The American Revolution

[Matt McKeon]

Watching Ken Burns' American Revolution miniseries. Pretty good so gar

 

[LJMYERS]

Almost as if the Washington family was involved.

 

[jgoodguy]

Watching Ken Burns' American Revolution miniseries. Pretty good so gar

Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to catch up on it.

 

[LJMYERS]

Yes I just downloaded all the movie stars in the show. Paul Giamatti plays President John Adams from Boston who loved tea posts from Silversmith Myer Myers.

 

[LJMYERS]

Anyway if "The Widow Myers" from Turtle Creek in Pittsburgh did not pull George Washington out of the half frozen creek Christmas day in 1753, none of this would have happened. From the records of her son James Myers and so on and Lt John Burch who saved Col Jimmy Doolittle in China.

 

[5fish]

Here is a video that Burns missed a chance... The revolution and the war are separate events...

 

[LJMYERS]

From my point of view, the Revolution started when The Widow Myers pulled George Washington out of the half frozen Turtle Creek in Pittsburgh. It's still going on with Mark Kelly's comments on military orders. Maybe he will be the next president.

 

[5fish]

Here is another look... at Ken Burns' show... The right says it's too woke...

 

[5fish]

30 seconds... Promoting myth...

 

[LJMYERS]

The Boston Tea Party and the people involved. That is, the families of London, The families of Boston, the Indians who hated tea and the Chinese family who owned the tea. From the family who made the silver tea pots in Boston and NYC who moved to Boston PA.

 

[TomEvans]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to catch up on it.

I just watched the part about the Declaration of Independence-- as I expected, just a lot of artsy romanticism, no real historical insight as to whether they were declaring 13 sovereign nations-- thus implying that the states were declaring a single sovereign nation.

 

[Matt McKeon]

Had my favorite revolutionary war figure: Baron von Steuben! Love that guy!

He proves that America is the land of opportunity. He had to come to America to achieve his dream: being a German baron and a general. Plus his screaming non English rants at American soldiers at Valley Forge, then having a staff officer repeated the string of insults in English. Surreal.

 

[LJMYERS]

Yes Steuben street goes right through south Pittsburgh.

 

[TomEvans]

Had my favorite revolutionary war figure: Baron von Steuben! Love that guy!

He proves that America is the land of opportunity. He had to come to America to achieve his dream: being a German baron and a general. Plus his screaming non English rants at American soldiers at Valley Forge, then having a staff officer repeated the string of insults in English. Surreal.

Just one problem:
the US government claims as historical fact, that the American Revolution established the Union as political superior to the state; when in reality that was established by a "self-coup" in 1861, while the states had NO political superior before that.

So the historical facts logically imply that the Civil War was a self-coup by the U.S. government.

The argument for this implication is based on the following historical facts and logical steps:

1. Fact: Under the Articles of Confederation, the states retained explicit sovereignty and had no federal political superior.
2. Fact: The U.S. government, claiming a continuous "national union," used military force to prevent the withdrawal of these sovereign entities.
3. Fact: The post-war Supreme Court, in Texas v. White (1869), issued a binding ruling that declared the Union was always perpetual and secession was never a legal right, thereby validating the federal government's use of force and establishing a new constitutional order

The logical implication is that a government (originally of an international league) used force to illegally seize national power from within the existing structure and then retroactively justified its actions through a self-validating legal process, which fits the definition of a self-coup.

 

[Matt McKeon]

Just one problem:
the US government claims as historical fact, that the American Revolution established the Union as political superior to the state; when in reality that was established by a "self-coup" in 1861, while the states had NO political superior before that.

So the historical facts logically imply that the Civil War was a self-coup by the U.S. government.

The argument for this implication is based on the following historical facts and logical steps:

1. Fact: Under the Articles of Confederation, the states retained explicit sovereignty and had no federal political superior.
2. Fact: The U.S. government, claiming a continuous "national union," used military force to prevent the withdrawal of these sovereign entities.
3. Fact: The post-war Supreme Court, in Texas v. White (1869), issued a binding ruling that declared the Union was always perpetual and secession was never a legal right, thereby validating the federal government's use of force and establishing a new constitutional order

The logical implication is that a government (originally of an international league) used force to illegally seize national power from within the existing structure and then retroactively justified its actions through a self-validating legal process, which fits the definition of a self-coup.

I disagree with the "self coup" formulation. It mischaracterizes the secession movement of 1860 from what it was: an ill advised lunge to hang on to money and power.

 

[Matt McKeon]

As far back as Andrew Jackson, any seceding state knew it faced federal force. If this was so evident, then the seceding states(oddly just the slave states), should have filed a suit with the Supreme Court, not fired artillery at Fort Sumter, a military action that rivals Pearl Harbor for the Not Being Thought Out All the Way prize.

By "this was so evident" I mean secession being an acceptable action

 

[TomEvans]

As far back as Andrew Jackson, any seceding state knew it faced federal force.

No, it did not.
The American Revolution was fought as an international alliance of separate sovereign nations, and each state except Rhode Island unilaterally seceded from the Confederation in order to ratify the Constitution WITHOUT Rhode Island (since it refused the proposed changes to the Articles of Confederation, FORCING the other states to secede and form their OWN NEW union instead:



As James Madison put it:


And James Madison held that federal invasion of ANY state, for any reason, was expressly prohibited-- which is why the state militias were to be the main "common defense" that the Constitution provided, since a large standing army could do that just fine, but could also invade the states-- while a militia could PROTECT them from such:




Jackson was the first sitting president to officially claim "national union" over the states, to push his "Force Bill" through Congress:




But this was a LIE. The American Revolution established the states as thirteen separate sovereign nations, as I've explained many times.

And while the Force Bill did set precedent which authorize federal military action against states, it was never used, and the law expired.

If this was so evident, then the seceding states(oddly just the slave states), should have filed a suit with the Supreme Court,

That would be like the UK being REQUIRED to go to the EU, to get permission to allow Brexit; rather than just telling them to bugger off.
South Carolina was a sovereign nation, they didn't need permission to leave.



And he's RIGHT; however it wasn't the restraint of powers that necessarily implied retained sovereignty, but the simple fact that they didn't EXPRESSLY SURRENDER their national sovereignty in the Constitution (which is why Lincoln claimed that the states were NEVER sovereign (see below).

not fired artillery at Fort Sumter, a military action that rivals Pearl Harbor for the Not Being Thought Out All the Way prize.

Uhhhhh... Pearl Harbor was in Hawaii, not Tokyo Bay.

Fort Sumter, meanwhile, was WITHIN South Carolina's borders:



That's, WELL-inside South Carolina's sovereign national borders; but Lincoln just used Jackson's pseudo- history, to claim that the international union, was national:



So Lincoln read the Declaration of Independence, and decided that it declared DEPENDENCE of the states ON one another... the guy was a loon.

So when Lincoln denied South Carolina's national sovereignty, and threatened "invasion and force" against it; then South Carolinians were well within their rights of sovereign nations, to use reasonable force, to remove self-declared hostiles from their national territory (and the force WAS reasonable, in fact lenient, killing nobody).

Particularly since the Union had NO national sovereignty of its own-- only the individual states did.

By "this was so evident" I mean secession being an acceptable action

Like when they ratified the Constitution, only requiring 9 states instead of all 13...

... thus violating Lincoln's own rule:





Apparently not:



According to Lincoln, the Constitution itself was a "rebellion," since Rhode Island refused to allow the other states to break their Confederation... while the Constitution only requires 3/4 of states to amend it.

So Lincoln led a self-coup by the federal government against the 34 sovereign nations, claiming national authority over their international union--

which was equivalent to the EU declaring Brexit a "rebellion," and imposing martial law on ALL of its member-states to claim "civil war" against the UK.

 

[LJMYERS]

All you need to know about this.

 

[5fish]

1. Fact: Under the Articles of Confederation, the states retained explicit sovereignty and had no federal political superior.
2. Fact: The U.S. government, claiming a continuous "national union," used military force to prevent the withdrawal of these sovereign entities.
3. Fact: The post-war Supreme Court, in Texas v. White (1869), issued a binding ruling that declared the Union was always perpetual and secession was never a legal right, thereby validating the federal government's use of force and establishing a new constitutional order

The Articles of Confederation ceased to exist, so any authority it once carried is now a historical side note, with no legal bearing on your argument. The peace treaty has no legal validity; it's just our historical beginnings.

The Perpetual Union of States carried on with the adoption of our Constitution, and the Federal Government that exists has the right to defend itself when attacked by foreign forces or from within by domestic uprising. @TomEvans, you seem to forget that the Confederacy took federal property without compensation and was creating a military force, and then attacked and fired on federal forces, starting open hostilities.

Yes, times change, and the legal framework evolves. We were colonies of another nation-state; then we were states that created the United States to fight a war. After we made the Articles of Confederation to manage the nation, we called it the United States of America. Its last evolution is the Constitution of the United States of America, which remains in effect today. In the evolution of our nation's government, no state ever chose to leave...

It is SOCTUS's job to rule on the Constitutional legality of disputes. Your argument is meaningless when you invoke the Treaty of Paris, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation, because they are not legally binding today or in 1865; only the Constitution matters...

 

[TomEvans]

The Articles of Confederation ceased to exist, so any authority it once carried is now a historical side note, with no legal bearing on your argument.

The US government's legal argument for national union, is based on the claim that the states had NEVER been sovereign nations, which is invalidated by your own admission that the states were sovereign nations under the Articles of Confederation.

The Perpetual Union of States carried on with the adoption of our Constitution,

Yeah, ABOUT that....



It couldn't be SAME UNION, if only NINE of THIRTEEN states were needed to ratify it-- and it was only between the ratifying states.



It was TWO DIFFERENT Unions:



So Rhode Island only ratified, because it was better than NO union.

and the Federal Government that exists has the right to defend itself when attacked by foreign forces

You sure like to play fast-and-loose with the facts.....

The federal government had no national authority of its own, since the union had none-- only those powers which were internationally delegated to it by the sovereign nations of the international union.

The federal government simply engaged in a self-coup, to seize supreme national power over the 34 sovereign nations of an international union, and thus steal that power from the voters of respective state.

or from within by domestic uprising.

ONLY upon application by the state governments, in which such uprisings occur:

US Constitution, Article IV, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

So the federal government couldn't simply invade any state it pleased simply on the claim of "suppressing insurrection."
It was an international guarantee to the states, among them to provide for the common defense; not a surrender of national sovereignty.

@TomEvans, you seem to forget that the Confederacy took federal property without compensation and was creating a military force, and then attacked and fired on federal forces, starting open hostilities.

Which was on the national territory of the 11 sovereign nations which made up the Confederacy.

By your logic, the EU can invade and conquer the UK over Brexit, simply because it had property there.

And sovereign nations have the RIGHT to build a military force-- and it wasn't even violating the international Constitution, because those nations SECEDED!
So they were simply 11 sovereign nations, defending themselves against a foreign self-coup, inside an international union that they had just vacated-- which DENIED that their national sovereignty ever existed.

The main EU building in the UK is Europe House in Westminster, London, which hosts the Delegation of the European Union to the United Kingdom and the European Parliament Liaison Office. Before Brexit, the EU had several agencies located in the UK, but they have since relocated to member states. Additionally, the UK government is using some former EU-funded buildings, though these are no longer considered "EU buildings".

No, the CSA states would simply have to owe the USA for any federal property, and could tell them to deduct it from their share of the territories.

Yes, times change, and the legal framework evolves.

FOR THE LAST TIME:

The US government does not claim that the states gave up their sovereignty, but only claims that they never had it.
And they're wrong.

We were colonies of another nation-state; then we were states that created the United States to fight a war.

As an international union of 13 sovereign nations, like the Allies in the World Wars.

After we made the Articles of Confederation to manage the nation,

It wasn't a national union, but an international confederation of 13 separate sovereign nations.

we called it the United States of America. Its last evolution is the Constitution of the United States of America, which remains in effect today.

After a self-coup in 1861.

In the evolution of our nation's government, no state ever chose to leave...

It wasn't a nation, and YES THEY DID... starting with this one.

It is SOCTUS's job to rule on the Constitutional legality of disputes.

In an international union of sovereign nations, each supremely ruled by its respective PEOPLE.



See that? The Supreme Court is only supreme over the GOVERNMENT-- NOT the voters of each respective state.

So when the voters of South Carolina chose for their state to leave--- their state LEFT!

Your argument is meaningless when you invoke the Treaty of Paris, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation, because they are not legally binding today or in 1865; only the Constitution matters...

No, your argument is meaningless, because the US government claims that the states were never sovereign nations-- not that the Constitution ended that sovereignty to form a national union.