# Uh oh, the Colonials lost the war to the British! Now what? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442 "2014-01-10T14:53:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/41 "2014-01-11T22:16:42Z")
We’d sure eat funny stuff. Bubble and squeak, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2014, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/42 "2014-01-11T22:26:09Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > We’d sure eat funny stuff. Bubble and squeak, anyone? With marmite, however one spells it. Being free of such things is worth Great Britain almost losing the Big One. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/43 "2014-01-12T08:39:54Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The united colonies of America would be limited to the original 13 and ruled by England. France, Spain, Russia, Mexico, and maybe Germany and Japan, would control the rest of the territory. At this point it would have been too late for “Germany” (by which I assume you mean a hypothetical united German state which is not at all guaranteed in the late 18th Century considering it was divided into Prussia, Austria, and several other states) much less Japan (which would not modernize for several decades) to get into the colonial game in the Americas). > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Hitler might decide that antagonizing Great Britain was a Bad Idea. > 🙂 Hitler would not exist much less come to power after a century and a half of radically diverged history. Simply put, the chance that the ancestors of Hitler would copulate at the exact same time and have the exact same sperm and egg unite to produce the members of Hitler’s family (much less Hitler himself) is essentially zero. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/44 "2014-01-12T08:42:07Z")
> [@Spiratu](#): > > I’ve always wondered about this. Obviously there’s a million other things that would have changed in the course of this history, but it seems to me that if the American colonies were kept as colonies into the 19th century, they’d have industrialized at a much slower rate, like Canada and Australia. The UK would have tried to keep some semblance of the mercantile system going, using America solely as raw material source and consumer market, and probably limiting the influx of Irish and European colonists dramatically. Add in the comments made above about the increased strength of Native American populations, as well as continuing French and Spanish (and probably Russian) claims to North America, and while the United Kingdom may well have been an even more dominant world power during the Victorian era, they might have found themselves in trouble come World War II without an industrialized US to rely on. If nothing else, they’d have to take care of all the Atlantic convoy duty by themselves, and probably end up relinquishing their Pacific possessions to either Japan or Russia. To repeat, World War II would not happen in a world that would be so unrecognizable (it’d even be uncertain that a “Victorian age” would occur considering Queen Victoria was not born 'til a generation after the Revolutionary War). ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/45 "2014-01-12T09:12:05Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Or the opposite. Since Britain could no longer outlaw slavery in the Empire while still buying cheap cotton produced by slavery from the American South, the abolishment of slavery in the Empire might well happen much later. One of the problems the South suffered from was that Britain (and the rest of the Empire) had virtually limitless supplies of cheap, slavery-free cotton from India. They didn’t need what the Confederates/US were making, basically. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/46 "2014-01-12T09:56:02Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > To repeat, World War II would not happen in a world that would be so unrecognizable (it’d even be uncertain that a “Victorian age” would occur considering Queen Victoria was not born 'til a generation after the Revolutionary War). And Victoria was an unlikely successor. Her grandfather, George III, had fifteen children, thirteen of whom lived to adulthood. But his children produced surprisingly few heirs. Victoria only became Queen because three of her uncles died childless and her own father did not have a son. (The fertility gene apparently skipped a generation. Victoria went on to have nine children.) ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/47 "2014-01-12T11:21:53Z")
They produced surprisingly few _legitimate_ heirs. Of the illegitimate heirs, one their descendants in David Cameron. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/48 "2014-01-12T12:14:27Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The united colonies of America would be limited to the original 13 and ruled by England. France, Spain, Russia, Mexico, and maybe Germany and Japan, would control the rest of the territory. England rather than Great Britain? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/49 "2014-01-12T13:06:58Z")
re. Germany: while the specifics might have been different, it seems likely that by the end of the nineteenth century there would have been a united Germany of some sort. The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were the heyday of the maritime powers; but by the latter nineteenth century the emergence of industrialism gave a boost to land-bound powers. The coal and iron resources of central Europe, and especially the development of railroads, meant that a united Germany could be as prosperous and powerful as the Holy Roman Empire had been in it’s day. And the emergence of a new player in the geopolitical sphere would inevitably have caused the sort of frictions that led to World War One. But again, the specifics might have been a lot different. Oh, and back to the colonies: forget about that antiquated notion of “judicial review”- it was something the colonies had inherited from the English Chief Justice Edward Coke, and subsequently overridden in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when Parliament was declared the supreme sovereign. So we have a system where _anything_ passed by a duly seated legislature is The Law. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/50 "2014-01-12T13:16:44Z")
Not strictly true. Judicial review has a long history in English law, far predating the colonies, the US Constitution or _Marbury_. And it has never stopped. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/51 "2014-01-12T14:01:16Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Not strictly true. Judicial review has a long history in English law, far predating the colonies, the US Constitution or _Marbury_. And it has never stopped. Really? Wiki’s article on judicial review in English law has this to say: > [@](#): > > Unlike the United States and some other jurisdictions, the English doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty means that the law does not allow judicial review of primary legislation (laws passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom), except in a few cases where primary legislation is contrary to the law of the European Union. A person wronged by an Act of Parliament therefore cannot apply for judicial review except in these cases. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/52 "2014-01-12T14:50:54Z")
Read it more carefully. There is no judicial review of _primary legislation_, meaning an Act of Parliament. In England, there is no greater law than Parliaments enactments, Parliament is sovereign. In the US, the highest law of the land is the constitution, the US Congress is a creature of said constitution with powers derived from the same. They is no judicial review of the highest law in the US either. That is what judicial review is generally, asking whether a body has acted in excess of its powers granted by the enabling law. Be that law a statute or a constitutional provision. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/53 "2014-01-12T15:35:37Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > England rather than Great Britain? Mea Culpa. Officially, yes, the united states (small first letter) revolted against the United Kingdom of Great Britain which eventually became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801. I don’t remember Scotland or Wales having much influence in the foreign policies of the UK of GB and their participation has been mostly overlooked - on this side of the pond. England was the big stick. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/54 "2014-01-13T03:48:01Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > One of the problems the South suffered from was that Britain (and the rest of the Empire) had virtually limitless supplies of cheap, slavery-free cotton from India. They didn’t need what the Confederates/US were making, basically. The UK only shifted primarily to Indian cotton during the US Civil War, and the British textile industry suffered a depression for a few years when it happened. It would have been even more difficult to make that switch in 1833 (when the UK set out to stop the slave trade IRL). Besides which, it would have been much more politically difficult to outlaw slavery if doing so would mean bankrupting several colonies that were still part of the Empire. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442/55 "2014-01-13T09:17:05Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > The UK only shifted primarily to Indian cotton during the US Civil War, and the British textile industry suffered a depression for a few years when it happened. It would have been even more difficult to make that switch in 1833 (when the UK set out to stop the slave trade IRL). Besides which, it would have been much more politically difficult to outlaw slavery if doing so would mean bankrupting several colonies that were still part of the Empire. I’m not an expert on Victorian economics and trade but my understanding is the British were a bit wary of Indian goods following the Indian Mutiny/Sepoy Rebellion/Great Uprising of 1857. Prior to that, the British textiles industry were rather fond of cheap Indian cotton (provided as it was by the East India Company, Exclusive Agents by Royal Appointment for Pretty Much Everything East of Suez), as I understand it. The problem once, once the cotton had been shipped halfway round the world to England and turned into textiles, the Indians didn’t want it any more since tweed and other such heavy duty fabric was way too hot to be practical in much of India, especially in the summer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uh-oh-the-colonials-lost-the-war-to-the-british-now-what/678442.md?page=2)