[Alberta's Child]

The War of 1812 was pretty much the beginning of the end of the U.S. as a confederation of self-governing states. One of the problems the U.S. faced in that war was that the Federal government simply didn't have the ability to enforce any authority over the states and compel them to send their militias to help with the war effort.

200 years later we think of the "War of 1812" as a military conflict between the U.S. and Great Britain, but at the time there were many U.S. state governments -- especially in the South -- that considered it a local conflict between the State of New York (for example) and the British colony of Upper Canada (now Ontario).

[onona]

Had they been able to, we’d have a few more northern states.

Opportunity lost.