He Did Not Conquer

When U.S. President Donald Trump mused about making Canada the 51st state, he may have been channelling Benjamin Franklin, a respected leader of the American Revolution. After all, it was Franklin who proposed annexing Canada back in the mid-1700s, when he represented the Thirteen Colonies in London. Many American politicians have done so since, as journalist Madelaine Drohan (the author of “Friend or Foe?” in the June-July 2025 issue of Canada’s History on American annexation threats) reveals in this timely look at “the anticipated conquest of Canada.”

Drohan calls Franklin “the eighteenth-century equivalent of a rock star” and guides us through the postmaster-politician’s accomplishments as an inventor (including the lightning rod), statesman, diplomat, polemicist, satirist and military strategist. She also warns that though his dream of forcing Canada to join the American colonies was a “prize that eluded him,” it remains a desire of others.

In tracking Franklin’s “failure” to conquer, Drohan offers “not a biography” but a detailed sketch of Franklin’s influential life in London, Paris and at home in Philadelphia, replete with rumoured affairs. He also dabbled in fake news by creating a hoax in 1773, falsely claiming that Britain was “a colony of Prussia.”

Drohan additionally covers much related history, including the details of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Seven Years’ War, and the Quebec Act of 1774, establishing the boundaries of French Canada. When she exposes the gout-ridden Franklin’s planned conquest, we get hints of what we may need to know to coexist with “an increasingly unstable neighbour.”

The 1775 attempt to take Canada militarily, under the leadership of rebel generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold, ended as badly as the War of 1812. Despite those losses, the allure of manifest destiny continues to attract ambitious Americans. With Canadians rising up in defence of their country today, Trump’s quest has as much likelihood of success as Franklin’s did. It seems this “powerful and prominent man” and sometime hoaxer should have stuck to his lightning rods.