What if US won the War of 1812?

And conquered Canada, absorbing it fully into Union circa 1830? Political/Social/Economic ramifications?
 
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The anti-slavey faction in the US would get a boost, considering that Canada is where many slaves fled to via the underground railroad. The US wold be stronger but relations with Britain would be poorer for a time.
 
Why in the world would anyone in the U.S. government circa 1812 want to conquer Quebec (Lower Canada, the place the U.S. actually bordered) with its oodles of angry Catholics that the U.S. was openly against existing as a religious group?
 
Won what, though? The point of the Americans campaign in 1812 was not to take land or garner territory it was to get the British Empire from stopping the practice of impressing American citizens into Royal Navy service; which they did.
 
Technically, Brits won War of 1812
No, they literally did not. It was status quo ante bellum. Neither of us won.
guys, we've had this argument on here endless times over the years, and it always devolves into a morass of 'war goals', 'who attacked first', and 'what about New Orleans". My own opinion is that the US and UK fought to a draw, the US won the peace, and the Native Americans absolutely lost...
 
Why in the world would anyone in the U.S. government circa 1812 want to conquer Quebec (Lower Canada, the place the U.S. actually bordered) with its oodles of angry Catholics that the U.S. was openly against existing as a religious group?

The US had no problem annexing Northern Mexico in 1848 despite the presence of Catholics in California, just as it had no problem buying Louisiana from Spain despite the heavily Catholic presence in New Orleans. Controlling the Saint Lawrence River would have major economic benefits for the US. These would become very apparent once canals make it much easier to get ships and cargo from the North Atlantic down to New Orleans.
 
annexing Canada would actually lead to a huge regional crisis for the US. The south was deadest against taking Canada, since it would add a bunch of free states to the Union. The NE was against invading Canada and pissing off the UK, since it would deeply hurt their shipping businesses. Only the western states were in favor of it, since they were the ones suffering from NA raiding...
 

Lusitania

Donor
The US had no problem annexing Northern Mexico in 1848 despite the presence of Catholics in California, just as it had no problem buying Louisiana from Spain despite the heavily Catholic presence in New Orleans. Controlling the Saint Lawrence River would have major economic benefits for the US. These would become very apparent once canals make it much easier to get ships and cargo from the North Atlantic down to New Orleans.
Yes but while US could absorb few ten thousands of French Catholics or Spanish Catholics we have had few heated arguments on the fact the Quebec had over 200,000 Catholics. How would anti-catholic US handle that?
 

Lusitania

Donor
I presume you refer to that time when they repulsed the New York State Militia, yes? Which... did get mentioned when I was in school, must've changed.
If not changed seems to be ignored. The whole fact issue of war of 1812 was Britain was distracted by Napoleon. It did not want to fight and all its actions was to pressure the US to negotiate. That included the attack on Washington.
 

Lusitania

Donor
We spent maybe a day on it and it was mainly so we could introduce Andrew Jackson and other actually important topics.

Actually that is a little short sided. For the war of 1812 provided very important lesson to America that it needed to change its military model away from militia and have proper military academy.
 
No per Canadian history, Canadians kicked the Americans ass back towards the border. A fact that US history books fail to mention.
the only real fact about the War of 1812 that seems to be mentioned in school back in my day was that Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner during the conflict... no real mention of just how the war ran or even who won it...
 
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