American Civil War was a Conservative Revolution...

[5fish]

I found this interesting view of the American Civil War. Many of us view the Civil War as a progressive movement in history or maybe just the preservation of a progressive movement. This article is not about neo-confederates or lost cause but a more political science/philosophical view of the lead up to war.

The American Civil War as a Conservative Revolution

This is my inaugural lecture as the Edward Orsborn Professor of US Politics and Political History, delivered in the Exam Schools in Oxford on April 25, 2022. The American Civil War as a Conservativ…

adamipsmith.com

In the frequently quoted line of the great historian Richard Hofstadter, the Americans were “born in perfection and aspired to progress.” But progress that was too quick or too drastic threatens to tarnish the veneer of perfection.

My argument is that the war was shaped by a political culture, which for all its embrace of change was in important ways also profoundly conservative – a term which came into broad use in American politics as the sectional crisis was intensifying, and almost always had positive connotations even while meaning different things to different people.

Beneath this gendered and perhaps racialised understanding of political character and appropriate behaviour, the “conservative” substructure of antebellum American political culture boiled down to the consensus that the prevailing constitutional order must be preserved.

Here is a video of the whole speech...

 

[5fish]

Here is another article about the American Revolution radical or conservative...

History: American Revolution, radical or conservative?

Columnist’s note: This month I’m departing from the usual historical stories and instead sharing with you excerpts from a speech given by Joseph W. Dooley, President General of the

www.postindependent.com

He said in the mid-1770s, radicals Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, and George Mason were wanting radical change and to remove utterly anything reminding them of English rule and English tradition in America.

“But most other American ‘revolutionaries,’ such as Washington, John Adams and Patrick Henry, were conservative – they were simply asserting their rights that had been guaranteed to them under the English constitution, which had evolved over the course of centuries. These and most Americans thought it was King George who sought radical change by imposing his will, and by suppressing the rights and liberty of his subjects contrary to law and tradition. Most Americans did not want to change their government” but “to prevent the King from encroaching on their traditions, their principles, and their rights. In this regard, the American Revolution might be said to be a conservative revolution.


“It was conservative in that it sought to secure the liberties and representative government that Americans believed they already enjoyed and to which Americans believed they had a God-given right.

“It was radical in that it broadened the base of those who could enjoy these civil liberties, and ultimately led to the development of a free and open society where everyone — regardless of race, gender, religion or ‘social class’ — may enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

 

[5fish]

Here some interesting points... From post #1

Four and a half million enslaved people were freed. And by the way, that amounted to a forced expropriation of perhaps three and a half billion dollars of wealth, slaves being by some measures the largest category of financial asset in the United States in 1860 – worth more than railroads and factories combined.

 

[5fish]

Here is another point from post #1...

Most white Americans did not want to transform their world, they wanted to rid it of enemies. The slaveholders who had been exposed as counter-revolutionary oligarchs—had become the main enemy of the republic. Yet had the Confederate capital – Richmond, Virginia — fallen in the spring of 1862 – a not implausible scenario — the rebellion may have been suppressed and the Union saved without emancipation—and if that had happened a majority of Northerners would have been satisfied with that outcome, including Lincoln and most Republicans.

 

[TomEvans]

I found this interesting view of the American Civil War. Many of us view the Civil War as a progressive movement in history or maybe just the preservation of a progressive movement. This article is not about neo-confederates or lost cause but a more political science/philosophical view of the lead up to war.

The American Civil War as a Conservative Revolution

This is my inaugural lecture as the Edward Orsborn Professor of US Politics and Political History, delivered in the Exam Schools in Oxford on April 25, 2022. The American Civil War as a Conservativ…

adamipsmith.com

Except that the only "revolution" was by the the US government among neoconservatives therein, who claimed that the American Revolution declared the states not simply as independent from Great Britain, but also as dependent on one another and the Union:



In reality:

• their "mutual pledge" was personal-- by, and between, the representatives themselves-- not the actual states; and likewise:
  
• their "mutual action" was that of 13 separate sovereign nations, united strictly as an international alliance among such; with each state being supremely ruled not by their mutual confederation, but by its respective legislature.

Meanwhile the simply phrase "free and independent states," is self-explanatory, that they were not forming a single free and independent state; so Lincoln's rhetoric is pure Orwellian hokum.


And so it was.... and remains, as the empire of lies continues.



So the Civil War" was not a conservative revolution; but a pseudo-conservative one, by the US government against their legal superiors: i.e. the respective electorates of the states, as then-34 sovereign nations-- all doing so under false claim of a national union... that never existed under actual law.

 

[5fish]

• their "mutual pledge" was personal-- by, and between, the representatives themselves-- not the actual states; and likewise:
  
• their "mutual action" was that of 13 separate sovereign nations, united strictly as an international alliance among such; with each state being supremely ruled not by their mutual confederation, but by its respective legislature.

Hog wash.... They were represented of their colony as their voice for their colony ..

There no international anything but a a union of like minded colonies trying survive as one...

I am surprised you left the 10 amendment out of your bemoaning.

The Tenth Amendment gives states the right to govern themselves in all areas that the U.S. Constitution does not give to the federal government.

 

[5fish]

So the Civil War" was not a conservative revolution; but a pseudo-conservative one, by the US government against their legal superiors: i.e. the respective electorates of the states, as then-34 sovereign nations-- all doing so under false claim of a national union... that never existed under actual law.

A made up stuff territory created by the Nation Government is not superior to its creator... Why do you ignore the fact the original 13 states gave up their Independent Republic status to create and be part of the great entity. You have fundamentally ignore this over and over and explain once you give up your so call Sovereignty what gives you the right to reclaim it... The 13 colonies willfully gave up any sense as a free nation to be a free state within a union of free states... What gives a state the right to secede legally? They have the legal right to revolt because of our Declaration of Independence...

Have you noticed the Confederacy or the states within it never wrote a Declaration of Independence but did write Declarations of Causes which were all about protecting slavery... It was a funny moral high ground to declare independence on... Enslaving people gives you the right to declare independence and to succeed... .. Laughable...

 

[TomEvans]

Why do you ignore the fact the original 13 states gave up their Independent Republic status to create and be part of the great entity.

Probably because it claims that they NEVER HAD independent republic status, but always formed a national union; which is refuted by your own statement that they DID have independent republic status.

Have you noticed the Confederacy or the states within it never wrote a Declaration of Independence

As you said, they already had it, and the US government never claimed that they "gave it up" as you allege.
So if they had it, and the US government never claimed that they gave it up, then that means they kept it and only formed an international union of separate sovereign nations.
That's a legal high ground-- the highest, of national sovereignty.

 

[TomEvans]

Hog wash.... They were represented of their colony as their voice for their colony ..

And each became a free and independent state, i.e. 13 sovereign nations.

There no international anything but a a union of like minded colonies trying survive as one...

Which became an international union of 13 free, sovereign and independent states.

The Tenth Amendment gives states the right to govern themselves in all areas that the U.S. Constitution does not give to the federal government.

While without state's national sovereignty, the federal government DICTATES that (SMH)

 

[5fish]

And each became a free and independent state, i.e. 13 sovereign nations.

people from that state or colony...

Which became an international union of 13 free, sovereign and independent states.

The International Union of States means a nation-state called the United States of America...

While without state's national sovereignty, the federal government DICTATES that (SMH)

The tenth amendment is one of the few things you can put your hat on...

 

[TomEvans]

The International Union of States means a nation-state called the United States of America...
.

An international union of sovereign nations, by definition, cannot be a sovereign nation itself.

The Union had no national sovereignty or statehood of its own; its powers were simply delegated by the respective member-nations to it, as an international agreement between them.

The tenth amendment is one of the few things you can put your hat on...

The entire Constitution was simply an international agreement among sovereign nations, each supremely ruled by its respective electorate.