What if the Americans Had Established Six Nations, Rather than One?
By Robert Higgs • Tuesday August 16, 2011 3:17 PM PDT • 19 Comments
In the standard U.S. history course in high schools and universities, students are usually taught that until the Spanish-American War, the United States had followed for the most part the advice of Washington and Jefferson to steer clear of foreign entanglements. Americans had devoted themselves overwhelmingly to building their civilization here at home, whereas from 1898 onward, they began to “look outward” and to embrace the “large policy” of national greatness and foreign empire favored by such leading figures as Henry Cabot Lodge, John Hay, and Theodore Roosevelt. This way of dividing U.S. history into two epochs—before and after the onset of overseas imperialism—is fundamentally misleading.
Americans were empire builders from the get-go. From the moment the British colonists set foot on the North American continent, they resolved to engage in what the historians rather romantically and unreflectively call “westward movement,” which some nineteenth-century Americans characterized as the realization of their “manifest destiny.” This movement was itself an expression of imperialism, and some Americans, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were not ashamed to speak forthrightly of an American empire that would develop naturally as the (white) population grew and moved across the continent.
As my parenthetical qualification in the preceding sentence suggests, however, this vision disregarded one rather large fact: the continent across which these white people longed to expand was already inhabited by native Americans whose forebears had settled it more or less thickly over the previous millennia. The whites dealt with this difficulty by hook and by crook, doing whatever seemed expedient at the time—killing the Indians, driving them farther and farther to the west, buying their land, stealing their land, making treaties subsequently to be broken—to get the land they imagined to be theirs by divine design.
At the end of the American War of Independence, the Treaty of Paris established a western boundary for the new nation at the Mississippi River. Little by little, the Americans added huge chunks to the U.S. territory by means of an unconstitutional purchase of French claims to Louisiana (Jefferson conveniently set aside his belief in strict construction of the Constitution), an offer that Spain dared not refuse (for Florida), a settlement of disputed claims with Great Britain (to get the Oregon Country), and wars of aggression against Mexico (to snatch the southwest). By this continental imperialism, the United States pushed its western edge to the Pacific Ocean and its northern and southern boundaries deep in areas previously claimed by Mexico and Great Britain, as the map shows.
Imagine, however, that history had taken a different turn, in particular, that each of the major territories incorporated into the United States (not counting Alaska and Hawaii) had become instead an independent country. Each of them, except perhaps Florida, would have been fairly large as nation-states go. Each would have contained a vast diversity of natural resources, fertile lands for agricultural development, and long coastlines from which they could have engaged in cheap, waterborne international commerce. In short, each of these territories would have been completely viable as an independent country.
If history had taken this shape, how might the six nations of central North America have developed? Would they have gone to war with one another, perhaps shifting or blotting out their original borders, or might their leaders have seen the advantage of embracing continental free trade and friendly relations, perhaps even unobstructed flows of labor along the lines of the modern European Union? We can only conjecture answers to these questions.
One thing seems fairly sure, however: no one of these nations would have been as likely to develop into the global hegemon that the United States of America is today. And this outcome, one may well suppose, would have been a godsend for the people of other parts of the world because, however much today’s Americans enjoy whooping it up about being Number 1 and about “kicking ass” around the world with their far-flung military forces, those on the receiving end of this kicking do not appreciate it any more than the native Americans appreciated it back in the days when American imperialism was confined for the most part to North America.
Tags: American History, Imperialism, Nationalism, Peace, The State, War 
Thanks for this very thought provoking blog.
Perhaps there’s room out there for a book to be written on the history of the American empire.
Eric | Aug 17, 2011 | Reply
Dr. Higgs,
I’m curious to know how you define empire in America’s case.
It seems like Merriam-Webster’s 2b definition fits okay.
empire – (1): a major political unity having territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; esp: one having an emperor or chief of state (2): the territory of such a political unit b: something held to resemble a political empire; esp: an extensive territory or enterprise under a single domination or control
The problem I have with the use of the world empire is that I think of empires as having colonies and I don’t see America as having any colonies. Do you view America as having colonies?
Scott G | Aug 17, 2011 | Reply
Dear Scott,
It’s not a stretch to think of the U.S. territories before they were organized into “self-governing” states of the Union as colonies. Today, the U.S. global empire is not one of formal colonies, but of various supposedly independent states subject to great economic, military, and political influence by the USA, including in many cases the presence of U.S. military bases. The current U.S. empire is a matter of de facto hegemony, not of formal colonies.
Robert Higgs | Aug 17, 2011 | Reply
Has the United States of America actually done anything good for the world, or more precisely other countries, in your opinion? Or has it just been a force for evil?
RFN | Aug 17, 2011 | Reply
The whold point of the Spanish-American War of 1898 was expansion. In 1897 “The Interest of America in Sea Power” by A. T. Mahan, professor of history at the Naval War College amounted to a blueprint for the war. Mahan was prudent enough not to explain in print why the United States needed to take the Philippines away from Spain, but the need to control the Caribbean, have an all-American canal through Panama or Nicaragua, a chain of islands across the Pacific, and a powerful new navy are laid out in full. Mahan was invited to lunch at the White House more than once by President Theodore Roosevelt, who was Mahan’s most devoted disciple.
Awhile back I saw a reprint of a Union Pacific Railroad poster from 1898 inviting tourists to take the train to California and then a steamer to Honolulu and “see our new colonies.” Another revealing bit of history is the victory column in San Francisco’s Union Square. Read the inscriptions on the base and decide whether there was anything imperialistic about the S-A War. Or read up on how Colombia wouldn’t cede sovreignty over a coast-to-coast strip to the United States and shortly thereafter the US Navy prevented the Colombian government from landing troops to put down a revolt in Panama province, which thereby became independent and was glad to give the United States whatever we wanted.
This was formal imperialism. There is also the informal sort. Until Castro got power, the president of Cuba served at the United States’ poleasure. Marine General Smedley Butler wrote, after his retirement, that he was ashamed to have spent the greater part of his military career making Central America safe for the United Fruit Company. Recall that the United States saved Guatamala from Communism in 1954 when the Guatamalan government threatened to seize United Fruit Co. property be eminent domain. Can you imagine that United Fruit stock was the basis of the family fortune enjoyed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother Alan, who ran the CIA?
This could go on and on, but perhaps the point has been made.
Reg Stocking | Aug 17, 2011 | Reply
Thank you. I’m beginning to understand your point of view on this.
I have to translate the word hegemony into my own words. I find it helpful to think of government as a parent company initially entrusted with protecting life, liberty and private property. Many people assume that only this type of parent company is capable of providing justice and other services. The world is composed of many of these parent companies who each have monopoly over certain services within their borders. One parent company has grown much more powerful than the rest and it has taken on a role of attempting to protect and control other parent companies.
There are two ways to diminish the power of these parent companies. One is to provide new places for people to go to (free zones) and the other is to teach people that the parent companies should not be entrusted with providing justice in the first place.
Scott G | Aug 17, 2011 | Reply
“One thing seems fairly sure, however: no one of these nations would have been as likely to develop into the global hegemon that the United States of America is today.”
I’m not sure that’s supportable from history. Consider for example the (former) empires of Britain, Spain, and even tiny Portugal. None of them are naturally large countries, but they were quite imperially expansive.
Stephen | Aug 18, 2011 | Reply
“One is to provide new places for people to go to (free zones)”
Check out the Seasteading Institute. They’re just in the early organizational stages so far, but their stated purpose is exactly this, to provide a new frontier beyond current political boundaries for political, economic, and social innovation. http://seasteading.org/
Stephen | Aug 18, 2011 | Reply
Dear Dr. Higgs,
Thought provoking as always. In my own fantasies along these lines I sometimes try to imagine an even more fragmented alternative reality — one in which Tecumsah succeeded in establishing an Indian federation in the Ohio River valley and the South succeeded in seceding from the Union.
For me, at least, such fantasies are appealing because the reality of America’s history is so painful to contemplate.
For most of my life I saw America as a sort of well-intentioned bull in a china shop. Sure, we did terrible things to innocent civilians in far off places, but that was just because our leaders were ignorant and inept; at least they meant well. For some reason, however, the invasion of Libya by the Noble-prize-winner-in-chief — without a shred of constitutional or strategic justification — was the last straw for me. I now see that America isn’t so much a bull as a bully. And we always have been. First we rolled across the continent displacing or exterminating the Indians and Mexicans who stood in our way. Since then we’ve used one pretext after another to justify an endless series of military adventures around the globe. I no longer believe that America’s political leaders mean well; I think they are venal at best, and in many cases just plain evil. Nevertheless, for a life-long patriot it’s hard to come to terms with that reality.
Jon Guze | Aug 18, 2011 | Reply
Iraq, Kuwait, Guam, Philippines, Samoa, Puerto Rico, etc., etc.
Mattheus von Guttenberg | Aug 18, 2011 | Reply
Dr. Higgs -
You might want to read through the first 15 or so of the Federalist Papers. Hamilton in particular discusses a plan which was apparently fairly popular at the time, in which the U.S. would be divided into three or four confederacies. Needless to say, he didn’t think that was a good idea: he predicted that such a system would be unstable (it would quickly end in wars among the confederacies) and the group would fall under the dominance of European powers, among other problems.
In the context of the U.S. role in world affairs, I think your view is probably not correct. This is based on the observation that the overall level of violence has declined rather sharply since the U.S. ascended to military dominance following WWII. It is natural for a dominant power to seek stability above all else, and U.S. policy has worked to promote that goal, at times at the expense of secondary goals like promoting freedom and prosperity.
When considering the impact of U.S. influence, it’s important to consider the unseen — such as wars never fought because the would-be aggressors back down in the face of overwhelming U.S. power — in addition to the wars that are actually fought.
If memory serves, the wars that occurred between 1947 and 2010 have almost all been at or beyond the region of U.S. dominance, and with the exceptions of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Grenada, they started with invasions by nations unfriendly to the U.S.
Chris Koresko | Aug 18, 2011 | Reply
Interesting “what ifs” to contemplate.
It was probably inevitable that Louisiana and Florida would have eventually been absorbed by the original USA. If they had not been bought, they would have eventually been conquered. Neither France nor Spain had the resources to defend them.
It is by no means inevitable that Texas would have been. They were an independent republic, and it is not difficult to imagine counterfactuals which would have left them that way. It is more likely in that case that the Texas Republic would have absorbed at least some, but perhaps not all, of the Mexican territory to the west.
As for Oregon, I have long felt that the main reason why the Brits were willing to deal with us on such favorable terms is that they were constantly worrying about the security of their eastern Canadian colonies. We had invaded them twice, and they knew full well we would try to do so again if they ever got into another war with us. Nor were they really in a position to populate the Oregon territory and defend it aggressively – it was arguably the territory which was most remote (by ship) from the British Isles of all their far-flung territories. The Brits really were not in a position to hang tough with us both in the east and in the west. The only way I could see Oregon not becoming US territory is if the US tore itself apart by the 1820s (which it did come close to doing). That might have pretty much killed off western expansion for a decade or more, and given the Brits time to populate Oregon with their own people and integrate it more securely into their empire. The US would probably not have been able to successfully absorb a territory with a population that wanted to remain British rather than become American. If that had happened, I think it likely in consequence that this larger British North America would have become several dominions rather than a unified Canada. (As it is, Newfoundland remained a separate dominion until 1949, so this is not a far-fetched counterfactual at all.)
If the US had been blocked by Texas and British Oregon, and then broken up in the 1820s by Southern and/or New England secession (both were seriously discussed at the time), then the map of North America would indeed look very different today. In fact, it might have ended up looking more than a little bit like Joel Garreau’s Nine Nations of North America. Our political boundaries might have evolved to more closely match our regional cultural boundaries. Global history, and particularly the interaction of North America with it, would have been very different, of course, in ways we can scarcely imagine.
Stefan Stackhouse | Aug 19, 2011 | Reply
This historiographic problem is one endemic to ‘court historians’ and their unquestioning defense of actions of the State. It is the entrenched nationalistic bias of inevitability regarding imperial expansion across the North American continent. This bias is ingrained in decades of innumerable historical accounts of the political actors who implimented the ‘manifest destiny’ policy. These court historian considered these imperial actions as the only policy options possible. There was no possible alternative to a consolidated national state entity stretching ‘from sea to shinning sea.’ The notion of numerous decentralized federal republics in a loose continental confederacy was not a permissible option. If the Founding generation had listened more to Old Republicans John Taylor of Caroline and John Randolph of Roanoke than to Nationalists Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall, we might have had a much different historical outcome. But then, even strict constuctionists Taylor and Randolph caved on Jefferson’s seductive purchase of the Louisiana Territory.
Charles Burris | Aug 20, 2011 | Reply
The theft of Hawaii in 1894 would certainly fit an imperial agenda.
I caN see why Hamilton disfavored several confederacies — he had his own monolithic vision for the future. Henry Clay’s “American System” fleshed it out, and Lincoln embraced it wholly.
Novista | Aug 20, 2011 | Reply
I have spoken to and at several American Indian meetings or when American Indians were present and I overtly stated that if I could go back in time I would go with a couple of thousand AK-47′s and a few hundred thousand rounds of ammunition and would teach the indigenous (sp?) Indians how to shoot and no white person would have landed and stolen THEIR heritage!
Possibly, in time, the American Indian would have progressed to the point that he/they could have defended themselves even in the future!
Patriot 2011 | Aug 21, 2011 | Reply
Dear Dr. Higgs:
A great piece as always. In a bit of a departure from your subject, I found it quite interesting to discover on Wikipedia that Benedict XV,in 1920, delivered his motu proprio Bonum Sane, which condemned the move toward world government:
“The advent of a Universal Republic, which is longed for by all the worst elements of disorder, and confidently expected by them, is an idea which is now ripe for execution. From this republic, based on the principles of absolute equality of men and community of possessions, would be banished all national distinctions, nor in it would the authority of the father over his children, or of the public power over the citizens, or of God over human society, be any longer acknowledged. If these ideas are put into practice, there will inevitably follow a reign of unheard-of terror.”
We have great intellectual leaders in the Austrian School of economics. If only we had religious leaders speaking candidly like this today.
bill | Aug 25, 2011 | Reply
The South formed it’s own nation in 1861 and was crushed. I suppose the party line is since “it was all about slavery” anything can be justified. Thus the “just war” theory that says if the cause is good enough let ‘er rip. I never cease to be amazed at how no one but us Southrons seem to be able to connect the dots between the imperialism of Lincoln and the Radical Republicans and the United States of today. If you want to start the period of imperialism in 1898 instead of 1861 just keep on dreaming.
David Ware
david ware | Aug 30, 2011 | Reply