GDG- Fighting for your state

Tue Sep 12 18:54:01 CDT 2006

Hi Laurie,  I realized after I sent the email and was rereading your post
that I saw you were referring to the colonies after Independence and I was
talking about before.  

As a Doctor of History I bow to your expertise.  I have only become so
interested in the 1750 - 1787 period since this June after visiting so many
Revolutionary sites after leaving GB and the Muster.  It made me realize how
much I did not know or have forgotten about of birth as a nation.  I am on
my 6th book since June and have put all GB reading on hold other than this
site since.  

Charlie
Somewhere in the USA

-----Original Message-----
From: gettysburg-bounces at arthes.com [mailto:gettysburg-bounces at arthes.com]
On Behalf Of Laurence D. Schiller
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 5:10 PM
To: GDG
Subject: GDG- Fighting for your state

Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:

Hi Charlie - as long as Robert lets the ball go on, I'm willing to 
keep dancing! I've changed the subject line so as not to confuse 
folks...

>Esteemed GDG Member Contributes:
>
>
>Hi, Laurie  we are way off topic here but I can't help but add a response. 
>
>
>I can't say I agree with you here. Contrary to what some
>would have us believe, the 13 colonies were never separate sovereign
>governments.
>[Char & Charlie  ]
>Each colony had its own government.  Included a governor such as Hutchinson
>in Massachusetts and Dunsmore in Virginia appointed by the Crown.  Each
>colony had a Legislature or court as Burgess in Virginia and Councils
>similar to the Senate today.  And many colonies had representation in
>England such as Ben Franklin who lived in England for 18 years before
>returning in 1775.  There were many attempts to get colonies to agree
>beginning in 1754 as the colonies met in Albany NY to discuss how to meet
>the French Indian threat and Franklin's ideas put into what was called the
>Albany Plan.  Much of this plan formed the foundation to the Declaration of
>Independence as did the Suffolk Resolves and the Virginia Resolves.  But
>interests differed regionally and there was little interest in uniting or
>being anything other than a colony of Britain.

All true - yet you misconstrue my point. They were all under British 
sovereignty. When they threw that off, they formed another national 
government. My point is not how united they were but that they NEVER 
acted as independent entities, only as states under another 
sovereignty. But the old argument is that the states were sovereign 
and formed a compact which anyone could pull out of when they wanted 
to. This is false.

>
>  In 1774, before they even contemplated actual
>independence from Britain, who governed all of them, they formed a
>Continental Congress to which, eventually, was delegated such powers
>as the right to raise a Continental army and treat with foreign
>powers, as well as the English Government itself.
>[Char & Charlie  ]
>The first Continental congress did not accomplish much other that to agree
>to boycott English goods because of the closing of Boston harbor by the
>Crown and to agree that if Massachusetts militia was attacked by the
British
>all the colonies would support them. It was dominated by Samuel Adams who
>wanted to change the system of being ruled by a small number of elite
>wealthy minority.  The second CC in 1775 did establish Washington as CIC
>after Concord and sent him to Boston but little else with individual
>colonies militias providing the bulk of the army. And Washington would beg
>and plead for the next eight years for money from the congress to pay for
>the army. The desertion rates rivaled those in the CW.  By the way I
>consider the RW as the first civil war in the US.  The loyalist and those
>that did not chose Independence exceeded those that did.  The population of
>Boston changed by what military controlled the town.

Ok, but this doesn't change my point.

>
>
>  At no time did any
>state send its own representatives to London or Paris, etc. After
>1776, the Continental Congress, while not strong, nonetheless
>operated as a Federal government. When the British gave up their
>supreme power over the colonies in 1783, the Articles of
>Confederation were passed to replace British sovereignty. In that
>document it stated that 'The Union is perpetual'. That is pretty
>definite language. The Articles were too weak, so 'In order to form a
>more perfect Union' the Constitution was created and passed to
>strengthen the Federal government.
>[Char & Charlie  ]
>The Articles did indeed leave much to the states.  And with a large debt
>from the war it was evident that the states were not going to pay off the
>debt and the US could not get anywhere as a nation without the ability to
>pay off that debt.  The issues of commerce, expansion west, money could not
>be resolved without a central government and the Articles did not provide
>but for central control of common issues.  Washington, Madison, Hamilton
and
>other recognized that and lead the effort for a Constitution providing for
a
>central government.
>
>Certainly, this was not perfect
>and the slavery issue was not resolved until the ACW, but a Union was
>most definitely in place. However, it is one thing to declare a
>country and another to make it into a nation. That takes time. I
>think that before the ACW you will find plenty of instances where
>citizens of every state, north and south, put state before Federal
>government - but this slowly changed as people began to identify with
>the national state as Americans.
>	But there is another thing here as well. I truly believe that
>the idea of identification with a specific state is overstated.
>[Char & Charlie  ]
>Yes, but how many professional soldiers went with their state and not with
>the federal government.  I think you are right that slavery was used by a
>region to shout States rights as the governments attempted to rid our
>country of the institution.

They went with their region and family - and how many more, in fact, 
didn't go with their states? The Federal government also leaves much 
to the states, but that doesn't make them sovereign. That is all I am 
saying here.

Best,

Laurie

>
>By
>1860 there were 34 states, an increase of 21, and if we examine the
>muster rolls of both sides, you will note how many of those folks in
>the western states were born elsewhere. Lee had strong family and
>social ties to Virginia, but what of those many Americans who had
>migrated to Alabama, Illinois, Texas, Kansas, and so forth. Can we
>say they really identified with their state as a primary loyalty, or
>do we really see a sectional loyalty here - Slave vs free. Indeed,
>the ties were quite murky as we see so many Southerners supporting
>the Federal government and, at the same time, many border state folks
>going south even though their state stayed with the Union. I see
>people talking about loyalty to family, section, way of life, and
>even to the Confederacy, but few saying "I'm going to fight for
>Alabama".
>	Finally, there was always a minority, a la Calhoun, who felt
>that the states SHOULD overrule the Federal government, but they were
>in the minority when the Constitution was ratified and never had any
>legal basis for their contention, as James Madison and Andy Jackson
>clearly pointed out in 1832.
>
>Best,
>
>Laurie Schiller
>

-- 
Dr. Laurence Dana Schiller		Civil War First Person Impressions
Maitre d'Armes				William Bradshaw, Co. F 2nd WI
Head Fencing Coach			George Hammitt, Co. H 104th Ill
Department of History
Northwestern University
Commissioner, Midwest Fencing Conference
Midwest VP, US Fencing Coaches' Association
Vice-Chair USFA Illinois Division
Lds307 at northwestern.edu
847-491-4654
FAX 847-467-1406
Official Sports site: http://nusports.ocsn.com/
Student web site: http://groups.northwestern.edu/fencing/

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