Sault Ste. Marie would be larger, and have more development. The Great Lakes in general would be better developed and more populated.
Alternate Development of the United States
- Thread starter godefrois
- Start date
Although I must admit I'm not exactly unbiased either, I would encourage you to reconsider. There's just no reason to let Illinois get so far north only to cut them off just a few miles south of the lake. The least you could do is let them reach up to, say, 41° 45' N or 41° 50' N, which would still give Wisconsin the lion's share of Chicago while letting Illinois have a bit of coastline, maybe nudge Indiana's northwestern border a little further east while you're at it, let the it follow the Wabash a bit further north and east before turning into a straight vertical line.
Sault Ste Marie I think could definitely be larger, for the reasons you suggest. Winnipeg would most likely be smaller, because IOTL it benefited greatly from being on the only major land route between east and west Canada and ITTL that route isn't going to exist, because as previously mentioned with no border there's no reason to build a railroad across the Canadian shield when traffic from Montreal or Toronto to Calgary or Vancouver can just go south through Chicago instead.
OTL Canadian Maritimes would be more industrialized, remaining a part of New England. Boston would probably be far less Irish and Catholic, with most of the migration going to Quebec and Montreal. Perhaps PEI would be recaptured by the British to salvage their Naval presence in America after the loss of Halifax in the ARW, especially considering PEI and New Brunswick were basically completely unpopulated at the time.
I can see New Brunswick becoming a state like Maine did to boost the number of anti-slavery Senators during the Civil War. I also think that the states might look pretty much the same in most areas, considering that 1. they are pretty good shapes now, for the most part, and 2. the federal government had way less power back then, and couldn't dictate that much to settlers, even when it wanted to. So unless the settlement patterns of this US are changed, which I don't think will happen only with the US having Canada, then the states can be largely the same.
Also Chicago would probably be bigger, as would Seattle.
I can see New Brunswick becoming a state like Maine did to boost the number of anti-slavery Senators during the Civil War. I also think that the states might look pretty much the same in most areas, considering that 1. they are pretty good shapes now, for the most part, and 2. the federal government had way less power back then, and couldn't dictate that much to settlers, even when it wanted to. So unless the settlement patterns of this US are changed, which I don't think will happen only with the US having Canada, then the states can be largely the same.
Also Chicago would probably be bigger, as would Seattle.
I don't see why they'd keep PEI if they've ceded Quebec and Nova Scotia, it isn't worth very much on its own and the US would want them out at all costs. If they hold on to anything it's going to be Newfoundland, which is significantly further away from the populated regions of the US (making British control of the island simultaneously less threatening to the US and much more difficult for the Continental Navy to meaningfully contest) and has both an existing British military presence and a valuable fishing industry.
Although I agree that by and large you're more likely than not to get something resembling OTL state lines in any given case, the federal government very much had the power to dictate state lines, because it was up to Congress to organize territories and admit states and if settlers presented them with borders they didn't like they could and did say no. Witness the fate of settler-organized polities like Jefferson Territory or the State of Deseret, whose government-recognized successors (Colorado and Utah) ended up with far less territory than what was originally proposed.
Sorry for late replies, I've been out of town.
Also, @Thisisnotausername, though I agree that a Canadian Shield railroad is likely improbable, could you possibly foresee a railroad or railroads being built that North in order to speculate/sell off the land similar to the American West? A route could be built through the Canadian Shield to reach the Canadian Prairies, which could possibly be lucrative for a railroad company to sell off, eh?
I also thought that New Brunswick becoming a state alongside with Maine would be beneficial, as it allows Abolitionists to simultaneously bolster the anti-slavery effort while appealing to the Canadiens, thus continuing the mutual tolerance that each group had for each other.
Lastly, I was doing some digging through old AH threads on mobile, and found various threads referring to GRAND Canal, and the NAWAPA project, both proposed projects for providing water to the Arid West. As much as the plan is retrospectively stupid and destructive, perhaps this United States is more interested in doing so. Just providing more food for discussion.
Thank you! This will certainly make the Great Lakes region more interesting, with a large number of Canadian cities accompanying it.
Also, @Thisisnotausername, though I agree that a Canadian Shield railroad is likely improbable, could you possibly foresee a railroad or railroads being built that North in order to speculate/sell off the land similar to the American West? A route could be built through the Canadian Shield to reach the Canadian Prairies, which could possibly be lucrative for a railroad company to sell off, eh?
Montreal could possibly contend with New York via population metrics. The states of "Greater" New England would probably collaborate with each similar to how they did in real life. Prince Edward Island could have a larger population, considering it has potential for massive diversification of its economy, especially for its region and because its restrictive land owning practices would never come to pass due to being under the United States.
I also thought that New Brunswick becoming a state alongside with Maine would be beneficial, as it allows Abolitionists to simultaneously bolster the anti-slavery effort while appealing to the Canadiens, thus continuing the mutual tolerance that each group had for each other.
Lastly, I was doing some digging through old AH threads on mobile, and found various threads referring to GRAND Canal, and the NAWAPA project, both proposed projects for providing water to the Arid West. As much as the plan is retrospectively stupid and destructive, perhaps this United States is more interested in doing so. Just providing more food for discussion.
It's a railroad that would have to go a long way to get anywhere useful, and the land it would be going through is not good for agriculture. I guess you could see some entrepreneur trying it (either as a sincere if foolish venture or as a flat-out scam), but the real money there is where it is and was IOTL, in mining and forestry, and if you do get a railroad across the Canadian shield it's most likely going to be one that grew to service the mines and logging camps, a la the railroads of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, whose terrain and economy are similar to those of northern Ontario.
Possibly. Not having to get a separate Canadian government to go along with it would definitely help, but the environmental and cost concerns remain considerable.
So the current changes in terms of development:
- Montreal an extension to Greater New England, similar to how New York is an extension.
- Cities like Winnipeg, Regina, etc. are smaller in terms of population, or don't exist.
- Great Lakes cities such as Sault Sainte Marie, Thunder Bay, Duluth, Green Bay etc. are generally larger, being serviced by an earlier Saint Lawrence Canal.
- Still debating if Chicago or Milwaukee should be larger. Settlers would be able to reach Milwaukee first, via the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence Canal, and there is generally more traffic in the Great Lakes from Canada, making it and Green Bay, more veritable ports. While Chicago's geography gives it a connection to the Mississippi. Overall the metropolitan area between Chicago and Milwaukee will be larger, with Milwaukee being officially apart of the Chicago metropolitan area (or vice versa).
- Cities like Boston and New York will have less of an Irish population.
- The Canadian Prairies will be populated similar to the American interior West, all states (so far; pre-redrawing) are 'populously' possible, having similar populations to Wyoming, South Dakota, Idaho, etc.
- The State of Athabasca will be demoted to a territory.
- The Texas Pacific railroad will be built as a concession to the Southerners, going from Texas to San Diego, making Los Angeles less populous and San Diego more populous.
- In terms of the Pacific West, Vancouver will be leading city, with its deep sea harbor. However, the Cascadia region will have a larger population as well, making some sort of Super Salish Sea population center.
- Possibly, in terms of political development, Quebec may become the nucleus of the Democratic Party (or at least the "Rational Northern Democrats") post-Civil War.
- Louisiana may have a more pronounced French populace, although I could also see the French living in Louisiana moving to Quebec or Acadia/New Brunswick in the future.
It's only been two weeks, you're fine.
I'm curious about TTL's Whigs. IOTL, they arose as a result of the Democratic-Republican Party splitting between between Andrew Jackson's allies and opponents, but ITTL the anti-Jacksonians already have a home in the form of the surviving Federalist Party, so what's their deal? Are they TTL's equivalent of the Know-Nothings or what?
TTLs Whigs split from the Federalists due to a multitude of reasons, including "irreconcilable" differences between their various leaders, the Federalists' ineptitude to combat slavery outside of opposing slave states, and foreign and economic policy. These Whigs fashioned themselves as the Liberals, who were adverse to the [Democratic-] Republicans, but also disliked the Federalist leadership. Before the Civil War, the Whigs largely targeted Northern farmers and the likes. After the Civil War, the Whigs began to cooperate more with the Federalists, creating a sort of coalition similar to Liberal-National Coalition of Australia; in the modern era, the Whigs and Federalists caucus with each other in the House of Representatives.
Couple more thoughts on these:
- Some of these are a bit convergent, aren't they? Like Lincoln dying (presumably of assassination) right after winning a second term in 1864 and there being a four-term president in the 1930s who dies in office. Nothing wrong with a bit of parallelism of course, but given that you seem to eschew all OTL historical personages after Lincoln it's kind of surprising to see you hew so closely to OTL patterns otherwise.
- Although I must ask, have you eschewed all OTL historical figures post-Lincoln? Although most of these presidents seem to be fictitious, some of them have the names of OTL famous people who could conceivably have been president during the relevant timeframe (ex. John Glenn, Jimmy Stewart), but because they're surrounded by original characters it's not clear to me whether they're ITTL counterparts of those people or if they just have the same names by coincidence. (There is a related issue with Ulysses Morgan and John DuPont, where it isn't obvious whether they are ATL members of the famous families of those names or just happen to share surnames with them.) There's nothing wrong with either ignoring the butterfly effect to have recognizable historical figures even long after the POD or accepting the butterfly effect and not having any OTL historical figures turn up who were born significantly after the POD, but I think it is probably best to commit to one or the other.
- I guess you could have a perpetual Federalist-Whig coalition that is technically not one party, a la Australia's LNC or Germany's CDU/CSU, but I don't really understand why the divide between the two persists past the Civil War. What are their differing coalitions, both historically and in the present day? What keeps the two apart after slavery is done and dusted?
I'd like to point out that in OTL, the Canadian Prairies have the aptly named Empty North beat in terms of population because their soil is much better for farming. Without an international border between the two regions, it's very likely Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas would be even emptier than in OTL due to potential settlers eschewing them in favor of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.
Related to my previous comment: Vancouver may have become the western terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway because it was the best option north of the 49° parallel, but the railroad had a much harder time crossing the mountains to reach it than the Northern Pacific Railway had doing the same to reach Seattle. In the absence of the Canadian-American border, the main trunk of an alternate Northern Pacific Railway would likely still start in Minneapolis and end in Seattle, but go through Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary, in that order, before reaching Spokane.
The point of the NPR was to provide a rail connection from the eastern US to the Pacific. Why divert that line hundreds of miles north, especially given that, if the NPR and the settlement of the Prairies are both proceeding more or less per their OTL timetables, the whole region is sparsely populated frontier land? Routing a rail link between Minneapolis and Seattle through Edmonton would be a dubious enough proposition today, when Edmonton is a major city, nevermind in 1870 when it was just a remote outpost in the wilderness.
Quoting my previous comment:
Which means railroading the railway into following the OTL route wouldn't make much sense. Is there room for improving the route I've proposed? Certainly, but it'd still be a more northerly one than in OTL.
But the principal purpose of the Northern Pacific is not to pass through as much good farmland as possible, it is to connect the Great Lakes to the Puget Sound. In order to accomplish that end as cheaply and effectively as possible, you will want to take as short and direct a path as you can manage. Whether the land on that route is worse for farming than some other land that you could get to if you made the route much longer doesn't matter, because building rail connections to good farmland is secondary to the goal of building a rail connection to the Pacific, and is accordingly a task that should be handled by branch lines or other railroads, not the main line.
What I meant is that, by virtue of better farmland attracting more settlers, you'd have more people up in the Canadian Prairies than south of the 49th lobbying for the NPR to pass through their town.