Thread:ML4E/@comment-874475-20140301235136/@comment-21519-20140302013555

Very hard to say, I should think. Coalition must have taken a very different path than it did in OTL: They're dealing with a militarily defanged and economically depressed, if even more bitterly Anglophobic, US on their border. They're also dealing with a regime in London that's become more intrusive in North American affairs and thus, presumably, more willing to take an active role in the administration and defense of BNA. With that being the case, I'd imagine Montreal would have a much harder time selling the Maritimes on the idea of circling the wagons.

I'm definitely a novice on Canadian history compared with ML4E, but I read a pretty thorough book on the topic last month (whoops, forgot it's March for a second there) and it's still somewhat fresh in my mind. My takeaway was that it was George Brown who first saw the need for confederation, and that once he pointed it out he won over many of his longtime enemies among the Conservatives, including Macdonald. My impression is that John A was the political genius who shepherded confederation through the many hurdles it faced, even if other, more intellectually rigorous Fathers did the work of shaping it. In TL-191 Brown's case would appear rather weaker since the US would not be able to make good on any idle threats it might make against British North America, so I suspect he'd have a harder time winning Macdonald over to his side; they hated each other before they started pulling together on a common cause. Given that there's less incentive for the Maritimes to surrender such autonomy as they enjoyed under the status quo (at least that was the main tack the anti-Confederation lobbyists took) and that it's also less likely British MPs would lose interest in North America (less likely, hell; they didn't. The scene where Douglass watches the bombardment of Rochester makes it pretty explicitly career that London's backed out of the Rush-Bagot Treaty, for instance), clearly someone who was extremely persuasive aligned with the Fathers at some point or other. And Macdonald's level of persuasiveness is quite rare; I'd go so far as to say that he rivaled Lincoln in mastery of that particular political talent.

If I had to guess, I would say that Brown's initial calls for confederation failed to convince Macdonald, but did win over some of the more nationalistic Conservatives such as McGee. Those Conservatives joined Reformers in hammering out a framework for Confederation, then the Conservatives took it to Macdonald and convinced him to come on board rather later in the game than he did in OTL; if they'd gathered enough steam, they might twist his arm into it by threatening his leadership of the party. He took point on selling it to the many, many people who had to sign off on it, and in the process gained the political capital to become the new nation's first PM. But since his role was less integral the bloom eventually wore off his rose, and by 1881 Parliament had moved on. My two cents anyway.