In this episode of History Matters, journalist and author Madelaine Drohan joins the program to explore a question that feels contemporary, but is anything but new: how long have American Leaders imagined Canada as part of the United States? The conversation begins with today’s “51st state” rhetoric and Prime Minister Carney’s Davos warning that Canada is facing a rupture, not a transition. From there, it steps back to 1775–1776, when the Continental Army invaded Canada and Benjamin Franklin, already seventy years of age, traveled through the wilderness to Montréal for an attempt to persuade French Canadians to join the American Revolution. Drawing from her 2025 book He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada, Drohan explains why the invasion unraveled, why Franklin later downplayed the episode, and what this largely forgotten story reveals about how nations construct and revise their founding myths.
The episode concludes with a thoughtful discussion about whether Canada needs a more cohesive national story, and what it might be built around.
https://madelainedrohan.org/
