Split Origin Story of the USA

[BH]

Lincoln was not an “early President”. He wasn’t even born until 1809.

Lincoln was also trying to explain to his base why seceding from the Union was the right thing to do in 1776, but nowadays seceding from the Union is terrible.
Tom

The colonies, however, did not secede from Great Britain, because they were never part of Great Britain. They were colonies. The situation in 1860 was quite different.

Nope.
The colonies were part of the British empire. The wealthy WASP male folks preferred not to remain, so they seceded.
Similarly, the wealthy WASP male folks in the Confederacy decided to secede from the other states. They didn't try to take over power in northern states any more than the founding fathers tried to take power in England.
Like the British, the northern elite launched a war to force the Confederate states to submit. Unlike the British, they were not fighting any other wars and didn't have to cross an ocean to project their power. So they won and British didn't.
Tom

The North did not initiate the Civil War.

They finished it though.

This is true. We folks in the south did it and justly got our butts kicked for it. we weren't just trying to leave and keep slaves We declared war on the US to take more territory from it, with those territories' populations having expressly stated they did not want to go with us.

 

[pood]

If an entity did not regard itself as a state, then it did not exist as a state.

But, the 13 entities did regard themselves as a loosely organized single republic.

No, they regarded themselves as states — as sovereign, independent states yoked together under a Union that was a republic. Hence, the UNITED STATES of America.

 

[TomC]

If an entity did not regard itself as a state, then it did not exist as a state.

But, the 13 entities did regard themselves as a loosely organized single republic.

No, they regarded themselves as states — as sovereign, independent states yoked together under a Union that was a republic. Hence, the UNITED STATES of America.

They yoked themselves together to survive the threat of the British.
Once that threat abated, some of the states wanted to go their own way. And rather like the British, the northern government didn't want that.
Tom

 

[pood]

Uh… wasn’t Ft Sumter already Federal property? What right did secessionist slavers have to attack it?

Not legally, according to the State of South Carolina. The government in the north had no reason to be there, except to invade the new country The Confederate States of America.

All those colonies were British property in 1775. That didn't stop the secessionist slavers from declaring their independence from The Empire.
Tom

First, not all of the colonies were “slavers.” Second, you are again making a false equivalency between the Declaration of Independence and southern secession. I’ve already explained why there is no parallel there. Finally, Fort Sumter in 1861 was a Federal port in a union state — South Carolina was legally part of the UNITED States of America, and the CONFEDERATE States of America were a legal fiction. Of course, had the south won the war, as you say winners write history, and some retroactive malarky would have been dreamed up to rationalize the plantation aristocracy of the south who enslaved four million blacks and also oppressed poor whites who lacked property as heroic revolutionaries merely invoking the spirit of ‘76. But, in fact, Fort Sumter was a federal port, and South Carolina was a union state that had been temporarily hijacked by insurrectionists who styled themselves Confederates.

 

[TomC]

First, not all of the colonies were “slavers.”

Notice how the DoI didn't mention anything about ending slavery? Nor the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers were okay with slavery as long as their purposes were being served. The USA was founded on slavery and genocide.
Tom

 

[pood]

If an entity did not regard itself as a state, then it did not exist as a state.

But, the 13 entities did regard themselves as a loosely organized single republic.

No, they regarded themselves as states — as sovereign, independent states yoked together under a Union that was a republic. Hence, the UNITED STATES of America.

They yoked themselves together to survive the threat of the British.
Once that threat abated, some of the states wanted to go their own way. And rather like the British, the northern government didn't want that.
Tom

The evidence for “wanted to go their own way” is so scant as to approach non-existence. They did not want to go their own way because they knew that there was strength in numbers. “Union now and forever” was a rallying cry all over the nation in antebellum America. There were sporadic episodes of resistance to federal authority, notably in South Carolina in the 1830s, which was pissed off about tariffs. They made noises about secession but relented when President Jackson threatened to march federal troops into the state and string up all those advocating secession. And indeed the South as a whole never wanted to go its own way until Lincoln was elected. For decades up until 1860, they worked assiduously with their Northern counterparts to craft compromises over the issue of the expansion of slavery. Slavery was at the heart of the whole secession.

 

[Toni]

If an entity did not regard itself as a state, then it did not exist as a state.

But, the 13 entities did regard themselves as a loosely organized single republic.

No, they regarded themselves as states — as sovereign, independent states yoked together under a Union that was a republic. Hence, the UNITED STATES of America.

They yoked themselves together to survive the threat of the British.
Once that threat abated, some of the states wanted to go their own way. And rather like the British, the northern government didn't want that.
Tom

Catholic schools did a poor job of teaching you history.

 

[pood]

First, not all of the colonies were “slavers.”

Notice how the DoI didn't mention anything about ending slavery? Nor the Constitution.

The Founding Fathers were okay with slavery as long as their purposes were being served. The USA was founded on slavery and genocide.
Tom

This is a caricature of history, correct in some ways but misleading in others. Did you read my quote upthread from the slave-holding Jefferson, who in a draft of the Declaration absolutely eviscerated slavery? The northern states for the most part detested slavery, which is not the same thing as saying that they felt blacks were their equals. The Constitution was a COMPROMISE because both North and South wanted to remain united and the north grudgingly acceded to the continuation of slavery because to do otherwise would have fractured the nascent nation which was economically and militarily very weak, and it was feared that a divided set of states would be prey to invasion and subjugation, perhaps even re-occupation by Britain — as it is, the War of 1812 occurred even with an intact and expanding U.S. Finally, early on, the new nation banned the African slave trade, and as Lincoln repeatedly pointed out, they did so, north and south, with the idea that slavery would gradually slip into extinction. It was the invention of the cotton gin that reinvigorated the “peculiar institution,” as it was called at the time, and later, when the Confederates seceded, they planned, if they won to war, to revive the African slave trade and also to invade and subjugate Cuba, Central and South America with the objective of forging a great slave empire in those regions. Yes, the new nation committed genocide in LATER years against the natives, but because that came later one can hardly say the nation was FOUNDED on genocide. As I also pointed out upthread, many of the colonies had good relations with the natives and the founders had contact with the Iroquois Confederacy and took many of their ideas for organizing the new nation from them.

 

[pood]

Immediately prior to the Civil War, Ft Sumter belonged to the United States as shown above. SC can differ all it wants; it’s wrong.

Immediately before the First War of Succession, also known as the revolutionary war, all those colonies belonged to the British Crown.
Ask King George III.
Tom

As noted the Revolution was not a Secession. And no one and nothing “belonged” to the British Crown, except by force of arms. The British Crown never had any business owning ANYBODY. Finally, of course, King George could go eff himself, a sentiment I’m sure was widely expressed in the nascent states at the time in whatever idiom they happened to be using.

 

[pood]

Incidentally, the 13 original states long predated the United States.

 

[Elixir]

Immediately prior to the Civil War, Ft Sumter belonged to the United States as shown above. SC can differ all it wants; it’s wrong.

Immediately before the First War of Succession, also known as the revolutionary war, all those colonies belonged to the British Crown.

So what?

If your irrelevant invocation of past ownerships makes you feel better about your erroneous claim, you’re welcome to revel in it, just as babs basks in past Soviet glories. Doesn’t make Estonia part of Russia and doesn’t negate the fact that Ft Sumter was US Government property at the time that the Civil War commenced.

 

[TomC]

If an entity did not regard itself as a state, then it did not exist as a state.

But, the 13 entities did regard themselves as a loosely organized single republic.

No, they regarded themselves as states — as sovereign, independent states yoked together under a Union that was a republic. Hence, the UNITED STATES of America.

They yoked themselves together to survive the threat of the British.
Once that threat abated, some of the states wanted to go their own way. And rather like the British, the northern government didn't want that.
Tom

Catholic schools did a poor job of teaching you history.

That isn't the history I was taught in school. It's what I figured out later learning more than the white washed history I was taught.

History is messy and there is little to take for granted, no matter how righteous it might seem.
Like it or not, the Founding Fathers more resembled modern Teapartiers than liberals.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

That isn't the history I was taught in school. It's what I figured out made up later learning more than the white washed history I was taught.

You may have had bad schools but that doesn’t validate stuff you make up from what you were told elsewhere, no matter how “right” it sounds to you.

I don’t believe you even read the post where the ownership of Ft Sumter and the origin of the confusion about it promulgated by the confederates was explained.

 

[pood]

That isn't the history I was taught in school. It's what I figured out later learning more than the white washed history I was taught.

History is messy and there is little to take for granted, no matter how righteous it might seem.
Like it or not, the Founding Fathers more resembled modern Teapartiers than liberals.
Tom

These sorts of comparisons are futile. The founders had nothing in common either with modern liberals or modern tea partiers. The era was entirely different, with a whole different set of political and sociological considerations in play.

 

[pood]

It’s worth pointing out why Lincoln’s election was the last straw for the South.

Lincoln was not an abolitionist.The Republican platform he ran on did not call for ending slavery in the South.

The platform, rather, was for curtailing the expansion of slavery into the territories, which eventually would become new states. This, the South could not abide, because by 1860 the whole continent had been filled up and there was nowhere else for slavery to expand to, except to the territories. If slavery could not expand, eventually northern non-slave holding states would outnumber the slave-holding states, and the South feared the North would then move to impose its will upon the South, including perhaps moving to end slavery in the states where it existed, something Lincoln opposed. The South may have not been far wrong in its estimate of the situation.

 

[BH]

No, we were not wrong in the estimation. It was an evil estimation but not worng.

 

[Toni]

If an entity did not regard itself as a state, then it did not exist as a state.

But, the 13 entities did regard themselves as a loosely organized single republic.

No, they regarded themselves as states — as sovereign, independent states yoked together under a Union that was a republic. Hence, the UNITED STATES of America.

They yoked themselves together to survive the threat of the British.
Once that threat abated, some of the states wanted to go their own way. And rather like the British, the northern government didn't want that.
Tom

Catholic schools did a poor job of teaching you history.

That isn't the history I was taught in school. It's what I figured out later learning more than the white washed history I was taught.

History is messy and there is little to take for granted, no matter how righteous it might seem.
Like it or not, the Founding Fathers more resembled modern Teapartiers than liberals.
Tom

Yeah, you’re missing a LOT of important stuff.

THE seminal issue that divided the North and the South was the issue of slavery. From the very beginning of the formation of the nation.

What ‘ freedom’ the South sought was the freedom to continue to enslave people.

 

[ZiprHead]

Did you read my quote upthread from the slave-holding Jefferson, who in a draft of the Declaration absolutely eviscerated slavery?

I remember reading that Jefferson wanted to free his slaves but was prevented from doing so by local/state laws.

 

[Politesse]

The Founding Fathers were okay with slavery as long as their purposes were being served.

Founding fathers? I mean, yes, but this is also still the case now, no matter what the founding fathers thought. Very few Americans support a blanket ban on slavery, politicians willing to consider it are even rarer. The only things that has changed are our purposes, and which industries benefit most from forced labor under our current economic system. This is a special issue of mine, an issue I've spent a lot of time on the phone campaigning for over the years, and the response from most of the people you talk to about this are disheartening at best. Most people think slavery has already been abolished, true, but when they are educated on the topic and find out about the exemption, the most common reaction is a shrug. Who cares about prisoners? They shouldn't have comitted crimes if they didn't want to be subject to enslavement.

 

[Politesse]

Did you read my quote upthread from the slave-holding Jefferson, who in a draft of the Declaration absolutely eviscerated slavery?

I remember reading that Jefferson wanted to free his slaves but was prevented from doing so by local/state laws.

If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

There actually was a moment when he could have easily freed the woman he'd notoriously raped, Sally Hemings, and indeed he had no legal right to stop the slaves he'd brought with him from just leaving and claiming sanctuary while they were all in France. But he went out of his way to talk them into returning to the US with him. Only Heming's sons (almost certainly his sons) were ever freed by him, and that only in his will. Freeing someone when you definitively have no more use for them is not that laudatory, and it also puts the lie to the idea that manumission was somehwo impossible. It was not, the US had a sizeable freedmen class even at that time.