A note about France-American history

Discussion in 'History and Culture' started by LafayetteBis, Mar 9, 2019.

  1. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2008
    Messages:
    46,665
    Likes Received:
    26,222
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Indeed, and Jefferson and especially Franklin who were comfortable operating in European political circles John Adams was particularly ill-suited for the job in France. I imagine that the ways of Louis XVI's court came as quite a shock to Adams and his puritanical sensibilities, and his abrasive personality own compounded his and the American delegation's problems. While Franklin had enormous respect for Adams, he would complain bitterly to his superiors back in America about the problems his style and personality were creating with Vergennes and his fellow ministers. It didn't help that Adams had a somewhat low opinion of Franklin's own style and methods, which he perceived as obsequious towards the French.

    One of the most interesting figures, in my opinion, to emerge from the early years of American diplomacy was Adams' son, John Quincy Adams, who accompanied his father on his missions throughout Europe. He was a mere eleven years old when his journey and education began but it was clear from an early age that he was an exceptional young man who possessed a brilliant intellect:

    Unfortunately, his father's personality rubbed off on him and this would become his greatest shortcoming as a person and politician later in life.
     
  2. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    We could use some of that intelligence nowadays.

    Where are such people when you need them .. ! ;^)
     
  3. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2008
    Messages:
    46,665
    Likes Received:
    26,222
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    They're no longer in Washington it would seem. :lol:

    A man or woman with JQA's rare abilities would be too smart to get into politics - they'd be running a Fortune 500 company or making millions writing books.
     
    Ddyad likes this.
  4. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    This is a common misconception, and one I always find frustrating.

    It is not that the taxation was excessive, it really was not. Their complaint was that their "Rights as Englishmen", as guaranteed by the 1689 Bill of Rights was being violated. Specifically that taxes could not be levied without the consent of those being taxed. This is where the "No taxation without representation" comes from.

    They were not complaining about the taxes, it was that they were being imposed without their consent. In fact, when the colonies first complained through their elected bodies, the response was then to dissolve and then abolish those elected bodies.

    It must be remembered that the Colonies had no representation in Parliament. The First Continental Congress tried to get them to assign seats in Parliament to the colonies, and that was rejected. They insisted that Parliament represented all of the United Kingdom, no matter what district they were representing. The Second Continental Congress petitioned again for representation, saying that they would continue to reject any taxes levied until this was done.

    Of course that also was rejected, and war soon followed.

    One advantage of the war however for the United Kingdom was that they learned from their lesson. In later years they treated much more kindly with Canada and Australia, allowing them local autonomy and their own local legislatures. Essentially they would ask for money, and it was up to the local government to determine how to raise that money.

    If that had been done in the American Colonies, there likely would have been no revolution. In fact, if they had simply asked the legislatures that were already in place to raise money for their own defense they likely would have done it.
     
  5. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Well, you've misunderstood the basic reason. When you are taxed and have no visible service in return, then that taxation is seemed to be unfair. The foundational notion of any democracy is that it must fair and equitable. European kingdoms at the time were expensive to run because they were much larger than just any one nation. With South, Central and North America being the richest of the "colonies" but not the only ones. It was costly to run them all, and how were those costs to be met?

    So they were paying tax-revenues to a British king who needed the money to assure that France did not "go south" from Canada and try to take over the British colonies. Let's remember that the colonists also paid "local taxation" because they were building communities, which had to be policed and protected from fire. (So, yes, they paid local taxes to do so.)

    Do you know how Pennsylvania got its name? Yes, perhaps you know that it comes from the fact that William Penn (the elder) served "his" British King in war (I think in Ireland fighting for the British king) and was rewarded for his services with the "Penn's Woods". (Which it he translation of the name from Latin "Penn-Sylvania"). Everybody in America in the 17th century was fawning the British King if they wanted favors done in the colonies. The sense of "freedom" was embedded not only in the notion that it was a birthright, but also in the fact that they were British subjects of a British king who was taxing them for Revenues to serve his own purposes of enrichment.

    Those taxes were the foundation - along with those he collected in the UK - to support "HIS KINGDOM". Which had grown very large and profitable way beyond just England ...!
     
  6. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Yes, which is why I underscore the fact that we've lost our "headings". Earning one helluva lotta money that you don't need that will go most to children who never labored to deserve it seems like a Significant Injustice to me ...
     
  7. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Oh, they knew full well what they were getting, they are the ones who demanded it.

    Starting in 1747 the French were increasingly aggressive along the border between their colonies and that of the British. Including expeditions to try and force the Indians to stop trading with the British, even including punitive expeditions against tribes that continued to trade. This resulted in the Colonists demanding more protection from the British Army.

    What had started in 1753 as sporadic raids and massacres by 1754 had become almost all-out war. Tribes aligned themselves between the two forces and conducted bloody raids constantly. What in Europe was known as the Seven Years War was known in North America as the French-Indian War. And saw over 35,000 British Troops (in addition to the Navy) sent to defend the colonies from these attacks.

    And while Colonial Militias were involved (including a young Colonel Washington), most of the fighting was by Regulars brought over from England.

    Oh, they knew full well what they were paying for, they were the ones that demanded Military protection in the first place. And if you read the writings of most of the Founding Fathers, they had no problem with paying for such protection. It is the way they were being forced to pay that bothered them.

    After all, it was the firebrand Samuel Adams who coined the phrase "No British taxation without representation" (the word "British" is frequently left out). Like most f his contemporaries, he believed it was illegal under British Common Law (and specifically the Bills of Rights) to enact taxes without the consent of those being taxed. And that either it should be done by the local governments, or that the colonies should be given representation (many even proposed such representation in exchange for the taxes, a quid-pro-quo).

    It was the response of increasing taxes, denying any attempt to gain members in Parliament, and abolishing all colonial governments that pushed even moderates like John Adams into joining the rebellion.

    Remember, they were British Citizens. They understood what that meant, and for years many had even been trying to get a more "formal expansion" of the British system into the Americas. Complete with formalizing the Peerage System into the colonies, including the formation of things like Duchies, Counties, and Baronies. The appointment of formal deeds and titles, hereditary as was the practice in England. This of course would also have mandated representation in Parliament in the House of Lords.

    But like with their requests for representation in the House of Commons, this was also rejected. And the history of the British had included several bloody civil wars, all fought over things like being taxed with no say in the matter (representation), and representation of the common man being ignored.
     
  8. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2008
    Messages:
    46,665
    Likes Received:
    26,222
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    You're absolutely correct.

    Whether they were protesting the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act or the Revenue Act contained within the Townshend Acts, Colonial leaders from Samuel Adams to John Dickinson made it crystal clear that taxation without representation was a violation of their rights as British citizens. In Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Dickinson noted, amongst many other things, that taxes imposed on the colonies by the British Parliament for the purpose of raising revenue, rather than regulating trade, were unconstitutional. Only the Colonial assemblies, whose representatives were elected by the Colonists themselves (before the British dissolved them entirely), could levy such taxes.

    I seem to recall that the Colonial assemblies had accommodated requests from the Crown for money but what they wouldn't tolerate was Parliament's attempts to impose taxes on the Colonists without their c. The Colonial assemblies adamantly opposed the proclamation in the Declaratory Act of 1766 that the British Parliament "had hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America ... in all cases whatsoever", and in my estimation the repeated failure to resolve that core dispute is what resulted in our Revolution.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2019
  9. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2008
    Messages:
    46,665
    Likes Received:
    26,222
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    If I may, I would add that the taxes Parliament attempted to impose on the Colonists from 1764 forward were intended to help pay for the stationing of some of those British troops in America following the Seven Years/French & Indian War. Not only did many of the Colonists consider their presence unnecessary, they considered them an impediment to westward expansion, and that contributed to the resentment against the taxes that Parliament attempted to impose on them.
     
  10. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    They tried to do this, but there were many problems.

    The Colonial assemblies were each independent of each other, as were the Colonies themselves. They were not like we see today, 13 areas all working together. They were 13 fractious children, each with their own rules, currency, and ideals. And England liked it that way, originally dealing with them each individually instead of as a collective group.

    But the problems started when they started asking for taxes. At first they tried asking each Colony for money, but since they had given each colony very little effective power, they simply had no way to enact and enforce the raising of taxes. This is one of the things that lead to the first "Colonial Assemblies", where they in a sense tried to use their combined power to get changes from back home.

    And most of what they were able to raise went to their own expenses. Colonial militias, pay for colonial officials, colonial post services, road upkeep and repair, port maintenance, all the kinds of expenses any government has.

    What they wanted originally was to be brought fully into the Kingdom. No more "regional currencies", but the British Pound as the currency for all. To not just be "13 Colonies", but to become 13 Ceremonial Counties. With their own representatives in Parliament, and even Counts and other such peerage seats, as was seen back home in England. Then they would have the power to enact and enforce local laws in the name of the Crown.

    For an interesting vision of what "might have been", check out "The Two Georges", by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss. It is alternate history, where in a last ditch effort George Washington travels to England and petitions the king to prevent war. This succeeds, and 200 years later the North American Union is still part of the United Kingdom. Sir Martin Luther King Jr. is the Governor-General of the North American Union, and there are nobles holding ancestral land and the small band of 20th century "separatists" are generally seen as lunatics.
     
  11. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2008
    Messages:
    46,665
    Likes Received:
    26,222
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    LOL - That sounds like a great book. Thanks for the tip.
     
    Mushroom likes this.
  12. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Well, there was really not much "Westward Expansion" at that time, that actually came almost a century later. The Colonies were almost entirely Coastal territories, with their commerce based on the sea. Other than the section pushed out by Daniel Boone into what is now Western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky that was as far as the colonial inhabited land extended.

    There was simply as of that time not enough population density to mandate much more westward expansion. Most of the Colonial Land was still uninhabited. And moving West (or South) would have then run right into the lands already claimed by France (or Spain). And they were still trying to absorb all of that new territory that had been gained from France.

    In 1776, the effective border between the colonies and French Louisiana was the Mississippi River. And other than the Boone expedition of around 200,000 to the "Wilderness" around the Appalachian mountains it largely ended far East of there. Something like 85% of the population lived in the narrow belt within 100 miles of the Atlantic Ocean (or along narrow belts to each side of the major rivers).

    And until the tensions broke, most of the British forces were stationed in territory further West where skirmishes were still being fought by some Indian tribes along this new border with France. The postings in the colonies themselves were actually rater minimal, until the Sons of Liberty started their antics, which resulted in an ever increasing influx of troops to try and keep the peace.
     
  13. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    MANIFEST DESTINY

    The British forces were no longer stationed in "the colonies" after the end of the war in 1783. The Louisiana Purchase a decade later (1803 from a Napoleon that needed the money to fund his European wars) opened America (no longer "the colonies) to its westward growth.

    Some call that Manifest Destiny because everybody by then (1783) knew of the expanse that was created by the physical borders (seas) on the East and West sides of what would become inevitably the "United States of America" ...

    PS: But what has become that notion of Manifest Destiny today? Where, ever, did it go? (Did it become an annual megabuck-income for those lucky enough, as it seems to be nowadays?)
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2019
  14. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Of course they were not there after 1783, the war was over and they lost. The Louisiana Purchase was 28 years after the Revolutionary War started.

    Today it is often seen as racist, and even shown as a negative.
     
  15. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    And so? You seem to think only Yanks read this debate-forum?

    Think again ...

    Can't imagine why, unless one wants to make the quest for freedom "racist and negative" ...
     
  16. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I never said that, and I know members here are from all over the world.

    Which has nothing to do with what I was responding to. A claim was made that the "Red Coats" were in the colonies to prevent "Westward Expansion". Not true, not only was there little of that between the Seven Years War and 1775, the colonies were already trying to absorb the huge increase of land they had gained after the end of said war.

    Which is exactly what is happening. In many institutions today, almost all aspects of American History are being taught on the basis that it is all racist. They actively ignore great deals of history, and spin a great many things into a negative fashion.

    Not to long ago in here I had somebody tell me how racist the Texas War of Independence was. Even though the majority of those who opposed the Mexican Army were themselves Mexican, who were mad because General Santa Anna had essentially abolished their Constitution and had set himself up as a dictator. Others will go on and on about "atrocities" upon the Indians, but ignore any attempts to bring up atrocities done by Indians against settlers (or against other Indian tribes).

    It is a kind of ignorance that defies belief.
     
  17. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    So life is all about making millions, is that it?

    Not in my book. Epicurus put it this way, ""Nothing is enough to s/he for whom enough is too little."

    And from Psychology Today here:
    To my mind, that's not being smart. The desire to amass riches is actually a sickness. A country's riches are derived from a market-economy - so individuals who want exaggerated riches seek to differentiate themselves from the masses. And the most obvious way to do that is to accumulate wealth.

    Is that what a market-economy is all about. Individual success way above and beyond the norm?

    A free market-economy will always differentiate in terms of income earned. It must because the market-economy (of Supply&Demand) functions in a manner that creates a range of income levels - from very poor to extremely rich.

    What we have not learned is that (1) there is a level at which "to much is abnormal" and (2) when Income Disparity becomes absolutely abnormal, typically it engenders public strife and revolutions. History teaches us that lesson.

    We (as a nation) continually glorify the accumulation of wealth. History teaches us from many examples that inevitably the result of acute Income Disparity is calamitous.

    Or it should teach us that lesson, but we are not assimilating it ...
     
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2019
  18. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2008
    Messages:
    46,665
    Likes Received:
    26,222
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I never said that nor was it my point.

    My point is that our best and brightest are usually too smart to get involved in politics. Of course, there are exceptions...
     
  19. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Not true, you are taking an extremely simplistic view of economics.

    First of all, the desire to accumulate wealth is simply part of nature. Every living things seeks to do this, it is just that the counters each uses are different. It may be trying to spread among favored territory to live and reproduce, like plants. It may be like many animals and accumulating preferred colors of rocks, or shiny bits that they then hoard in hopes of attracting a mate. Or as in other animals, and simply trying to spread their genetics as far as possible.

    Does not matter, no animals succeed otherwise. Those that would even try it fall under the term "extinct".

    Even for humans, the counters used vary. Until the last century or so, the biggest counter was not actually wealth itself, but land. That is because the land was the wealth itself, so farmers tried to expand that wealth as much as possible by accumulating as much land as they could. This was especially seen in the US in the Midwest and West coasts.

    Then in the East, at about the same time a different kind of commerce arose. That is one that actively drove the US economy for the last century and a half, that is Mercantilism. You allude to this, but miss much of it completely. Because in Mercantilism the idea is not to use the crushing disparity to wield power over your own citizens, it is to use trade and income disparity among other countries to make your money via export and trans-shipment.

    Hench, yet another word that became famous in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Yankee Trader.

    The US was basically the equivalent of 1970's Japan in that era. They would pick up leather from say Texas, then ship it to Boston where it would then be sold and made into shoes. Then you take those shoes and transport them to India where they are then traded for tea. The tea is then shipped to England, and the final product of higher quality trade goods is then picked up and transported to the US. This was a big difference from the more rigid "Triangle Trade" routes the British preferred, or even their mid-late 18th century era of Clipper ships, which generally relied upon only 1 or 2 commodities being shipped between 2 points.

    But of course in commerce, individuals will accumulate wealth if they are successful. And the longer they are in such business the more they will accumulate. But the goal in the US was not simple commerce (taking the wealth from their own citizens), it was Mercantilism (accumulating your wealth from other nations via trade).

    This is what China has been trying to do for the last 3 decades or so, but they have largely been failing because they are not an originator nation. And as they are not an originator nation, all they have been doing is replacing the manufacturing middle step in such trade, without actually creating the items being manufactured. Call it the electric dynamo, or the air brake, or the safety elevator, or the widget. The difference in American Mercantilism is that it was a system for producing and selling goods Internationally, where as China has essentially become a giant Xerox machine. It originates almost nothing, it simply copies what was made somewhere else and makes money in making copies of that item.

    And let me throw something else back. Is say a Stephen King or J. K. Rawling a "sickness"? Are they " individuals who want exaggerated riches seek to differentiate themselves from the masses"? After all, both through the simple writing of stories have gained immense wealth, far greater than even most "Captains of Industry".

    After all, Miss Rawling has made around $20 million royalties and residuals alone (and this was in 2016, before the latest series of movies started). George R. R. Martin has made over $10 million. Stephen King over $18 million. Are they also part of this sickness? Or say a football player seeking to make as much as possible from their ability to play a sport? I always wondered why people would blast say the CEO of a multi-national company that makes $2 million a year and employs tens of thousands, yet glorify somebody who plays with balls for a living who makes twice as much yet employs nobody but a maid, a grounds keeper, and a driver.

    So I can only assume you think such individuals are sick as well.
     
  20. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    It's not ignorance - it's just historical irrelevance in our day-and-age!

    Such "atrocities" are being visited to this very day, only differently. The fact that below the Poverty Threshold in the US is a place where 14% of the population live their lies is also an atrocity. (Unless you've got economic blinders on!)

    That 14% means around 45 million Americans live in abject poverty eking out an existence. (Do the numbers! PUT THEM IN PERSPECTIVE! Forty-five million Yanks is the population of California and Maryland combined!)

    Whilst fatheads like you refer to a time in history that is long-since past and irrelevant in terms of the stark Income Disparity that plagues the US today ... !
     
  21. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    This I can agree with wholeheartedly.

    I have rarely seen such ignorance of the facts so well demonstrated as in this forum! And, by that, I mean no disrespect of the forum. It's the participant remarks that are ignorant of the factual or legal essence of many, many of the debates here.

    Saying in a forum "I think that ..." is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Whatever your opinion, it must be based upon factual evidence where possible and not just one's notions ...
     
  22. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Perhaps so. But I tend to think it is beyond just racism.

    I am focused upon only two travesties of justice with a foundation in American legal history. That of the Electoral College that misrepresents the popular-vote* for PotUS (12th Amendment passed in 1803), and that of Gerrymandering (first employed in 1812) that manipulates the popular-vote. Both occurred in the very early 19th century, just after the nation was founded (in 1776).

    And why? Because True Freedom-of-choice is fundamentally dependent upon fair voting-practices. As I have said a hundred times on this forum, the developed countries (founded much after the US) took much from America's tripartite system of governance (the separate independence of Executive, Legislative and Judiciary parts). But not one country aside from the US has adopted fully either Gerrymandering or the Electoral College.

    Though there are some instances of carving voting districts in some countries depending upon voting-practices in the EU. See here from which this is excerpted about Gerrymandering:

    *How so? Because the popular-vote is reported to the Electoral Counce and whoever has the most votes becomes the winner of the entire Electoral College vote. Which means those who did not vote for the winner ... The Winner-Takes-All rule applies in the EC and their votes are simply not counted.

    Bravo Uncle Sam ... !
    ...
     
  23. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2009
    Messages:
    12,494
    Likes Received:
    2,420
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Actually, the Electoral College was put in at the demand of the more agrarian states. This was a requirement in order to get the Constitution passed.

    A look at the Census of 1800 shows this clearly. The New England states had roughly half of the population at the time. Add in more southern and border states like Maryland and Pennsylvania, and they had almost 2/3 of the US population. That meant that without the Electoral College (which actually basically follows the House of Representatives), those states would have essentially controlled all aspects of higher political power.

    It was actually a rather elegant solution. If you had to choose 1 of the 2 houses in the US Congress to decide who was President, would you rather it be the House, or the Senate? Well, obviously the House. Because states have differing number of members depending upon the population of that state. The Senate has a flat 2 members per state, so states like New York or California would have an equal say no matter what the population was.

    Plus, our founders had a distinct distrust of "Democracy". That is why the government is set up the way it is, as a Representative Republic. We vote for representatives, which in turn make and pass the laws. This is done on purpose, so a state like New York or Massachusetts would not dictate terms to states like Georgia or Alabama because of having more population.

    Myself, I think the best solution would be to break up the system by county. And have the electors for each County vote as their constituents voted. No more of this "win the state by 1 vote and get the entire vote". If 10 counties vote for 1 candidate and 10 vote for the other, then that is how they are represented in the Electoral College.

    Remember, it has never been the "popular vote" that mattered, that is by design. It is the candidate that wins the majority of seats. Otherwise in the Congress it would be entirely controlled by New York, California, Illinois, and the other most populous states. And the rest like Idaho, Wyoming, and Delaware would just have to suck it up if they liked it or not.
     
  24. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    All the colonies were "agrarian states", but most particularly the southern-states that needed slave-labor.

    History says (as I have seen of the matter) the South initially refused to sign the Constitution without conditional acceptance of slavery. From here: How the Constitution Was Indeed Pro-Slavery - excerpt:
    White Europeans were pouring into the North of the US, and not the south. The south was very much an agrarian economy in a world still stuck in the Agricultural Age. Which started changing into Industrial Age with the advent of such innovations as the steam-engine an avancement based upon the Steam Pump, actually in invented in 1696. (Which was to become a boon to agrarian economies because lesser manpower was needed when employed as a farm tractor.)

    Unfortunately that was not enough for America to avoid a Civil War in 1860, largely over the matter of slavery ...
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2019
  25. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2016
    Messages:
    9,744
    Likes Received:
    2,086
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    All the colonies were "agrarian states", but most particularly the southern-states that needed slave-labor.

    History says (as I have seen of the matter) the South initially refused to sign the Constitution without conditional acceptance of slavery. From here: How the Constitution Was Indeed Pro-Slavery - excerpt:
    White Europeans were pouring into the North of the US, and not the south. The south, very much an agrarian economy in a world still stuck in the Agricultural Age. Which started changing into Industrial Age with the advent of such innovations as the steam-engine. (Which was a boon to agrarian economies because lesser manpower was needed.)

    Unfortunately that was not enough for America to avoid a Civil War, largely over the matter of slavery. Some people must learn the hard way ...
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2019

Share This Page