 1866.

British Columbia's rapid growth and prosperity, however, quickly subsided. By 1865 the colony was in a state of decay, a "poor, struggling, bankrupt colony on the edge of things."' As the gold deposits were depleted, the populace began to drift away, leaving less than 10,000 inhabitants in 1866, three-quarters of whom were of British or Canadian origin. Moreover, since the Hudson's Bay Company owned the territory from the head of the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains, the colony remained isolated from the rest of Canada East and West. Consequently, the British Columbians, especially those on Vancouver Island, maintained closer economic and social relations with the western American territories and states than with either Canada or Great Britain.

The belief among many colonists that the Home Office had abandoned them further contributed to their sense of isolation and frustration. During the Civil War, British Columbia alone of the British North American colonies was left undefended. Rear Admiral Joseph Denman informed the Admiralty that the colony did not warrant protection: "I would consider it would be greatly for the interest of England to divest herself of these possessions by any means consistent with honor and with justice to the English settlers." Denman's comments were symptomatic of a general spirit of Little Englandism emerging in Great Britain during the 1860s, a spirit that caused great concern among the colonists in British Columbia.

In such an unstable situation, growing support among the colonists for annexation to the United States represented a logical development. Many were painfully aware of the prosperity and lower taxes prevalent in the neighboring American states. Agitation for annexation began in 1866 and remained a prominent issue for several years. Vancouver Island emerged as the center of support for the movement, particularly the port town of Victoria.

Seward learned of the support in British Columbia for annexation from several sources. In January 1866, he received an extensive report from E. H. Derby, a congressional investigator. Citing the rising discontent among the colonists in British Columbia, Derby suggested that Great Britain cede its Pacific territory to the United States as payment of the Alabama claims:

If Great Britain desires to propitiate this country after all that has occurred, would it not be her true policy to cede to us a portion of her remote territories, valuable to us, but of little value to her? Were she to cede us Vancouver's Island and British Columbia ... might she not easily bring our claims to a peaceful solution...

Seward responded favorably to Derby's suggestion. After sending the report to the Senate for consideration, he began negotiations with Great Britain on the subject.

Discussions concerning the Alabama claims had begun immediately after the Civil War. The main issues were Great Britain's recognition of the Confederacy and her building of Confederate privateers. By 1866 the negotiations had reached an impasse. Seward wanted Britain's policies judged before a neutral arbitration court. Lord Russell refused, arguing that his country's actions were beyond the jurisdiction of any foreign court.

In June 1866, Russell's government fell. As the Conservatives assumed power, conditions appeared favorable for reopening the negotiations. In a lengthy dispatch to the new government, Seward listed the American claims against Great Britain for her part in building the privateers. Lord Stanley, the new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, finally replied in November, professing his willingness to accept arbitration of the American claims, apart from those involving the right of the British government to recognize a state of belligerency. Seward countered in January 1867, stressing that the individual claims represented only a small part of the much greater losses caused by British actions which had prolonged the war. He implied that he was holding Great Britain responsible for indirect damages that could produce enormous claims. Apparently following the plan outlined earlier in Derby's report, Seward hoped to raise the claims high enough to convince British officials to agree to a quid pro quo settlement, ceding British Columbia in exchange for the claims.

For several months prior to this last dispatch, Seward had been receiving additional evidence from British Columbia indicating substantial support in the colony for annexation. Allen Francis, the American consul in Victoria, reported in September 1866 that "the people of Vancouver Island, and of British Columbia, are almost unanimous in their desire for annexation to the United States." He included an article excerpted from the Victoria Evening Telegraph of September 5, 1866, which characterized British Columbia's relations with the United States as being closer "than our relations with any of the colonies." Two weeks later a public meeting in Victoria voted to request Great Britain to permit annexation to the United States.

Without British Columbia, the Trans-Canada won't get built and thus Western Canada will likely remain sparsely populated with one of the mains settler demographics being American ranchers who were a constant concern of Anglo-Canadian authorities in the area, especially given that their only rail connections to the rest of Canada were dependent upon the United States and that many communities likewise looked to their American counterparts for leadership and security. Long term I'd expect everything west of Ontario to be annexed by the United States.
 
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