[MonctonRad]

What North America would have looked like if the Annexation Act of 1866 had passed the US Congress



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_Bill_of_1866

The bill would have authorized the President of the United States to, subject to the agreement of the governments of the British provinces:

“publish by proclamation that, from the date thereof, the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia, with limits and rights as by the act defined, are constituted and admitted as States and Territories of the United States of America.”

Several financial incentives were offered to the British Colonies to help get them on board including:

Purchase of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s lands for $10,000,000.
Take over provincial debts which amounted to $85,700,000.
Give an annual subsidy of $1,646,000 to the new states.
Connect Canada with the Maritimes by rail and spend $50,000,000 to complete and improve the colonial canal system.

If the bill had passed, it would have added 4 new states and 3 new territories to the United States.

States:

- New Brunswick: Modern-day New Brunswick
- Nova Scotia: Modern-day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
- Canada East: Modern-day Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador
- Canada West: Modern-day Ontario excluding part of NW Ontario.

Territories:

- Selkirk Territory: Modern-day Manitoba, and parts of modern-day northwestern Ontario, Nunavut, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories
- Saskatchewan Territory: Modern-day Alberta, and parts of modern-day Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and Yukon.
- Columbia Territory: The part of modern-day British Columbia west of the Rocky Mountains.

The Annexation Bill of 1866 was introduced by Massachusetts Congressman Nathaniel Prentice Banks and was intended to appeal to Irish Americans who supported the Fenian Movement, which was extremely hostile to Britain.

The Fenian Raids on Canada, this particular bill, and the presence of 600,000 battle hardened Union Army veterans (3x the size of the entire British Army) all proved to be strong incentives to completing the process towards Canadian Confederation during the London Conference of 1866, into 1867.