Movements for the annexation of Canada to the United States

From the independence of the United States until today, various movements within Canada have campaigned in favour of U.S. annexation of parts of or all of Canada. Historical studies have focused on numerous small-scale movements which are helpful in comparisons of Canadian and American politics.

In the early years of the United States, many American political figures were in favour of invading and annexing Canada, and even pre-approved the admission of the Province of Quebec (previously known as Canada) to the U.S. in the Articles of Confederation in 1777. During the American Revolutionary War, the Americans invaded the Saint Lawrence River Valley, where the British repelled the effort. Americans also fought the British and allied Native Americans in Ohio Country - what was then the southwest of Quebec; at the end of the war, the land south of the Great Lakes was ceded to the newly independent United States and became the Northwest Territory. In the War of 1812, the Americans again invaded Canada to avenge the British impressment of American sailors on the high seas and support for Indigenous peoples' resisting American westward expansion, but this was later repulsed, owning much to the reliance on the ill-equipped state militia rather than a standing army.^[1][2]

During and after the American Civil War, several American politicians called for the annexation of Canada because of American anger over Britain's material support for the Confederacy, which one historian asserts lengthened the war by two years, mostly inflicted by British blockade runners delivering arms supplies.^[3][4] Confederate agents operating in Canada received support from a large portion of Canadians throughout the war, allowing the British colony to be used as a base to attack the U.S., such as the St. Albans Raid.^[5] In the Alabama Claims in 1872, the U.S. was compensated $15.5 million in war reparations by the British for damages caused only by British-built Confederate commerce raiders, as part of the 1871 Treaty of Washington. Historian Joseph Levitt notes:

Since the Treaty of Washington in 1871, when it first de facto recognized the new Dominion of Canada, the United States has never suggested or promoted an annexationist movement in Canada. No serious force has appeared on the American political scene that aimed to persuade or coerce Canadians into joining the United States. And, in fact, no serious initiative for any move in this direction has come from the Canadian side either.^[6]

Surveys have suggested that a minority of Canadians would potentially support annexation, ranging from as many as 20 percent in a survey by Léger Marketing in 2001^[7] to as few as seven percent in another survey by the same company in 2004.^[8]

No elected member of any federal or provincial assembly in Canada, nor any mainstream politician in the United States, openly advocates annexation. Two minor provincial political parties in Canada promoted the concept in the 1980s, but neither attracted widespread support or attention.^{[citation needed]}