If the Louisiana purchase did not occur America would not be a superpower and the British may have seized Louisiana from France. Or maybe the United States may have joined the Napoleon ice wars on the British side in order to take Louisiana from France.
What if the Louisiana purchase did not occur
- Thread starter Karlmarx900
- Start date
Jefferson pondered on allying with Britain to secure New Orleans if the Purchase didn't happen, and by extension taking New Orleans means de-facto taking all of Louisiana by way of accessibility.
The butterflies'd be interesting - he wanted to purchase the Floridas alongside "just" the Isle of Orleans from Spain to hold everything east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes before learning Louisiana transferred to France, and in OTL actually came rather close to using French influence to purchase the Floridas and Texas north of the Texas-Colorado River from Spain till the whole idea collapsed in 1807. But being a British ally means that the US Army can just march over NOLA due to its distance and vulnerability no matter if it's France or Spain holding it, and Florida and northern Texas are even less staffed with troops or given priority than New Orleans ever was, even at the time. Maybe American troops take over not just Louisiana and Florida, but Texas to the TX-Colorado, or even the Nueces (by now secured as the Tejas border). Perhaps we even see an earlier settlement of the PNW - the 49th parallel was offered by Britain as a border to the Rockies in 1807, then even offered, without limit, westward to the Pacific for both of them for fairness's sake when America complained it could've been accidentally shut out of future claims west of the Rockies over the Columbia River basin (and dropped anyway, as America still feared it'd end up losing much of that, since the Columbia River and basin's full extent wasn't known at the time). So if Jefferson gets lucky sixes every time in this would-be alliance, he could get Louisiana, the Floridas, Texas to the TX-Colorado or even Nueces, and the OTL Pacific Northwest through negotiation with Britain and fairly easy conquests from a distracted France and Spain.
This British alliance also means the Federalists, traders and industrialists, and northerners - especially New Englanders - get a boost in being 'right' over Anglophilia while even the southerners, westerners, and farmers may end up re-igniting an affection for Mother England. The Royal Navy won't just impress American seamen, the Empire'll open up its valuable West Indies ports to foodstuffs from the south like in the colonial days and the southerners will make fat stacks of cash again. Northerners still can trade freely carrying those foodstuffs and still eventually building up their own industrial base in time. What does this all mean? That the Federalists will probably live on in political history without collapsing without a Hartford Convention happening (why would it? No Embargo Act or War of 1812 alike, the USA and especially northerners chummy with the rich British Empire..) and eventually taking over the Whigs' place in OTL by the time those guys form (in many ways, they were the Federalists reformed, with some more populist elements taken from Jefferson's Democratic-Republicanism and Jacksonianism in general). New England won't suffer a couple decades of being shut out of national power by the south and the northern-settled, but still developing, Midwest and Great Lakes.
Heck, the Revolution in time may be seen as just a circumstantial happenstance a la a child needing to move out of the house but familial love immediately patching up once done so. Well, much more so than in reality.
The butterflies'd be interesting - he wanted to purchase the Floridas alongside "just" the Isle of Orleans from Spain to hold everything east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes before learning Louisiana transferred to France, and in OTL actually came rather close to using French influence to purchase the Floridas and Texas north of the Texas-Colorado River from Spain till the whole idea collapsed in 1807. But being a British ally means that the US Army can just march over NOLA due to its distance and vulnerability no matter if it's France or Spain holding it, and Florida and northern Texas are even less staffed with troops or given priority than New Orleans ever was, even at the time. Maybe American troops take over not just Louisiana and Florida, but Texas to the TX-Colorado, or even the Nueces (by now secured as the Tejas border). Perhaps we even see an earlier settlement of the PNW - the 49th parallel was offered by Britain as a border to the Rockies in 1807, then even offered, without limit, westward to the Pacific for both of them for fairness's sake when America complained it could've been accidentally shut out of future claims west of the Rockies over the Columbia River basin (and dropped anyway, as America still feared it'd end up losing much of that, since the Columbia River and basin's full extent wasn't known at the time). So if Jefferson gets lucky sixes every time in this would-be alliance, he could get Louisiana, the Floridas, Texas to the TX-Colorado or even Nueces, and the OTL Pacific Northwest through negotiation with Britain and fairly easy conquests from a distracted France and Spain.
This British alliance also means the Federalists, traders and industrialists, and northerners - especially New Englanders - get a boost in being 'right' over Anglophilia while even the southerners, westerners, and farmers may end up re-igniting an affection for Mother England. The Royal Navy won't just impress American seamen, the Empire'll open up its valuable West Indies ports to foodstuffs from the south like in the colonial days and the southerners will make fat stacks of cash again. Northerners still can trade freely carrying those foodstuffs and still eventually building up their own industrial base in time. What does this all mean? That the Federalists will probably live on in political history without collapsing without a Hartford Convention happening (why would it? No Embargo Act or War of 1812 alike, the USA and especially northerners chummy with the rich British Empire..) and eventually taking over the Whigs' place in OTL by the time those guys form (in many ways, they were the Federalists reformed, with some more populist elements taken from Jefferson's Democratic-Republicanism and Jacksonianism in general). New England won't suffer a couple decades of being shut out of national power by the south and the northern-settled, but still developing, Midwest and Great Lakes.
Heck, the Revolution in time may be seen as just a circumstantial happenstance a la a child needing to move out of the house but familial love immediately patching up once done so. Well, much more so than in reality.
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