US Part of the British Empire - the Durham report

ivanotter

US part of the British empire? Durham report
All, I am not doing too much on "before 1900", so please do excuse me. Not too much knowledge about it.

I am reading a rather interesting book: "Empire: How britain made the modern world" by Niall Ferguson.

It goes into the Durham report from 1838/9. Ferguson claims that it could be the report which saved the empire.

Of course it looked at the Canadian affairs, but the report got into the notion of "responsible government", at length at that.

Further, in hindsight, what if the report had been written prior to the American revolutions in 1770's? It would not have been possible, of course, as the report must have looked at the American experience.

This might have been discussed to death here, but WHAT IF:

- The conslusion of the report would have been drawn prior to 1770's?
- Britain immediately implement the recommendations of the report?
- America suddenly having recognised governments?

How would it have panned out? America another Australia/NZ/SA?

Domion status?

Another Canada?

Commonwealth?

Just to quote from Ferguson:

"Responsible Government" then, was a way of reconciling the practice ofr empire with the principle of liberty. What the Durham Report meant was that the aspirations of Canadians, Australiaan, NZ's and SA's - which were to be little different from the aspirations of the Americans in the 1770's - could be and would be answered without the need for wars of independence.

"So there wold be no battle of Lexington in Auckland, No Gerorge Washington in Canberra, no declaration of independence in Ottawa. Indeed, it is not hard to feel, when one reads the Durham report, that its subtext is one of regret. If only the American colonists had been given responsible government when they had first asked in 1770's - if only the British had lived up to their own rhetoric of liberty - there might never have been a War of Independence. Indeed, there might never have been a United States. And millions of British emigrants might have chosen California instead of Canada ehen they packed their bags to go"

Comments?
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Derek Pullem

Derek Pullem

Donor
ivanotter said:
US part of the British empire? Durham report
All, I am not doing too much on "before 1900", so please do excuse me. Not too much knowledge about it.

I am reading a rather interesting book: "Empire: How britain made the modern world" by Niall Ferguson.

It goes into the Durham report from 1838/9. Ferguson claims that it could be the report which saved the empire.

Of course it looked at the Canadian affairs, but the report got into the notion of "responsible government", at length at that.

Further, in hindsight, what if the report had been written prior to the American revolutions in 1770's? It would not have been possible, of course, as the report must have looked at the American experience.

This might have been discussed to death here, but WHAT IF:

- The conslusion of the report would have been drawn prior to 1770's?
- Britain immediately implement the recommendations of the report?
- America suddenly having recognised governments?

How would it have panned out? America another Australia/NZ/SA?

Domion status?

Another Canada?

Commonwealth?

Just to quote from Ferguson:

"Responsible Government" then, was a way of reconciling the practice ofr empire with the principle of liberty. What the Durham Report meant was that the aspirations of Canadians, Australiaan, NZ's and SA's - which were to be little different from the aspirations of the Americans in the 1770's - could be and would be answered without the need for wars of independence.

"So there wold be no battle of Lexington in Auckland, No Gerorge Washington in Canberra, no declaration of independence in Ottawa. Indeed, it is not hard to feel, when one reads the Durham report, that its subtext is one of regret. If only the American colonists had been given responsible government when they had first asked in 1770's - if only the British had lived up to their own rhetoric of liberty - there might never have been a War of Independence. Indeed, there might never have been a United States. And millions of British emigrants might have chosen California instead of Canada ehen they packed their bags to go"

Comments?

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Bear in mind Lord Durham's report was in the aftermath of two failed revolts in Canada in 1837 as well as the loss of the Thirteen Colonies.

The idea that it could have been considered prior to the French Revolution, the Reform Act and Chartism is a bit anachronistic.
 

ivanotter

Yes, of course it could not have been written in the 1770's.

HOWEVER: my post is more along the lines of: If the British had the foresight to provide "responsible government" to the Americas, then what. The conclusions of the Durham report are apaprantly quite far reaching.

If this had been known in 1770's, then what of America.

I do not suggest tht the Durham literally would have had an impact some 60 yers before it could have been written.

Ivan
 
Umbric Man

Umbric Man

Benjamin Franklin's Albany Union/Plan was basically inventing the Dominion form of government about a hundred-ten years early, as was the Galloway plan offered twenty years later (which, as Galloway was a protege of Franklin, adopted the Albany Plan's text wholesale, and was a convenient moderate figure in the Continental Congress at the time when Franklin was finally becoming unpopular with the British Government, suggests Franklin had Galloway re-suggest this FOR him).

Lord Howe in 1776's negotiations with certain Continental Congressmen and Lord North taxation plan offered to the colonies in 1778 also basically offered Dominion government in all but name.

EDIT: That said - to answer the original question.

America after the ARW and War of 1812 didn't do much with the wider world outside of North America. Even the period between those two wars, whilst dominated by the context of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, was far more worried on its North American position. Should Britain help with American expansion it'll have a fine power base in supplies - and men, for NA expeditions. Colonial Americans - even colonial Aussies and Canucks - didn't exactly go forth on international military expeditions for decades whilst their lands were being settled, so why would *British America in 1776, or even the Napoleonic period, go to Europe?

Further, the colonies already de-facto ran themselves pre-1776. Dominion status, Responsible Government, etc. would merely codify that. Then move into the above. America really didn't affect the world events directly TOO much, only indirectly, and even under the British Empire, American military men will not really go forth to help build the Empire like many assume they would.
 
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Malta

Well, I do wonder if the British would still do what they did in Canada. In direct opposite to the Republic they pretty much subsidized Canada and put as much compromise as they could to tether it to the Empire such as low taxes and discourage public participation.
 
Athelstane

Athelstane

Perhaps with a different monarch

And, perhaps, a capable conservative Whig like Edmund Burke - or heck, come to that, even Pitt - as Prime Minister - a stretch, but not a massive one - you might have leadership in London willing to take a bold move like that. There *were* figures in Parliament like Burke who recognized and sympathized with the rightful aspirations of the Americans for some kind of self-government.

It would have helped if British leaders had made an effort to actually visit the American colonies and see their reality up close and personal. Hardly any ever did.

But a genuine autonomy was just the first part of the problem. Even gaining monies from the colonies/dominions through their own taxation would run up against growing American demands for a say in imperial defence and foreign policy. In the end, some kind of imperial council or parliament - along with Army and Navy commissions - was going to be needed to give the settler colonies a say in the Empire to go along with the money they were contributing to it.
 
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