Tag: US Constitution

“Land of the Free”? Not So Fast – the Trend-line is Not Linear!

1938 USA Communist Party Convention -Abraham Lincoln as centerpiece

Like most people my age, #60+, I can remember a time when we all were a LOT more free. Rifles in the pickup trucks, shooting guns near suburban neighborhoods, playing outside ALL day with the parents not really knowing where their kids were at. This was all “normal”.

Also during this time, it was the college campuses that allowed and even encouraged thinking and expressing one’s own thoughts no matter how popular they might be. Anti-government speech was not just tolerated, it was at the heart of what it meant to be an American, the Spirit of ’76!

Well those days are long gone, and the transition to where we are today was not a linear one at all. At first there was some minor deviation, but in the past 5-10 years, the college campuses are more group-think than ever, where the narrative of the day is king, where thought police thrive.

This is not the first time this has happened, but it does seem to be the first time it has happened without a war in the past 150 years, but it does have some similarities to a time in American history over 220 years ago where the thought police surfaced, when the “Land of the Free” enacted the Alien and Sedition Act in 1798 which …:

made it a federal crime to publish any false, scandalous or malicious writing – even if true – about the president or the federal government

You see, freedom of speech is a natural, God-given right that governments can and will take away. In the “Land of the Free” in 1798, there were many who took issue with this course change that occurred only 22 years after the thirteen American colonies sought independence from the British Empire. When Thomas Jefferson became president, he and his administration repealed this act. However, one this course change is embedded in a nation’s/empire’s DNA, there is no going back:

Abraham Lincoln arrested Northerners who challenged the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson arrested Americans who challenged World War I. FDR arrested Americans he thought might not support World War II. LBJ and Richard Nixon used the FBI to harass hundreds whose anti-Vietnam protests frustrated them.

In our own post 9/11 era, the chief instrument of repression of personal freedom has been the government’s signature anti-terror legislation: the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act permits FBI agents to write their own search warrants and gives those warrants the patriotic and harmless-sounding name of national security letters (NSLs). This authorization is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that that security can only be violated by a search warrant issued by a neutral judge and based upon probable cause of crime.

To most libertarians, this is where we are today, where the government has successfully transitioned the US Empire to a static point where the “Land of the Free” is no more. However, there is yet another effort that has been made in the past five years or so to continue the transition towards a totalitarian state, and this one comes from the corporate side of Lincoln’s dream of mercantilism, where government and big corporations become two wings of the same bird.

– Murray Rothbard on Mercantilism

As Rod Dreher of Russian Insider indicates in this article, “A Russian Woman Working as a College Professor in the US Writes About the Sovietization of Amerika”, it seems that it is the former citizens of the old USSR are the most sensitized to this trend the most while typical Americans see this as no big deal, much like the Germans in 1930’s Germany as the Nazi’s came to power.

Clarissa [not her real name] is a college professor who emigrated to the US from Russia as a young woman, a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union. She is yet another ex-Soviet bloc person who is extremely anxious about the emergence of soft totalitarianism here. Of course she can’t use her real name, because she fears professional retaliation. It should tell us something that not a single academic from a former communist country that I interviewed for this book was willing to speak using their own name — this, in the Land of the Free. Why not? Because they were afraid of facing professional consequences for speaking out against identity politics and the “social justice” regime.

I am pretty sure if I were to chart out freedom in the USA, we are now at an all-time low as both the government and corporate America are actively seeking out dissenters to the latest narratives. The tools are in place to “take out” people professionally both in social media attacks:

Totalitarianism is something that takes away from people the unbearable burden of freedom. It allows many people to hound and persecute with impunity. That is pleasant in many senses. There was a practice in the Soviet Union where people would be told to get together in groups at work and write letters to the newspaper to denounce famous poets or artists. We see that today in Twitter. People love that because it allows a little person to completely destroy somebody who has done something great.

.. as well inside universities and corporations with diversity and sensitivity training in the workplaces:

All your co-workers are enemies. Either they can get you in trouble, or they are out to destroy you with an accusation. It destroys all sorts of uncontrollable communities – friendship, families, church communities. When you set people against each other, they are much easier to control. This is what it was like under totalitarianism.

So one might think I just need to be more careful about what I share in certain social circles. But that is not how this works, to see how any flavor of totalitarianism actually works, we need to learn from those who lived there:

… wokeness in corporate America is a weapon used by white-collar professionals to weed out competitors for increasingly scarce jobs. She said, “People find ideological purity tests useful to weed out people who compete for jobs you cover. Progressive forces are completely allied with globalist capitalism.”

She also said that people have no idea how vulnerable they are to this mindset, because of social media. “You will not be able to predict what will be held against you tomorrow. You have no idea what completely normal thing you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you. This is what people in the Soviet Union saw. We know how this works. This is why people like me are so upset today.

One would think that at least the church might be a place where one can be real in this regard. Anyone who understands the 1st century church, it was the underground Christians in the Roman Empire that actually turned the then-known-world upside-down NOT with violence or revolution, but with love of their neighbor where .. :

[NOTE: It seems that true “diversity” does not focus on division based on race, sex or anything else. A true team sees each unique God-created individual as part of the crew that can help to keep the ship afloat.]

Well, a note of caution, most of the churches today, especially ones with government registration in place (501c3), are part of the corporate woke-ness effort underway in this country. Most of the church of today bears little resemblance to the church in the generation after Jesus was killed by religion and empire.

Until this trend is reversed, the ‘circle of trust’ is going to get mighty small. Take your time in knowing who your friends are, it is better to be lonely than to be a fresh target for either empire or corporate-elite.

Peace out

-SF1

Point of No Return – Ruling Class’s Power Over the US Empire

Sometimes it takes a very small quote to wake up to the new reality. I contend that this reality could have come much earlier, like in 1814, or 1860, 1867, 1870s, 1913, 1941, 1950, 1964, 1971, 1990, 2002, or 2008. I think it comes from our nature to assume the best in some tough situations.

But, consider this quote from Angelo Codevilla in his article “Facing Up to the Revolution” :

Our country is in a state of revolution, irreversibly, because society’s most influential people have retreated into moral autarchy, have seceded from America’s constitutional order, and because they browbeat their socio-political adversaries instead of trying to persuade them. Theirs is not a choice that can be reversed. It is a change in the character of millions of people.

The sooner conservatives realize that the Republic established between 1776 and 1789—the America we knew and loved—cannot return, the more fruitfully we will be able to manage the revolution’s clear and present challenges to ourselves. How are we to deal with a ruling class that insists on ruling—elections and generally applicable rules notwithstanding—because it regards us as lesser beings?

It does have to be considered how the US Constitution actually helped the oligarchy, the ruling class, to gain access to the US government. If the colonies had remained sovereign states, like under the Articles of Confederation, it would have been more difficult and easier to resist from a grassroots level. The spread of “general” government to that of a federal government forever changed the structure of this nation as well as the fabric of society. Today, 99% of people can not imagine life without their safety net, their protector, their ‘mom’, their ‘dad’, .. their government.

Last month in a Lew Rockwell article, Gary D. Barnett proclaimed:

No nation-state is valid, as all states tend to seek a hierarchal structure of power, specifically in the name of protecting the common man collectively with profoundly restrictive laws. No free individual has need for such false protection. The beginning of this American experiment to create a powerful state was said to be about freedom of the individual, while all along, the hierarchy of power became more and more evident. What started out as a few separate colonies quickly became separate states with a new ruling class, and then one nation-state was formed and centralized, with allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. This progression was intended all along, and so the sought after tyrannical state came to fruition. Today we live as slaves in a society with a ruling structure akin to a fascist oligarchy. This is now a nation that is in constant war, and has become the largest and most murderous empire in the history of the world.

Unfortunately, secession will never be tolerated (if Lincoln didn’t tolerate it, you can bet no 21st century president would), and those who speak of this will be marginalized one way or another.

The US Empire will have to die before anything like the 1783-1789 federated group of states could ever be attempted again. As Mr. Barnett predicts:

Collectivism breeds empire and allows it to flourish, and because of the loss of individual thought, it becomes the internal disease that leads to the extermination of that empire. This is the real America, not the land of the free and home of the brave, but a collective mob of ignorant sheep awaiting the slaughter due to their own weakness and stupidity.

With collectivist thought at an all time-high we seem to be a long way from breaking up this evil empire that continues to wage war all around the globe. War is the only thing it knows, and the only thing that brings in the $USD and props up the petro-dollar.

Sad times indeed, however, by planting the seeds of individual thought in our kids and our friends, we can all be best prepared for the next season of the US Empire.

-SF1

When the Honeymoon is Over: Is the First Fight Always About Money?

One of the most ridiculous claims I have ever heard is that the South left the North over slavery. Anyone with a thinking mind should have done their research and realize that when the media/government spins a yarn so very hard and for over a century, it is probably false.

In reading a 1960s well documented book by Murray Rothbard called “Conceived in Liberty, Volume 5: The New Republic”, it becomes apparent that the new “marriage” of several colonial regions in America had some high hopes and dreams that were quickly dashed with some harsh realities. Promises made or implied give away to a selfish attitude that neatly translates for the North into some more economic bondage for the South.

This core resentment and distrust would eventually be the key reason why the South (as of 04MAR1861, just the seven states of the deep south) did not flinch when Lincoln promised them LEGAL and PERMANENT slavery of blacks IF they would simply re-enter the Union. By this time the South was tired of the abusive relationship the North treated them with and it was apparent that as of NOV1860 that the North could elect a president without ANY Southern support or votes spoke volumes.

As the American Revolution ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris, the engagement of the thirteen colonies signed 04JUL1776 with the Declaration of Independence led to the creation of the wedding vows on 15NOV1777 followed by the commencement of the marriage on 01MAR1781. Note that the language of the vows talks of a perpetual union, however, by the time a constitutional convention was called in 1787, these original vows were discarded for a new set (the United States Constitution) that “promised” a better relationship. In hindsight, it was all downhill from that point forward.

With the end of the war-period in which these thirteen colonies fought together, but with a wide range of sacrifice, it was time to settle all the debt incurred during this period. It is in this period that some significant character flaws started to make themselves known that should have been red-flags, especially for the South, to anticipate what a continued relationship might look like and if the North could be trusted in the long-term.

Murray Rothbard shares a summary:

“A key to the politico-economic problems of the Confederation period, as well as one of the leading arguments for centralized power, was the swollen corpus of war-born public debt. The mass of federal and state debt could have depreciated and passed out of existence by the end of the war, but the process was stopped by Robert Morris. Morris and the nationalists moved to make the depreciated federal debt ultimately redeemable at par, and also agitated for federal assumption of the states’ debts. This was done to benefit speculators who purchased the public debt at depreciated values and to force a drive for a national taxing power ..”

To have a “spouse” like that to hijack the relationship towards a future that philosophically was repulsive to the independent minded Southern colonies, in effect, USING the South for it’s economic engine (which at that time was much more healthy than the North, this in spite of the major conflicts that occurred in the South during the last 1/2 of the war).

As a result of the nationalists’ efforts to assume the public debt, the value of the public debt, in specie, increased from $11 million in 1780 to $27 million in 1783, the vast bulk of which was held in the northern states. While scrambling to assume some of the debt themselves, the states had also amassed a huge burden of their own debt. Thus, by the end of the war, Massachusetts’ total debt was nearly £1.5 million; Rhode Island, about $0.5 million; Connecticut, over $3.75 million; Pennsylvania, over £4.6 million; Virginia’s over £4.25 million. As a result, payment of interest on the debt amounted to an overwhelming proportion of the state budget, and one estimate is that 50–90 percent of state expenditures went for this purpose ..

Not cool. The elites looked to benefiting themselves and placing the common folk on the hook for all the taxes needed not just to satisfy the interest payments on the debt, but to eventually pay off all the American Revolutionary War debt,

One problem that bitterly divided the states during the Confederation period was the settlement of common accounts. Under the Articles, expenses made by the several states for causes common to them all would be lumped together as “common charges” and the charges paid proportionately by the various states. In short, “debtor” states would pay their share to claimant “creditor” states through Congress and thus settle their accounts. Wartime expenses were clearly a common charge for the general welfare, and therefore those states which had expended more in the war effort (notably the southern states, because of the nature of the last few years of the war) were entitled to payment from the others. Logically, the public debt incurred by Congress should also have been assumed pro rata by the separate states, but the nationalists’ fierce determination to amass and retain a federal debt was able to keep that debt a federal rather than a “common” charge.

Talk about a bait and switch. So the vows that were agreed to in 1781 were just words on paper and the actions after the war’s end were highly dishonorable in regards to the nationalist’s agenda:

Throughout the 1780s the southern states tried to obtain their just settlements, but the northern states faithlessly fell back on technicalities, lack of official vouchers and authorization, etc., to keep the southern states from their just due. Also the South in particular had gone much further than other states in assuming unliquidated federal debt during the war (e.g., Quartermaster and Commissary certificates) and had exchanged them for state debts, only to find Congress (i.e., the North) balking about accepting these federal certificates as evidence for expenditures in the common welfare. Again, the North was depriving the South of their just due.

It should be noted that many Southern militia members never got the pensions deserved and yet so many New Englanders who never fought a battle received the same pension. Basically, the Yankee’s word meant nothing, and this was only the beginning:

As the dispute dragged on during the decade with the southern states unable to redeem their claims, Robert Morris’ wily “solution” proposed in 1783 began to look better to all concerned. An ultra-nationalist’s dream, the proposal was to accept all southern claims without cavil, but not to be paid by the debtor states: to be assumed by the federal government, which would issue federal securities for all claims. In short, the federal government would assume all war-born state debts. The tax-and-debt burdens of the states were, of course, aggravated when the depression of 1784 hit the country, for now a fixed sum of taxes and debt payments had to be exacted from a depressed economy in which prices were generally lower and therefore the real tax burden greater. One critical problem was whether the debt would be paid at its depreciated market value, which at least reflected current economic realities, or whether the state would insist on paying them at their far greater face value, and thus impose an enormously greater tax burden upon the people. The anger of people at paying debt charges was considerably aggravated by the fact that the bulk of this debt had passed from its original owners at highly depreciated amounts into the hands of speculators. Payment of face value, then, would not even benefit the original public creditors; in fact, they too would suffer from being taxed for the benefit of a windfall to a comparative handful of speculators in the public debt.

The way two former colonies would handle this situation showed the difference in character between the regions, which to me meant that they were not compatible for a “tight” marriage but might work in a loose “federation”. Unfortunately, the actions in 1787 with the new “vows” (the US Constitution, coup d’tat) would make this marriage so tight that it could only become abusive in the long haul.

Virginia showed honorable character:

Virginia was sensible enough to pay much of the debt at its depreciated market value, and make its taxes to pay the debt payable in depreciated certificates. Hence, Virginia was able to reduce its debt rapidly and without imposing enormous burdens on its taxpayers .. Numerous county petitions in Virginia pleaded the impossibility of paying taxes, a condition aggravated by the low price of tobacco in the mid-1780s. The Virginia legislature reacted sagely to the protests .. and agreed to lower or suspend taxes, and to allow hemp-growing western farmers to pay their taxes in hemp or flour. Indeed, Virginia agreed, in the spring of 1784, to suspend all tax collections for six months, and then agreed to cut taxes in half for the year 1785.

Massachusetts not so much:

Massachusetts, on the other hand, so handled its debt during the war as to benefit its debt holders and speculators, consolidating its debt by 1784 at twice its market value. To pay this particularly large debt, Massachusetts levied enormous taxes and insisted on collecting them in specie. This is not surprising, since the Massachusetts government was basically run by the very groups that owned the great mass of state debt. The debt burden was borne particularly by the poor, since roughly 33 to 40 percent of Massachusetts’ state revenue was raised by poll taxes, which were equal for each citizen. As a result, it is estimated that at least a third of a Massachusetts farmer’s income after 1780 was extracted from him in taxes, and in specie at that. Farmers and the poor demanded that the state debt at least be scaled down to market value, but the conservative ruling groups angrily refused. Typical of the eastern mercantile oppression over the mass of citizens and farmers was the imposition of excise taxes, which harmed the bulk of consumers. Thus, the tax on spirits (e.g., cider brandy) distilled from one’s own apple orchard was twice the level of the tax on New England rum: a clear privilege to the Boston and other eastern merchants over the western farmers. Tax oppression upon the Massachusetts people was enormous, and the courts ruthlessly threw those who could not pay into jail. Tax defaulters’ property was seized, but in the time-honored way of neighborhood solidarity, local mobs prevented anyone but the owner from bidding for the property.

The rifts were real and would be aggravated over time.  These events should have given caution to the southern states by the late 1780s that had the nationalists accelerate their efforts to centralize the US general government and create a central bank. It seems the longer the South stayed with the North the more the North sensed that it OWNED the South, as a slave and not respected her as a spouse.

Hindsight is indeed 20/20 .. but learning these things from real history is priceless!

-SF1

Long Term Effects of Hamiltonianism: St. George Tucker’s Antidote – Jeffersonianism

The pendulum swing of politics has revealed much as to the gullibility of the masses who are swept up by emotion but rarely have principles by which to live by when the going gets tough.

It seems that Thomas Paine’s writings in 1776 helped put people in a position to better understand the battles, the war and the cause for which thirteen British colonies aligned with each other, for a moment in time, to repel the British Empire from their midst. By the end of this conflict, there were many who were disillusioned with the cause, either by British tactics used by Patriot forces or even having their property pillaged by the Whig faction that made them choose to be a Tory. The pendulum swung in villages, colonies as well as on this continent as people heard the news, fake or not.

At the end of the day, one wonders if those with power can be trusted to make decisions on their behalf, which is at its root, representative government. We have seen ourselves where HOAs and churches can become hotbeds of contention and power moves that can swiftly cripple the week and the meek. I believe this is why many founding fathers, but definitely not all, preferred the grass roots approach. Keeping the “representative” local, so someone could have the proximity to put a boot up their a** if need be, is essential for accountability.

As the War for Independence concluded, and the Articles of Confederation gave way to the Constitution that was created in Philadelphia in 1787, in secret, many “grassroot” promoters found themselves in the minority.

A recent article about St. George Tucker helps shed light not only on the two types of dreams for America that the “cause” help birth, but also the prophetical vision that this man had for seeing the end of the line for either of these visions. Allen Mendenhall’s article “St. George Tucker’s Jeffersonian Constitution” helps to frame my thoughts on what we gained, and what we lost, after the fight for independence from 1775-1783:

One could argue that there are two basic visions for America: the Hamiltonian and the Jeffersonian. The former is nationalist, calling for centralized power and an industrial, mercantilist society characterized by banking, commercialism, and a robust military. Its early leaders had monarchical tendencies. The latter vision involves a slower, more leisurely and agrarian society, political decentralization, popular sovereignty, and local republicanism. Think farmers over factories.

Both were birthed in the message of liberty. Both indicated the support of the common person in their leadership to create something new here in America that was different from the ways of the Old World, especially in Europe. You can see the thread by who you might consider our heroes:

Hamiltonian:

  • John Adams, John Marshall, Noah Webster, Henry Clay, Joseph Story, and Abraham Lincoln

Jeffersonian:

  • George Mason and Patrick Henry (who, because they were born before Jefferson, could be considered his precursors), the mature (rather than the youthful) James Madison, and then John Taylor of Caroline, John C. Calhoun, Abel Upshur, and Robert Y. Hayne.

So the Federalists (who were not really federalists, but as you know with political parties, their name does not always reveal their core) surged into power on the tails of the Constitution that helped assure a more powerful centralized general government but then over played their hand especially during “Alien and Sedition Act” John Adams administration. The Anti-Federalists, called the Democratic-Republican Party (or simply the Republican party) by the time Thomas Jefferson sought the presidency would sweep into office and would change the political landscape some for the next 30 years or so before the Whigs would emerge and eventually the Republican party that nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

From St. George Tucker’s time, he could see the years and the decades unfolding in his mind. Here are a few of his thoughts:

Under this [Compact Theory of the US Constitution] model, each sovereign, independent state is contractually and consensually committed to confederacy, and the federal government possesses only limited and delegated powers—e.g., “to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations.”

That is indeed one way to interpret the US Constitution, as even Alexander Hamilton would talk this way about it, until it passed and until he was in power with George Washington.

.. summarizing competing contentions about the Sedition Act, Tucker subtly supported the position that “the United States as a federal government have no common law” and that “the common law of one state . . . is not the common law of another.” The common law, in Tucker’s paradigm, is bottom-up and home-grown; it’s not a formula that can be lifted from one jurisdiction and placed down anywhere else with similar results and effects.

This is another core principle that IF had been understood by the political elite of the 20th/21st century, it would not have thought that the USA could bring “democracy” to any other nation in the world.  Even in the United States, the STATES represent different cultures, morals and standards. We would have done well in keeping it that way, but our ancestors believed Hamilton and Lincoln over Jefferson and Calhoun.

Allen ends his article with the wisdom that can be gained in understanding what we lost after the War for Independence:

Reading Tucker reminds us that for most of our country’s formative history the principal jurisprudential debates were not about natural law versus positivism, or originalism versus living constitutionalism, but about state versus federal authority, local versus national jurisdiction, the proper scale and scope of government, checks and balances, and so forth. To the extent these subjects have diminished in importance, Hamilton has prevailed over Jefferson. Reading Tucker today can help us see the costs of that victory.

It seems that only the recovery of the wisdom and the thoughts of these 18th century thinkers can lead this land towards a better day for us, our kids and our grand-kids. The US Empire’s current trajectory is self-defeating in the long term and not sustainable.

Local city-state and region-state philosophy is a much needed idea, but the powers residing in the political elites funded by an evil moneyed elites will not give up their multi-century grasp for total control and power easily.

Something will have to give.

-SF1

Fall 1781: Momentum of the Revolutionary War Shifts, So Does “The Cause”

There is light at the end of the tunnel, and there is movement afoot that takes place mainly north of the Potomac River that I contend is normal in this broken world. When freedom breaks out, there are those that instill fear in the people that politics, bigger and more centralized, is needed to secure our future.

While this article is a bit dated (I believe I was still in the US Navy at the time), it does point out a few things that I have been saying off and on in my blog over the past year or so. I bring it up now since my ongoing coverage of Francis Marion’s activities in South Carolina, which actually saved the colonies in their efforts to exit the British Empire, is entering the post-Yorktown phase where military conflicts and such give way back to the political.

The standard American myth celebrates the Constitution as the triumphant culmination of the American Revolution. This is largely untrue and misleading.

Everyone in government schools has heard, the Articles of Confederation was weak and ill equipped to govern the thirteen colonies, let alone all the additional lands that the Treaty of Paris granted in 1783:

The facts, and not that era’s fake news, paints a much different scene:

The alleged “critical period” between the end of the Revolution and the Constitution’s adoption was not dominated by economic depression, political turmoil, and international peril, jeopardizing the independent survival of the American experiment in liberty.

There was no actual threat, but a threat was thought up in the minds of those politicians whose political descendants include the politicians that orchestrated the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the so-called Civil War and so on. In each of these instances, there was a fear introduced into the population that without a war, catastrophe was imminent.

In context, backing up to the period of time before even the Declaration of Independence was penned (raw thoughts by Thomas Paine and edited by Thomas Jefferson), there was a joining of efforts from people in the thirteen colonies across a political and philosophical spectrum. On one hand, we have the RADICALS:

The American Revolution, like all great social upheavals, was brought off by a disparate coalition of competing viewpoints and conflicting interests. At one end of the Revolutionary coalition stood the American radicals—men such as Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson.

Although by no means in unanimous agreement, the radicals objected to excessive state power in general and not simply to British rule in particular. Spearheading the Revolution’s opening stages, they were responsible for the truly revolutionary alterations in the internal status quo: the abolition of slavery in the northern states, the separation of church and state in the southern states, the rooting out of remaining feudal privileges everywhere, and the adoption of new, republican state constitutions containing written bills of rights that severely hemmed in government power.

These were change agents, those daring visionaries that can see life lived differently, and at the same time knew that this would not be a utopia, but in reality would be a struggle, but a rewarding one.

On the other hand, was a class of people that we might consider to be nationalists or those whose major agenda was that of mercantilism:

At the other end of the Revolutionary coalition were the American nationalists; an array of mercantile, creditor, and landed interests. The nationalists went along with independence but opposed the Revolution’s libertarian thrust. They sought a strong American state with the hierarchical features of the 18th-century British state, only without the British.

So by the fall of 1781 as the British catastrophe at Yorktown reverberated throughout the British Empire, there were nationalist forces that were already parting ways with the radicals, and even the militias that brought them to this day.  By 1783, Francis Marion saw the writing on the wall. The NOV1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the 06JAN1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Continental Nathaniel Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”.  Georgia had also given Greene 24,000 acres as well. Marion eventually was awarded 300 acres in 1785.

It should be noted that the correspondence Marion had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in DEC1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. Marion lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now.

So too were the more nationalistic military leaders that benefited from a larger government:

Military conservatives such as George Washington induced Congress to focus the Revolutionary effort on a costly conventional force, the Continental Army, rather than the militias. By the 1781 Yorktown campaign, popular disgust at the army’s continuing hand-to-mouth existence gave the nationalists uncontested control of Congress. They proceeded to implement a financial program that gave the central government much more power.

While the nationalists attempted to strengthen the Articles of Confederation, their attempts through 1784 were met with resistance from the Radicals after the Treaty of Paris. The economic state of the states were generally fine economically except for two groups that put out a very public fuss:

In reality, American merchants were after uniform navigation laws, because they wanted some coercive means of monopolizing the American carrying trade. And American artisans wanted uniform protective tariffs to stop their customers from buying the cheap foreign goods flooding American markets at the end of the war. The unique economic fortunes of these two groups and their quest for special privileges contributed much to the exaggerated impression of postwar depression.

As we see today, coercive means to monopolize as well as protective tariffs are tools used yet today in 2019. Capitalism will always look to enhance their position by government if it will let them. Corporatism is the curse of politics gone too far.

So the Coup d’etat of the cause for the freedoms gained by the American Revolution would come at a convention in Philadelphia in 1787 whose purpose was to rework the Articles of Confederation, however:

Its official function was to propose revisions to the Articles. But the delegates, meeting in secret, quickly decided to draft a totally new document. Of the 55 delegates, only 8 had signed the Declaration of Independence. Most of the leading radicals, including Sam Adams, Henry, Paine,Lee, and Jefferson, were absent. In contrast, 21 delegates belonged to the militarist Society of the Cincinnati. Overall, the convention was dominated by the array of nationalist interests that the prior war had brought together: land speculators, ex-army officers, public creditors, and privileged merchants.

Things had definitely changed in one decade’s time, and not for the better! Look how far we have come since then.

Not cool!

We are much “safer” today as a result of the this early course change in this nation’s history, safe as slaves.

-SF1