American Republicanism at a Crossroads: Canadian "Twin Stars," Annexation, and Continental Order (1837–42)

Abstract

abstract:This article discusses the Canadian republicans' goals during their armed uprising against the British Empire in 1837–38, and analyzes the political and geopolitical North American order in the late 1830s. Whereas the Canadian Rebellion is usually segmented into multiple isolated and short-lived uprisings by historians, this article proposes a more connected North American history that reconsiders the Canadian republicans' ambitions and contributes to a better understanding of the pro-British and conservative American policy during the Jacksonian period. When they rebelled, the republicans, or "patriots," of Lower and Upper Canada envisioned forming sovereign states within the American union. However, although many Americans supported an annexation of the two Canadian colonies, U.S. President Martin Van Buren, the Congress, and Wall Street actively collaborated with the British to crush the attempted revolution. In sharp contrast with the War of Independence and the War of 1812, the United States opposed Canadian republicanism in the late 1830s in order to maintain an Anglo-American continental order. In reaction to this alliance, the revolutionaries began to conceive a new republican experiment, distinct from the "corrupted" American republic, and to imagine a new nation—the "Twin Stars" Republic of the two Canadas.