[I Shall Endure]

OK, I’ll play.

1. The Louisiana Purchase. If that hadn’t happened, America would’ve remained 13 colonies (maybe 14, with Florida). No genocide of native Americans. No conflict over whether slavery can/cannot expand to new territories.

2. The Mexican War. Pretty much for the same reasons as #1.

3. The Civil War. Obvious.

4. The Spanish American War. The beginning of America as an “imperial” power.

5. 1952 Republican Presidential nomination. Robert Taft was America’s last real chance to return to “normalcy”. We blew it.

Bonus: the 1960 presidential election. We elected Kennedy ‘cause he was good looking and charming, proving the old America was gone for good.

Seriously, nothing since then has mattered - it’s all been more of the same.

[Verginius Rufus]

There were already 16 states as of 1796, and Ohio became the 17th as of March 1, 1803, before the Louisiana Purchase was finalized. Seven more states were formed from territories which already belonged to the US (Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, Maine), plus West Virginia was later carved out of Virginia, but that wouldn't have happened except for the Civil War. So without the Louisiana Purchase we might have 24 states, or 25 if we had acquired Florida.

It's hard to imagine the land beyond the Mississippi River remaining sparsely settled--Americans would have gone there whoever was in control. If Spain had not sold the area back to France, it's doubtful they could have held on to it once it started to fill up with American settlers. So we probably would have expanded west of the Mississippi, but perhaps in a more violent fashion.

Robert Taft died in 1953...so if he had been nominated and won, what would have mattered was who he picked for VP.

[Tublecane]

I like your list about best, though would rank them differently. Just thought I’d clarify the Civil War was not precipitated by Westward expansion slavery. That caused strife, as in “bloody Kansas,” but not the big war. The free versus slave territory is a red herring; the Missouri Compromise l, Dred Scott, and the Pacific coast pretty much took care of it.

I remember being confused as to why the Mason Dixon line wasn’t extended all the way and that’s that, when I was in school. Turns out historians were confused, not me. There simply wasn’t anywhere new for slavers to go by 1860. Unless you’re one of the ones attributing to Southerners vast and insane designs to conquer the Caribbean.

[Secret Agent Man]

You are mistakenly assuming that the tribes would not have kept killing each other. They hardly got along well. And that the mexicans wouldn’t have either.