Could or should Northern Democrat states in the US end up in a union with Canada?

Ultra-republicanism, guns. The impending climate catastrophe. Would the likes of Maine, Vermont, Illinois, and Washington join Canada? Even New England and NYC?

Just interested in Americans views on this.

Reply 1

dnan

No this is ridiculous, if you disagree within your nation, half don't just decide to leave and just another country.

Reply 2

oldercon1953

The Constitution prohibits any state from claiming it's independence.
I'd happily support any compromise that would allow Wash. D.C. to join Canada. I'd even throw in Vermont.

Reply 3

pol pot noodles

Original post by oldercon1953

The Constitution prohibits any state from claiming it's independence.
I'd happily support any compromise that would allow Wash. D.C. to join Canada. I'd even throw in Vermont.

Only unilaterally. If it followed a procedure like Scotland did, legislating a referendum with the other states agreeing to abide by the result, there'd be nothing to stop it happening.*

Reply 4

Wōden

Original post by SaucissonSecCy

You do realise that Vermont has the most leniant gun laws in the entire US? (And they also have among the lowest gun and violent crime rates too, but we will just keep quiet about that, wouldn't want to poke holes in the whole "guns are the spawn of Satan and lead to total chaos" narrative).

Reply 5

SaucissonSecCy

Original post by Wōden

Mate, I don't care, I have no emotional interest in this, unlike the thing I've been embroiled in the last few weeks. I don't claim to have extensive knowledge of the US either. I'm curious as to whether re-configurations of the States and merging with Canada will happen.

Reply 6

Camilli

There was actually a lot of interest in this 202 years ago, at least in Massachusetts ( which still governed Maine). At that time, there was a faction of Federalists--conservative, Anglophile-- that was upset about the war being fought very badly vs. Britain.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 7

Wōden

Original post by SaucissonSecCy

Fair enough. And no. I don't think any states will ever merge with Canada. I do however think invidudual states succeeding from the US and becoming independent nations, will become increasingly probable in the upcoming years. My money is on Texas being the first.

Reply 8

oldercon1953

Original post by pol pot noodles

Only unilaterally. If it followed a procedure like Scotland did, legislating a referendum with the other states agreeing to abide by the result, there'd be nothing to stop it happening.*

There is no Constitutional way in which a state can leave the Union. The Constitution itself would stop them. If you've taken an oath to defend the Constitution you would not participate in any vote or referendum whose aim is to divide the Union. We are, " one nation, under God, indivisible,..."

Preserving the Union was the only legal justification Lincoln had for taking up arms against the South. Even if every person in the North would have agreed to the Souths wishes, Lincoln would still have had a Constitutional duty to preserve the Union.

Reply 9

Jibola240

Hypothetically New England could easily be part of Canada. Ideologically similar(very liberal laws compared to much of the nation), culture gap isn't too big - they love hockey there and some ties with Quebec. Could work. Only New Hampshire would be a bit of an issue. Washington and Oregon could maybe work as well as they are pretty identical to BC, although there might be issue with gun nuts on the eastern parts of Oregon and Washington. Others you've mentioned(Illinois, NYC) wouldn't work. NYC is too important for the US and Illinois is too conservative outside Chicago.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 10

Camilli

Of course, you could look at it the other way and conclude that parts of Canada could provide attractive lebensraum for Americans. That was a small part of the rationale for declaring war in 1812.

Reply 11

jeremy1988

The Northeastern States have the strongest sense of themselves being Americans. I mean, there are so many monuments to the Revolutionary War and the founding fathers. If anything, the South would want to leave again. There's still a lot of resentment over Reconstruction, and a lot of General Sherman's tactics would be considered war crimes today. People in a lot of the rest of the world call all Americans Yankees or Yanks, but within the US itself, only people from the North call themselves Yankees. A lot of regional organizations like SACS have their boundaries as roughly the former Confederacy. Voting patterns also bear out a similar division.

Now, as far as joining Canada, I think California, Oregon, and Washington might be more open to that idea because they haven't been part of the US as long as other parts, and they're very, very left-wing on gun control and other social issues, even more so than the Northeast.

If things got really bad to the point that we were willing to break up, assuming that it was decided to allow states to leave without a war, I can imagine the South leaving first, and then the far-west bloc of California/Oregon/Washington joining Canada seeking stability. That would mean Canada gets pretty much all the high-tech companies and Hollywood, while the South gets a lot of the Agriculture and Manufacturing base.

I have no idea what the Midwest would do. I think everything up to around Illinois would stay in the Union. But everything north of Texas, west of Iowa, and east of California would be a toss up. It's not clear who would get those, and they might struggle to figure out their identity. They could do anything from forming a fourth country, to just joining one of the blocks closest to them for convenience.