Montreal Annexation Manifesto
In 1849 several hundred prominent citizens of Canada East issued what it now called the Montreal Annexation Manifesto.[1]
Scholars now recognize the signers of the manifesto were a fringe minority.[2]
The manifesto was drafted very shortly after the USA defeated Mexico, in the Mexican-American War, during which the USA annexed large portions of Mexico.[2] The USA had just begun the process through which the newly acquired former Mexican territories would eventually join the USA as new States, and the US Congress faced the perennial discussion as to which of those new States would allow the practice of human bondage -- slavery. Northerners, who opposed slavery, used the Montreal Manifesto as a ploy, during those debates, but, in practice, the manifesto was not taken seriously, by Americans.
References[edit]
- ↑
J. I. Little (1992). "The Short Life of a Local Protest Movement: The Annexation Crisis of 1849-50 in the Eastern Townships" (PDF). Journal of the Canadian Historical Association. 3 (1): 45–67. doi:10.7202/031044ar. ISSN 1712-6274. Retrieved 2025-04-01. Unknown parameter
|uri=ignored (help) - ↑ 2.0 2.1
Gareth Davis. Lost Horizons: The United States and the Challenge of British North America, 1760-1871 (PDF) (Thesis). University College, London. Retrieved 2025-04-01.
The Montreal Annexation Manifesto of September 14th, 1849, and its publication in October, was the work of a Canadian minority disgusted with Britain’s economic policy and the end of imperial preference. Unfortunatelyfor them, the Manifesto was the right move at the wrong time as American politics was dominated by the territorial fallout from the Mexican War. In Congress, there was no debate of annexation, but for Northerners, it was always a useful bugbear with which to alarm Southerners in increasingly heated encounters over the Mexican cessions