Irish Emigration

Question:

How much worse off are Americans in terms of individual liberty? Not noticeable on a daily basis.

Would net taxes have been higher for the long haul as part of the Empire? Certainly not if you count tariffs as taxes.

What about democracy in terms of voting without property qualifications. Well, in the UK itself, the suffrage expanded more slowly, but looking at the Dominions, you did have the Australians invent the secret ballot.

Answer:

By comparison with 20th century, and even several 18th century tyrannies, the British colonial regime in North America seems like a cream puff.

As Michael Lind pointed out in an article, the issue at stake in the American revolution was not so much individual liberty as the power of assemblies versus the Westminster parliament.

How much worse would North America have been without US independence?

For some groups, black slaves and Indians, it certainly would have been a bit better. Same goes for white loyalists of course. One estimate claims more loyalists departed the 13 colonies than refugees who left revolutionary France.

How much worse off are Americans in terms of individual liberty? Not noticeable on a daily basis.

Would net taxes have been higher for the long haul as part of the Empire? Certainly not if you count tariffs as taxes.

Economically, would the British authorities truly have been capable of preventing the transfer and propagation of industrial technology (Sam Slater's stuff) from the mother country? It seems doubtful in the long-run. Would the mother country have made that a fighting issue in the 19th century?

Reviewing these basics, the only thing I had left as a benefit, was that with its own soverign foreign policy, the US could and did avoid participation in wars that mattered little to its citizens.

However, the Napoleonic Wars sucked the US into 2 wars anyway, and under the British umbrella we might have saved the effort against the Barbary pirates.

My point on the wars is softened by the fact that the 19th century British Army was a volunteer force, and I don't recall contingents from the Dominions being sent to fight Napoleon, the Russians in Crimea, or even the Boers, or any of the Victorian "small wars". As part of the empire the UK with its North American possessions could have settled WWI more quickly

There probably would have been a war of empancipation against the southern colonies at some point, the northern colonies with mother country assistance probably would have handled it more quickly.

The only drawback I see are that we could not have the protective tariff, and free traders/libertarians don't think that was a good idea anyway. Beyond that, whatever additional protections that occur for Indians mean that by the 21st century somewhat fewer North Americans have had home or land ownership in the background, and would thus be poorer. However, I don't think the Empire could have effectively enforced the Proclamation line, so the Allegheny-Missippi area will be largely filled. Whether British North America absorbs much of Spanish North America is a question mark, but it certainly could happen.

So what's so great about independence?

The important issue was the Quebec Acts which forbid settlement West of the Appalachians. The British intended to take over the Indian Trade from the French after the War and were sending 15,000 additional troops to North America (at North American expense) to keep the British colonials out of the Western Lands.

the whole settlement of Ohio and the Northwest Territory as well as Kentucky, Tennesee (both states before 1800) was to have been prevented by these actions. Perhaps the Louisiana expansion would not have occurred either. The U.S. became strong with Western Expansion which the British were determined to prevent in 1763-1783

seeing as many of us Americans are of Irish decent , I think it would be QUITE different than the US I live in. The Brits would probably still be treating us as 2nd (if not 3rd) class citizens.

Also, the laws in Europe are kooky. Many other Americans came to the US to get away from this nonsense. With Briton controlling America, we may miss out on those waves of immigrants. Why risk your life crossing the ocean when you can immigrate to England and you'll be under the same laws?

Yet thousands _did_ cross to Canada Australia and NZ. (BTW most of the Australia ones went _voluntarily_ not as convicts)

Yep, and the long-term issue was clear to the major players right from the beginning. Washington wrote a bit about how we'd basically been handed the continent at independence. And it was a fairly popular cause, note the less-than-welcoming treatment generally handed out to surveyors trying to straighten out old claims on the far side of the Appalachians. A lot of folks wanted access to that land who would never have had the chance under the Brits. Indirectly, bringing that land under modern cultivation was also of benefit to Britain herself, as by the mid 19th century she was only covering about 40% of her own need for grain. Shrink the supply without shrinking the demand, and...

As to the protective industrial tariffs, they are good or bad in a political sense depending upon where you stand. This doesn't speak to efficiency, but then I've seen good arguments on the NG to the effect that inland transport costs would have resulted in a certain degree of industrialization regardless. So, if we assume that inland population would grow and with it the demand for manufactures, then any British effort to stifle local industrialization merely subsidizes British manufactures and shipping at the expense of inland North American living standards.

Interesting post. The main problem with expansion is that the British government was historically opposed to westward expansion, but I can't see any particular reason why it would not have tried expanding westwards once the infrastructure for reasonable communications was there. Historically, all of britain's colonies were coastal (on a practical, not claimed, basis), just like the American possessions, until inland road/rail links were developed. So westward expansion was only a matter of time.

France would never have sold Louisiana to Britain. It was just not politicaly thinkable. And given Britain's attitude to colonialism (must make a profit), it is rather unlikely it would be purchased in any case. I can quite easily see it being taken as a prize in the aftermath of the Napoleonics though.

So westward expansion will be delayed, more than likely Utah (theocracy) and Texas (?) will be independant, probably California (independant monarchy?), Hawaii (historically was recognised by Britain anyway), and Alaska (all sorts of butterflies when Britain does not purchase it from Russia).

Comments?

But not nearly as diverse of groups,compared to the USA. Which is part of the reason why the USA is a superpower, and those you listed are not.

If I remember my Robert Hughes, the settlement of Oz by voluntary immigrants depended greatly on the Crown granting land. If British North America is much larger, those land grants will be a short trip across the Atlantic, not `round Cape Horn. The penal colony at Tasmania only started because convicts could no longer be sent to Amerikay. So Oz & NZ are settled even later?

Also, the young USA inspired the French to establish a Republic. "Les Americaines," the French officers who served in the US WOI, here don't, and never pick up the republican cause. The Capets may fall after 1789, but be replaced by a different house in a French "révolution glorieuse." Bonaparte, if he comes to power, is a mere usurper, not a traitor to a republican ideal. United Irishmen, Bolivar & Co. in S America do not necessarily opt for republican form of government.

Would we, today, refer to King Charles of the Maison de Gaulle, of the Fifth Monarchy? (I'm only guessing at the Francais.)

Which ethnic groups (apart from the special case of negro slaves) did the US get that the others did not?

There were ceertainly plenty of Irish in Oz, Germans/Scandinavians settled on both sides of the US-Canadian border, and I understand Canada (probably Australia too) has quite a few East Europeans

Also, to at least some extent, the U.S. revolution was also a question of rulership by document versus rulership by the delegated power of a monarch, although the question of the Constitution did not tend to arise as severely during the revolution as slightly afterwards.

By the twentieth century however, that was a moot question, for NAZI Germany and Stalinist Russia were both constitutional democracies. (with one-party rule and specific party entrance requirements)

Still, back then, the failure of republicanism in America might have resulted in a different French Revolution as well as a slightly altered partition of Poland.

Even so, with the difficulties of transport and communitation in the world in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the issue of representation in the new world would have needed to have been sufficiently addressed to discourage further rebellions, for the war of 1812 in the U.S. was still some time after the American Revolution. This would have had to change the nature of parliment, and enabled policies to be established in the new world that would have been amenable to the population there.

The type of structure of the parliment would have had to have been changed to account for the larger regions that they would be ruling over, something probably as great as if not greater than the later commonwealth. Still, if that structure had enabled Britain to remain until technology had made trade and transport much easier, as occurred throughout the 1800s.

This would not necessarily have been so. Have you ever read about the freeing of the slaves in the British held islands of the Carribean? Happening before the U.S. civil war, it was peacefully done through a gradual process by a act of parliment, which compensated the plantation owners for the emancipation, and freed the slaves in several steps occurring over several years. Such an act in parliment, however, would probably not have so easily passed and been easily executed if it were not simply a matter of a few islands but the much larger domains of the southern states.

The U.S. civil war was one of the first large scale industrial wars, like WWI and WWII. And at least for the U.S., resuluted in a greater loss of life and required a greater relative input of resources than the World Wars, since the south, where the warfare actually occurred, was sort of in the U.S. In the civil war, the north played the same part that the entire U.S. played in WWI and WWII. I would venture to guess that a world of this scenario would see the gradual lament in Britain through the later 19th through 20th century, of greater and greater levels of rulership in parliment coming from overseas, and a more seamless transition between the colonial wars of the 19th century and the world wars of the early 20th century.

Of course it could have been done in stages.

From 1807, when the African slave trade went, GB placed restrictions on the further _growth_ of slavery, even before emancipation. Thus planters in the new colonies acquired in 1815 (Trinidad, Tobago, British Guiana) kept their existing slaves, but no new ones could be imported - even from other parts of the Caribbean.

Applying something like this in the US, slavery will barely exist west of the Mississippi, and be drastically restricted, compared to OTL, in Ala and Miss . So by 1833 the slaveholding 9interest is a good deal weaker

There's the whole opportunity of the Napoleonic Wars (though without a French revolution...), or just a Texas-like case where American settlers flood Louisiana, declare independence from France, and petition Britain for admittance after a bit.

This presumes good colonial-Crown relations, of course.

This last is a very important point, given the Quebec Act. Bobby Sobel had it right, whether he got the details wrong or not. If the Brits had held onto the eastern coast, no doubt an independence effort, probably successful, would have taken root further to the west--perhaps Texas, perhaps Lousiana, perhaps even Oregon. There was already a fight of sorts that took place west of the Appy Mts in 1774 that some folks inaccurately claim as "the first battle of the Revolution."

Uh-huh. Quick question, where did some of the slaves flee when they went north? Also, ever heard of the Metis? How many Inuit in the continental US? Get a clue before you start posting this stuff, please.

I agree, Walter. Diversity is _way_ over-rated. Sheer size and a decent climate, on the other hand...

Bernard, who recalls that most Canadians live in this thin little band right over the border

Indeed, but it's a very diverse selection of people living there :) And I should note that they don't live there because it's close to the United States, that's a conincidence of geography as Keith Morrison has pointed out.

At the risk of going slightly off-topic, that is exactly what huge numbers of Irish _did_ do - possibly more than went to the US - the Irish Sea was easier to cross

The majority of Roman Catholics in England and Wales today are not, as often thought, descended from 16/17C recusants, but from _19C_ Irish immigrants, now Anglicised but retaining their religion.