What would be the effect of US support in the Canadian 1837 rebellions?

If America had intervened on the side of the Canadians [Upper or Lower] in 1837, what would be the results? Would America really be able to push the rebellion into a success story? Or would this be a failure for the Americans?
 
If America had intervened on the side of the Canadians [Upper or Lower] in 1837, what would be the results? Would America really be able to push the rebellion into a success story? Or would this be a failure for the Americans?

Intervene in what way? The American military of this period was pretty tiny, so direct military intervention would be a bad idea (not enough to make a difference, but enough to seriously annoy the British). Covert support (in the form of supplying arms etc.) would be more plausible, although I'm not sure it would be enough for the rebels to win.

Down the line, if the US Civil War breaks out ITTL, you can probably expect the British to openly and actively support the Confederacy, as a way of getting revenge for Canada/neutering the big threatening state that keeps trying to invade British territory.
 
Intervene in what way? The American military of this period was pretty tiny, so direct military intervention would be a bad idea (not enough to make a difference, but enough to seriously annoy the British). Covert support (in the form of supplying arms etc.) would be more plausible, although I'm not sure it would be enough for the rebels to win.

Down the line, if the US Civil War breaks out ITTL, you can probably expect the British to openly and actively support the Confederacy, as a way of getting revenge for Canada/neutering the big threatening state that keeps trying to invade British territory.

Hmm, I wonder if the French would additionally join in. Even without them, do you think that even British support could lead to a CSA victory?
 
The RN raze lots of US coastal towns to ash and rubble, send their Marines in to burn Washington DC again...
 
Hmm, I wonder if the French would additionally join in. Even without them, do you think that even British support could lead to a CSA victory?

IOTL Napoleon III was, as I recall, quite ready to join in if he got British co-operation, so assuming that doesn't change TTL you could well see French intervention as well. As for the issue of a CSA victory, British intervention on their behalf would mean that the Union would have to find more troops (to defend their northern border from invasion and their coasts from RN raiding) with fewer resources (since they'd have difficulty raising money by exporting stuff, or importing large quantities of materiel), whilst having the opposite effects on the CSA. Whilst I've always held that nothing is impossible with the right butterflies, I think a US victory in such a TL would be significantly less likely than it was IOTL.
 
Butterflies aside, the British are never going to ally with a slave-holding society like the Confederates when they've spent years destroying the slave trade.
 
Butterflies aside, the British are never going to ally with a slave-holding society like the Confederates when they've spent years destroying the slave trade.
The British had no problems with investing in slave states, see Brazil for example. Besides, it wasn't slavery that was on Gladstone's mind when subtlety supporting the CSA through an offer of "mediation". It was the chance to divide the US that appealed to him. Luckily, the majority in parliament was against it and would never have let him get further then that.
 
Butterflies aside, the British are never going to ally with a slave-holding society like the Confederates when they've spent years destroying the slave trade.

Nations ally with all sorts of crazy nations when their national security is at stake. For example, the US and USSR were allies during the Second World War, despite the fact that their respective ideologies and self-images were almost wholly opposite.
 
Top