Evidence Of Manifest Destiny?

Initially Canada came together in response to the challenges of its two central relationships - to bring Quebec in, and keep America out. It now seems as if the dynamic may have reversed itself with signs pointing to integration with the United States and episodically to disintegration with Quebec. There are, for our purposes, three pieces in the North American puzzle - Canada, the United States, and Quebec - and their relationships can be organized in different ways.

Growing integration with the US seems conceivable, with an undetermined end point. Disintegration of Canada after the departure of Quebec is apt to compound this process. The ROC is not likely to be a very cohesive entity and integration in varying degrees and speeds by its parts into the American colossus seems possible.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s Canada unsuccessfully attempted to stabilize its relationship with Quebec by finding a constitutional compromise. This failure prompted observers to consider the ramifications for the three pieces of the North American puzzle. A consensus emerged that the ROC would be an unsturdy political edifice. In America, Canada watchers began in earnest to wonder what this and growing economic integration might mean for the US.

It is natural and healthy for the Americans to enter into such reflections. To what extent is American literature devoted to this reflection informed by US expansionism, often described as 'Manifest Destiny'? As the historical record, which we shall visit, shows there is a tradition in America of wanting to possess all of North America. Is this tendency evident today? It can be argued that in the current climate of continental economic integration and free trade, and of globalization more generally, that it is possible to benefit from a territory without physically controlling it, and perhaps much of the logic of Manifest Destiny has passed. However, Manifest Destiny also involves the belief that the US is a chosen land that had been allotted all of North America by God. And, in this sense perhaps there is a current in American thinking that feels a God given obligation and duty to share the benefits of their system throughout the continent, if not the world. It can be argued there are traces of Manifest Destiny in the recent American literature and also of its philosophical companion the Monroe Doctrine which is a statement of opposition to influence and interference of outside powers in the Americas.

Before moving to an examination of the current US literature lets look briefly at the role and influence of Manifest Destiny in US relations with Canada. American restiveness with European influence in North America can logically be seen to have begun when the US emerged as a separate entity from the British Empire, and soon lead to statements from its early presidents such as the US ought to have "natural dominion in North America". As American historian Gordon T. Stewart writes,

"American expansion was deemed to be in harmony with nature and geography; British and Canadian expansion was viewed as artificially instigated by imperial designs to check American growth. This view of matters, formed in the early national period, remained a basic element of the American mind-set."

This "basic element of the American mind-set" finds its expression in a number of different instances. On July 1, 1867 no congratulatory message came from Washington, rather the announcement of the impending purchase of Alaska. During the 1870s President Ulysses Grant described Canada as "unnatural" and President Rutherford Hayes wrote that "the annexation of Canada is our manifest destiny". In 1903 a settlement was reached in the Alaska boundary dispute but the position of President Theodore Roosevelt had been so bellicose as to leave his Canadian counterpart Wilfred Laurier bitter long into his retirement. And finally, at the time of the 1911 reciprocity agreement between Canada and the United States a number of intemperate statements were made by American politicians which contributed to the failure of the agreement to win support in Canada. A US Senator declared that "Canadian annexation is the logical conclusion of reciprocity with Canada". The Speaker of the House said "we are preparing to annex Canada." And, perhaps most famously, the House Democratic Leader announced that he "looked forward to the time when the American flag will fly over every square foot of British North America up to the North Pole."

Though certainly not the dominant theme it would seem plausible that at least some thin threads of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine might be found in contemporary American reflections on the future of Canada. 'Contemporary' is taken to mean since the mid-1960s; characterized initially by the nascent Quebec separatist movement within the context of the Quiet Revolution, and growing economic integration as embodied in the Canada-US Auto Pact.

Regardless of whether some strands are found, North America is in objective terms becoming more economically integrated. And this is happening heedless of any annexationist tendencies in the US, or whether Quebec separates and the ROC disintegrates. As Canadian historian Jack Granatstein and others point out Canada has been petitioning the US for free trade since 1849, even Sir John A. Macdonald's famous National Policy was forced upon him by the rejection of Free Trade by a US Senate still inflamed by British policy during the recent American Civil War. In 1886, 44 percent of Canadian exports went to the US, in 1982 it was 68 percent. By 2002 economic integration had so accelerated that Canadian exports to the US were 85 percent. The US is a huge cultural and economic engine, a force in and on the world, and no country is more integrated with it, feels its impact more, and the weight of its policies as much as Canada. The prospect of emergent political convergence, if not indeed absorption, is likely only quickened by Quebec separation and possible ROC disintegration.

The future of Canada is so intricately bound in its relationships with Quebec and with America that in examining the US literature for hints of Manifest Destiny it is difficult to separate American reflections based on Quebec separation and ROC disintegration from Canadian economic integration with the US.

This article was prompted by one in Foreign Affairs, "Will Canada Unravel?" by American academic Charles Doran in which he urges the US government to consider the consequences of ROC disintegration after Quebec's departure. He speculates that Washington would increasingly have to "Take on the jobs of peacemaker, adjudicator, rule-maker, and police officer.". While provocative, and on first reading suggestive of an aggressive American position, upon closer examination the article is not bristling with examples of Manifest Destiny. As Doran said when I spoke to him "A Canadian can say it and its not even noticed, an American says it and it's a crisis.". Indeed, once Canadians get beyond the emotional impact of his observations there is some basis for them. The article seems to find its premise in a book by journalist Lansing Lamont, as both works discuss the implications for the US of what they call the worst case situation after the departure of Quebec. The evidence we are looking for is readily found in Lamont's book and to a lesser degree in another by policy analyst Jonathan Lemco. Significant though subtle evidence is also found in a formerly secret US State Department document.

Doran writes "Some analysts assume Canada is a cornucopia of minerals and raw materials that would suddenly open up, to US advantage. Others believe that large new strategic benefits would flow to the US, for example, from adhesion of a coastal province." Doran adds, "But each of these expectations is likely to disappoint.".

Lemco writes: "Some provinces, especially BC, Alberta, and Ontario, might be particularly attractive to US annexationists. Presumably, the US would then enjoy an economic boom and be better able to compete with its economic rivals." and, "Latter-day Manifest Destiny is attractive to many Americans because of the goodwill they feel towards Canada and the vast storehouse of natural resources in Canada that would be most welcome additions to US industrial strength.".

Lamont's book which examines the worst case scenario after Quebec separation which involves ROC disintegration writes:

"The portents of America's absorption of Canada had been there right along. British military power and Confederation had blunted the thrust of 'manifest destiny'. Former US Undersecretary of State, George Ball, had figured it right when he wrote in 1968 that Canada was fighting 'a rearguard action against the inevitable,' and that sooner or later Canada-American free trade would impel the integration of the two nations' economies. [Which] would require an ever greater degree of 'political cohesion', diplomatic puff for the US absorption of Canada."

He goes on to write:

"Just as US authorities would prepare to slam the door on the provinces' requests for statehood, however, a second opinion might land on the President's desk. It would offer an assessment of Canada's natural resources in terms of America's benefit. The memo would start from the premise that Canada is sitting on the world's third richest mineral trove, with the third largest forest area, and one quarter of the planet's fresh surface water. It is not inconceivable that, having digested the memorandum, the President would accede to requests from Alberta and BC to be admitted as states, Manitoba and Saskatchewan might be placed on associate status."

Prominent American newspaper columnists such as William Safire, Peter Brimelow, and Pat Buchanan have also written that Quebec secession and its ramifications would be in the interest of the US, and that America might gain by swallowing parts of a divided Canada.

Much more subtle is the comment by the careful US academic Joseph Jockel who writes - "To be sure, should the day ever come when parts of Canada applied for admission to the Union, it would be very difficult to refuse them entry.". But we are left to speculate as to why "To be sure, it would be very difficult." This guarded style is found in the once secret American State Department report The Quebec Situation: Outlook and Implications. In considering the disintegration of Canada the report states "The US would be faced with new opportunities." that could be "positive" and that "Nevertheless, the present situation also is not to our benefit.". Of interest in the last phrase are the words "nevertheless" and "also" which seem to infer that while the prospect of Canadian disintegration poses problems 'nevertheless' it could 'also' be of benefit to the US.

Canadian Prime Ministers have certainly seen benefits to the US. Sir John A. Macdonald said "Every American statesman covets Canada." In the mid 1940s Mackenzie King was moved to say "The long-range plan of the Americans is to control the continent, to turn Canada into a part of the US." And, upon the election in 1976 of the Parti Québécois, Pierre Trudeau is reported to have been "Anxious and concerned as to whether the Americans would seize the PQ victory as an opportunity to redraw the boundaries of North America.".

There are also echoes in the current US literature of the Monroe Doctrine. In 1823, President James Monroe made a statement which bears his name in which he opposed the influence of European powers in the Americas. Perhaps surprisingly these strands come not from the less scholarly authors but from the senior American academics: Doran and Jockel. Doran writes that "Continuing fragmentation potentially involves powers outside North America in special treaties and coalitions." Jockel writes:

"Clearly, a major goal of a sovereign Quebec's foreign policy would be to pursue close ties with other francophone states, especially France, and to play a major role as a sovereign member in the Francophonie. Thanks to Paris-Quebec ties, it is easy to conjure up images of Quebec, as the 'EC's Trojan horse' in economic discussions. To be sure, there will be issues on which Quebec will agree with the Europeans."

North America for the sake of our ruminations is built upon the relationships of three political units. Sufficiently alter the nature of these relations and the political structure of North America is also changed. The separation of Quebec from Canada is such a change, as is the potential integration of the ROC into the United States. All of this takes place against a backdrop of growing continental integration led by economic factors, and perhaps by more recent collaboration against terrorism. In considering the future of North America the attitude of the US, the dominant piece of the puzzle, is significant. Are America's reflections upon the future of North America still informed by Manifest Destiny, as they once so clearly were? Contemporary US literature indicates, not surprisingly, that there are some vestiges or threads of annexationist sentiment. But the US, and the position of the US in the world, are now so different than they were at the time of Manifest Destiny's hey-day that such inclinations are tempered by other more pressing and immediate considerations. Manifest Destiny can be seen as one element, in a more complex constellation of American concerns and interests.

David M. Dyment, Ph.D., is a Research Affiliate at the Université d'Ottawa, and was formerly advisor to the Governor General (Adrienne Clarkson). You can contact him at: david.dyment@sympatico.ca

Note: david.dyment@sympatico.ca