Implications of Having not Fought the Revolutionary War
Implications of Having not Fought the Revolutionary War
Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hand together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” There could have been many possible outcomes to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. One of the ways that it could have been avoided was if it was never fought at all, therefore Franklin would not have needed to worry about being killed. So what if the American Revolution was never fought?
One of the ways the War could have been avoided is if the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, allowed a member of each colony to serve on the Parliament as active members, or even voting observers. This would defeat “taxation without representation,” and ultimately diffuse the situation. Another plus of representation would be that Townshend Acts, the tax on goods the colonists imported from England, would never have occurred. A downside of Parliament representation in Parliament would be that those colonists would not be taken seriously and would be considered outsiders.
If the War was never fought, the British would have had control over a large part of North America into the 1800s. The Spanish would have controlled the central and southwestern regions (having acquiring the Louisiana Purchase), and the Russians would control the western portion of North America- from "Oregon" to Alaska.
As you look at American History in this time period, and with the North American History being primarily British, the British’s problems would become the Colony’s problems. A major war for Britain in the early 1800s was the Napoleonic Wars. It would spill over into North America. As Napoleon would invade and conquer Spain, British troops would invade and capture Spanish New Orleans, as well as other points on the western bank of the Mississippi River. This would effectively begin the North American Napoleonic War. The British would eventually gain all of Spanish North America, and the skillful negotiations of the British Prime Minister with the Russian Empire would prevent a war over Oregon Territory, and would be purchased by Britain.
By the end of the Napoleonic War, the British Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs would recommend to the Prime Minister that he should begin to let the North American Colonies go, and prepare them for independence. The Prime Minister...