The Pub Discussion Board

Neitherspace wrote:

i'm not 100% sure of where theses islands are r

Greetings

NW Coast, Washigton, just north of Seattle at least according to my trusty Rand McNally...

Neitherspace wrote:

so the map of canada and the us could have ended up looking diffrent

Greetings

Well the same sort of issues is why Minnesota has that odd little "bump" at the top - The NW Angle by Lake of the Woods  A chunk of MN that can only be reached overland by driving through Canada. 

The Treaty of Paris, concluded between the United States and Great Britain at the end of the American Revolutionary War, stated that the boundary between U.S. territory and the British possessions to the north would run "…through the Lake of the Woods to the most northwesternmost point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi…" The parties did not suspect that the source of the Mississippi, Lake Itasca (then unknown to European explorers), was south of that point, and that thus the entire Mississippi was too far south to be intersected by a line running west from the Lake of the Woods. A factor in this mistake was the use of the Mitchell Map during the treaty negotiations; that map showed the Mississippi extending far to the north. In the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the error was corrected by having the boundary run due south from the northwest point of the lake to the 49th parallel and then westward along it. When a survey team led by David Thompson finally located the northwesternmost point of the lake and surveyed this north-south line, it was found to intersect other bays of the lake and therefore cut off a portion of U.S. territory, now known as the Northwest Angle

Given the rough terrain and primitive methods and equipment its probably lucky we weren't battling constantly over borders

Enjoy the journey

Corvis wrote:

To narrow things down a bit more. 

Who do you suppose would win if the USA and UK had gone to war in 1859.  Would the Democratic Party still have split during the election of 1860 and nominated two candidates?  Could the American Civil War have been postponed or perhaps prevented all together? 

I'm sure there are other possibilities, but that's about all I can think of right now.

Interesting questions

Given that Dred Scott was in 1846 the fault line of slave/free were already clear.   Canada had several communities that strongly suported the southern war effort. look up 'copperheads'  I'm guessing trade in textiles made the alliance.

Given the question, If England and US went to war, I'm guesing western coast ie Oregon Washington down to spanish holding of California would have been captured by England.  The south might very well have acted early to break away using the english attack as their signal

The North East ie Maine, New York, etc would be vulnerable on land and sea with North squeezed between English Canada and Southern Confederacy Washigton DC might fal to coordinated sea/land attack from two fronts

France might have come to aid of northern states but likely not.  I'm guessing 2 year campaign then a treaty ceding south to confederacy at least to texas and maine, oregon and washigton to england with spain perhaps consolidating southwest and california Nevada in the confusion

End result is likely the US ending up with western border the Mississippi River

Intersting questions fun to play with what ifs

Last edited by WarLord (2008-10-28 12:42:16)

Greetings

As I was looking at some electoral projection sites I thought it might help your plot line

The Vote Master

Election Projections

One of each, Democrat and Republican but I didn't post them for the partisan political value, its about those pretty maps.  Look over the deep red and blue states on both sites and the very clearly delineated regional differences even more stark on the 2000 and 2004 maps.

Those should give you a reasonable basis for a starting point in any story about "balkanization" or a  seperatist breakup or changes to American interanl boundaries.     

Enjoy the journey

WarLord