"Manifest Destiny always included Canada."
That is what Leeja Miller explains in this rather fascinating history of the tensions between the United States and Canada.
Indeed, Americans always seemed to view Canada as a de facto part of the United States. Many of them seemed to feel that it was just a matter of time.
Thomas Jefferson dreamed of an American Empire of Liberty which stretched from the northern tip of Alaska and the northern fringes of Canada to the southern tip of South America in Argentina and Chile. These were to be self-governing republics within the greater American empire, the "Empire of Liberty."
Nor was Jefferson alone in believing that we Americans had the right to determine what happened elsewhere in the Americas, especially in Canada. As Leeja Miller explains, Benjamin Franklin strongly believed that Canada, by rights, belonged to the United States. So much did he believe it that he participated in an American invasion of Canada, occupying the seat of government in Montreal for a relatively short duration during the American Revolutionary War of Independence. The invasion was short-lived, as it wound up being a disaster for the American cause.
Still, Canada always had to be concerned about ambitious American expansionists greedily eying their country, with a desire to incorporate it to the growing American empire. Because while that specific American invasion of Canada in the early days of the American Revolutionary War of Independence wound up being a failure and a fiasco, Americans never really gave up on the idea of absorbing Canada into the Union. Clearly, we presently have a president who never forgot it, and had repeatedly referred to Canada as the "51st state."
Take a look. it is truly fascinating and illuminating:
Manifest Destiny Includes Canada, Too by Leeja Miller
https://youtu.be/7UVJJI2ebcY?si=kUG3C1ir2mE8QRxG
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