Tag: War of 1812

Character Flaw: US Government Has Lied .. Us into Mexican-American War

Continuing on the theme from a few days ago where I titled the post:

Character Flaw: US Government Has Lied Us into War of 1812 All the Way to the War on Covid-19

.. we can go one from one official/unofficial (undeclared by US Congress) war to the next to unpack the gross lies politicians use for their own agendas.

Context for the Mexican-American war that started in 1846 is important because most people fail to remember anything about this war and even less as to what led to it and why this war was so bad .. for setting the stage to the next war or two. (so-called Civil War and Indian Wars)

So as the united States (13 sovereign states as addressed in the 1783 Treaty of Paris) came out of the War for Independence (officially called the American Revolution) and found themselves lied into the War of 1812. By 1815 the United States found themselves in more debt with NO MORE territory to show for it, it seems that maybe the government learned this lesson and stayed out of another war for another generation or so.

About the same time in current day Mexico, if you remember the Spanish Empire, specifically their fleet, was badly wrecked by the British in 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. By 1810 the Mexican people, sensing the demise of the Spanish Empire, started a revolution to expel the Spanish. So note that there was a lot of slave trade going on in Mexico with the Spanish kidnapping indigenous people’s kids and visa versa, so much so that the revolutionaries promised no slavery in the newly freed Mexico. Independence was achieved by 1821 at an 11 year war, but slavery remained .. so we have yet again the typical:

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss-The Who

Sound familiar, in recent years from Bush II to Obama to Trump … but I digress. Viva la no difference ..

Starting in 1822, settlers from Missouri (called the ‘Old 300’) started moving into the region that is now the state of Texas and by 1829 Mexico did finally abolish slavery. However, in 1830 Mexico outlawed immigration to Texas, yet it had no means to prevent this until starting in 1835 Texas went to war to become independent.

While the Republic of Texas occupied only 50% of what we today call Texas, this new government claimed an area three times this size into present day OK, CO, ID, UT and AZ. This “disputed land” was under the actual control of the Comanche, Apache and Navajo Indian tribes. These tribes had kept the Spanish Empire, Mexico and the Republic of Texas out of their land.

1st Republic of Texas flag
Republic of Texas naval flag

In 1845, the US government annexed Texas as the 28th state in the Union, complete with disputed land along the Rio Grande to the southern border with Mexico. The unwritten rules was that no troops were to be allowed in this “demilitarized zone”. However, the US was not content with Mexico alone as the Whigs wanted a more aggressive move against Canada while the Democrats wanted moves against a weak Mexico. Empire building is always in powerful elite’s DNA.

The term Manifest Destiny was the thought that God actually gave the US the right to seize land in the Northern Hemisphere from Atlantic to Pacific. The phrase heard from 1818 until 1846 was “54-40 or fight” based on the Whig premise that the joint claim the British Empire and US had over the Oregon Territory was in fact the US’s to possess. In fact, James Polk, a Democrat, even campaigned for president based on this philosophy.

This region west of the Rocky Mountains and between 42 degrees north and 54 degrees 40 minutes north (the southern boundary of Russia’s Alaska territory) included what now is Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, as well as land up the western coast of British Columbia, Canada.

The first action against Mexico was accomplished during the work towards a treaty behind the scenes between the British Empire (not in any major conflict and not a good time to pick a fight with) and the US Government. Pres. Polk sent Capt. Fremont with mercenaries to California to invade (1st invasion) and when Mexico got upset, he built a fort and raised a flag there. Mexican forces arrived and Fremont retreated to Northern California to operate a more guerilla war of attrition from the safety of the northern California woods. By this time, the Oregon Treaty was signed 15JUN1846 with the British Empire and settled the boundary to be the 49th parallel. The Whigs were ticked!

The Whigs now saw that conflict with Mexico might bring more southern “slave” states and upset the balance of power between the Whigs (Northern) and Democrats (Southern) had for decades. The slavery issue was USED by both parties to keep the people divided (the 1846 version of Covid-19). Polk then dispatched reps from his administration secretly to Mexico to offer them $25M for northern Mexico. The problem was that the Mexican government was in such a fluid and weak state that its leader changed 4x and its finance ministers 16X in the time the US sought to purchase this land. His representatives returned and Polk saw this as an opportunity to spark something. He directed 70 men under command of a man named Thorton to “patrol” (2nd Mexican invasion) Mexican territory and was met by 2000 Mexican cavalry. Over 16 US men were killed and Polk then addressed Congress saying “Mexico invaded the United States” which was an outright lie. Even Abraham Lincoln saw the ruse and challenged Polk from the floor of Congress by saying “show me the spot”.

BREAK: I have to say, the Anti-War Lincoln on the floor of Congress is like the Anti-War Obama on the same floor of Congress, only to become war hawks when they each became president. This is not unlike GW Bush campaigning on peace in 2000 and Trump campaigning on peace in 2016 only to see GW Bush invade Iraq based on the WMD lies and also see Trump dropping more bombs than O-bomb-a!

The 1846 Congress however gave in to President Polk’s wishes and the US invaded Mexico in an all out war that actually accomplished a few things:

  • US Army generals learned their craft of war
  • Whig party split at their peak which allowed a political vacuum for the Republican party
  • Deaths, disease all told by sending men into the tropics saw a 40% casualty rate
  • Failed to annex ALL of Mexico which set the stage for Lincoln’s War on the South
  • Sherman’s total war strategy was formed which was used in the South as well against the Comanche and Arapaho in the decades to come

The blind almost religion faith in the state causes untold casualties, deaths and financial destruction 360 degrees EXCEPT to the state itself .. because:

Now you know why school kids are never taught about this war. Because there were really no lies made to cover-up the real reason of this war except the president lying outright as to the location of the second Mexican invasion near the Rio Grande River.

Peace out.

-SF1

Character Flaw: US Government Has Lied Us into War of 1812 All the Way to the War on Covid-19

While Canadian children learn all about this fairly well in their government schools, the version that is taught in the US government licensed public and private schools is that the British were to blame for this war and we (US) beat them good. Nothing can be further from the truth.

From what I can recall from my own schooling in the 1960s/1970s, there was mention of the British navy “impressing” US sailors into service on British warships. Well, the truth is that this had been happening since the end of the US War for Independence in 1783 by BOTH the British and the US navies as well as navies all around the globe. In fact, the main mission of the US Marines was to go into port and get able bodied sailors for US ships, kidnapping was encouraged for the greater good. There is no way this issue alone triggered this war.

Since war is the health of the state, power and money are usually the top two reasons states go down this path. The lies told to the public citizens so that they will go along and give up their teen and 20-something men to fight in this just cause is justified because the ends justify the means.

To set the stage and context for this war initiated by the US, one has to find the trigger to resort to this decision. Most of what is covered here is readily available in Wikipedia or its equivalent or conversely, one could listen to this podcast by Bad Quaker (Ben Stone) starting at 17:00 until 49:00.

Regarding the money angle for the US to decide to annex/invade Canada by crossing at Fort Detroit in July 1812, one has to know that since the mid-1780s the US enlisted and licensed privateers to confiscate British merchants goods from the high seas. These were not the Johnny Depp or Errol Flynn versions seen in movies of independent pirates going about their plundering but incorporated business more like present day Iraqi War – US Invasion companies like Halliburton, General Dynamics and Blackwater that thrive in times of conflict.

So up until 1805 with the Battle of Trafalgar, where the British navy whipped both the Spanish and French fleets, the US privateers (considered pirated in other countries) had free reign in the Caribbean and Atlantic due to the 600 ship British fleet focusing on other areas of the world. The Americas was a “backwater” area that did not really rate high on the priority of British global interests.

Complicit in this plundering was the fact that when the privateers brought the booty into US ports (mainly NYC and Boston) the US government got their cut from US constitution decreed taxes before the privateers sold these goods to Americans or even sometimes to the British themselves.

After 1805 the US government’s revenue stream from this activity started to dry up and there was much angst around the economic health of the US and its government by 1812.

 

Power was another angle that has to be considered as there had always been talk of expanding the US both north and south as well as west. During the US Revolutionary War an attempt to get Canada onboard was thwarted, but it seemed to some people who desired empire-building that Canada must be annexed.

It wasn’t enough that the US was able to obtain the Indian Confederacy land in the old Northwest Territory (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan) as this had been the intent since George Washington commanded ownership of large land swaths in the Ohio Territory.

So on 12JUL1812 US troops invaded Canada and was met with still resistance by the Canadians mainly (50% of the forces as militia) as the small number of British military leaders had no real skin in the game. Most of the elite thought that the US could just walk in .. even Thomas Jefferson!

The acquisition of Canada, this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching. – Thomas Jefferson AUG1812

At the same time the US was an ally to France’s Napoleon who decided to invade Russia in 1812 and empire building elites in the US eyed Russian holdings from San Francisco bay up to Sitka, Alaska. When Napoleon failed in this endeavor, the US had to back off from their expansion dreams to the west.

The moneyed elites also looked with greed at all the land Spain still had from Mexico all the way to Panama! It is apparent that the immature US government bit off more than they could chew.

Looking just at a comparison of naval vessels, the British Empire had 600 ships at their disposal including some “Ship of the Line” types that had three decks of large cannon numbering from 100-120.

However, they decided to place only the following near this “backwater” region at Halifax, Nova Scotia:

  • 1 old Ship of the Line
  • 7 frigates
  • 9 sloops

The US had the following:

  • 8 frigates (including the USS Constitution which is still commissioned and still afloat)
  • 14 sloops

Know that the USS Constitution had ONE gun deck and 44 guns, no match for the larger British ships and its fame was won by capturing a 16 gun schooner and a 20 gun sloop!

In fact the British Empire fought a defensive war that only sought to protect trade to the West Indies while the Canadians fought bravely and actually beat soundly the US’s invasion attempt.

The Treaty of Ghent on 23DEC1814 awarded the British and Canadians with all their territories returned that they possessed in JUL1812 while the British offered a condolence prize to the New England fishermen who threatened to secede during the war with prize fishing grounds in British waters off the Canadian coast.

The Treaty of Ghent was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands.

The victory won in early 1815 at New Orleans by Andrew Jackson was mainly fought by US privateers and British commanded Canadians and made no difference in the war’s outcome having come after the treaty was signed in late 1814.

The US gained more war debt and no more territories as a result of this conflict. The US had twice as many killed and wounded than the British/Canadian forces. Would this be a lesson learned or would this repeat itself in another generation?

Stay tuned.

Peace out.

-SF!

The Gift of Truth – The Truth Will Set You Free

I hate lies. I love truth. Friends don’t let friends believe in lies .. but they also allow someone that process .. towards truth .. it is a different timeline for everyone .. everyone is unique and ultimately have to own their own beliefs, values, mission, etc.

Along these lines, once I found out what “Honest Abe” did to the much more honorable Robert E. Lee, I had my suspicions that Lincoln was not everything the state says he was, Father Abraham to the freed Blacks, a saint that ended slavery, and the list goes on and on to this deified man. The very fact that the “state” does this should make everyone suspicious!

I detest the way the Lincoln administration chose to bury their dead on an honorable man’s private property .. a man who had 100x the character of Lincoln himself when it came to principles. Lincoln’s words in 1848 about a very Jefferson idea about the consent of the governed would have been something that Robert E. Lee would have agreed with .. and when Lee acted on this belief, Lincoln made sure Lee could never return to his home.

16,000 Union solders buried in Lee’s garden

Obviously, Lincoln was all words (typical politician) and Lee was principles and character, not moved by conditions or time.

The quote Lee and Lincoln would agree to:

“Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements.” ~ Lincoln January 12 1848, expressing the near-universally held Jeffersonian principle

Anyway, Jacob Hornberger at FFF (The Future of Freedom Foundation) shared this article a few years ago about Memorial Day, but I thought that as 2019 wrapped up it was good to reflect on the nation we find ourselves a part of, and its real history, including a good dose of truth!

Today, Memorial Day, Americans across the land will hear the same message: that U.S. soldiers who have died in America’s foreign wars and foreign interventions have done so in the defense of our rights and freedoms. It is a message that will be heard in sporting events, memorial services, airports, churches, and everywhere else that Memorial Day is being commemorated.

There is one big thing wrong, however. It’s a lie. None of those soldiers died protecting our rights and freedoms. That’s because our rights and freedoms were never being threatened by the enemy forces that killed those soldiers.

Yes, lets look at how the US military defended our rights and freedoms … it should not take long and you will see that it has been a LONG time since they actually did that:

Syria. The Syrian government has never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Syria was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Niger. The Niger government has never invaded the United States and tried to take away our freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Niger was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Iraq. The Iraq government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Iraq was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Afghanistan. The Afghan government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Afghanistan was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. Even al-Qaeda never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Its terrorist attacks, including the one on 9/11, were retaliation for U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.

Panama. The Panama government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Panama was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Grenada. The Grenada government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Grenada was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Vietnam. The North Vietnam government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Vietnam was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

Korea. The North Korean government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Korea was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

World War II.

The Japanese government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in the Pacific theater in World War II was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. The Japanese attack on U.S. Naval forces on Hawaii was intended solely to prevent the U.S. Navy from interfering with Japanese attempts to acquire oil in the Dutch East Indies in response to President Roosevelt’s oil embargo, whose aim was to provoke the Japanese into attacking the United States so that the U.S. could get into the European part of war.

The German government never invaded the United States and try to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in the European theater in World War II was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. Germany wasn’t even able to cross the English Channel to invade England, much less the Atlantic Ocean to invade the United States. In fact, the last thing that Germany wanted was war with the United States, as reflected by Germany’s refusal to react to President Roosevelt’s repeated provocations to get Germany to attack the United States. Germany only declared war on the United States after FDR successfully provoked the Japanese into attacking the U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor, in the hope that this would provide a back door to entry into the war in Europe.

World War I. The German government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in World War I was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms, especially given the ridiculous aims of U.S. intervention into the war: to “end all wars” and to “make the world safe for democracy,” a word that isn’t even in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it is perversely ironic that it was U.S. interventionism into the conflict that contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II.

The Spanish-American War. The Spanish government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any soldier who died in the Spanish-American War was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.

I will add the following:

The War Against Southern Independence (of seven states originally, wrongly called a civil war, wrong because the southern states did not want any other territory, PERIOD).

The South Carolina militia in Dec 1860 to April 1861 never invaded the United States and try to take away the rights of those in other states. As a sovereign entity (reclaiming what it had before the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation) it said LEAVE US ALONE.

The Confederate States of America from Feb to April 1861 never invaded the United States and try to take away the rights of those in other states. While after the US Army detachment in Fort Moultrie violated the agreement in place since Dec 1860 when it agreed NOT to take any action in Charleston Harbor and remained at peace in what was now South Carolina territory (seceded from USA), Gen. Anderson, in the cover of night moved his troops to Fort Sumter. When Lincoln attempted to resupply the fort with provisions AND troops was when the forces around Charleston Harbor chose to fire on Fort Sumter .. KILLING NO ONE.

The Confederate States of America (now 11 states) from April – July 1861 never invaded the United States and try to take away the rights of those in other states.

So why celebrate Memorial Day when the reason for its existence is based on lies .. it is yet another government piece of propaganda that when repeated enough get into the heads of the sheep!

Bottom line is that while the defense of the United States in the War of 1812 was ‘honorable’, even that war was entered into under questionable circumstances and outright lies. Know that by 1814 the NORTH was ready to secede from the United States (peacefully) .. you might want to research the “Hartford Convention of 1814”

“… the Hartford Convention began a three-week debate about the relationship between the then 18 states and the federal government. The meeting was held in secret by New England members of the Federalist Party and there were nationwide fears that the Hartford Convention would call for New England’s secession from the Union …”

New Englanders were unhappy over political concerns that they were being badly treated by the Union. Since Thomas Jefferson’s election in 1800, the president had been a Southerner chosen by an electoral system that allowed the slave-holding Southern states to count each slave as 60 percent of a free person for their allocation of congressional seats and the number of presidential electors…”

Did the southern states invade the north to keep this from happening? No! As early as 1804, sensing that New England was not happy with things (this time it was the Louisiana Purchase, another time when secession was discussed in the North.):

“Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part.  Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power.”

–Letter from President Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Priestly, Jan. 29, 1804

So maybe the American Revolutionary War was really the last time the government’s troops fought for our freedom and for our rights. Think about that!

PS Also, if you think George Washington was really the tactical hero of Yorktown, just know that when the French general Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau told Washington to move his troops to Yorktown as the French fleet was coming to contain the British troops under Cornwallis there, Washington had a melt-down and at first refused the thought thinking as he had the last few years that the decisive battle HAD to take place against the British in New York harbor.

[Do your own research!]

-SF1

Total War and Unconditional Surrender: America’s Export to the World

If one were to believe the history books, the American Experience and Exceptionalism shone bright and clear from the effort and success to leave the British Empire to the rescue of Europe in WWI and WWII. Actual history shows that our exceptional export of ideas and character were not a rosy as the history books might paint.

There was a way that nations fought from the 1600s and into the 1700s that had been influenced by both Christianity as well as those who understood that war happened when politics failed, which meant that the people in general were caught in the middle of various power struggles in Europe. The American Revolution was fought mainly around large population centers usually having armies square up to each other in open fields and having at it. There were exceptions on both sides where military leaders like Banastre Tarleton and even some patriot militia would discard honorable warfare to achieve short-term military objectives, but in the end those tactics had their own “blowback”. The civilian sentiment played an important role in the way the effort for independence of each of the 13 states would play out before the British grew tired of the conflict and costs.

Even the War of 1812 was fought this way and the treaty signed a few years later involved both parties at the negotiation table just like what they did in Paris in 1783 after the American Revolutionary War. Once again, principles, honorable principles prevailed even when warfare was “in session”.

The War Against Southern Independence (called the American Civil War in US government history books) unveiled the inherit evil that is at the core of humans in a broken world. Driven by desperation, principles are cast aside in the effort to short-cut to a desired outcome.

The truth be known, the seven states that seceded actually took the high ground in formulating their reason for divorce with the federation. They knew that the US Constitution, the law of the land, was to be central in their rationale in desiring to exit, just like the 13 colonies did with England 80 years prior. Lawyer speak made these documents stress the way the slavery issue made the separation a necessity. The Constitution had allowed chattel slavery, and so the seven southern states made their case based on this “issue”.

In reality, the main issue was financial and economic in nature, but to prove that based on the Constitution would have been a tough fight. The southern region in general was the wealthiest in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was penned but by 1860 this region had seen their power be eclipsed by the North and the West (existing Midwest). Tariff revenue sources were a hot issue since the South bore the brunt of that expense. Additionally, this revenue funded not only the general government but also internal improvements, mainly in the northern states. Also, industries like the railroad and steel industry received corporate welfare at the expense of the southern businessmen. Additionally, southern plantations were financed by the Northeast elite bankers and until 1808 these same businessmen supplied the slave ships that would transport blacks rounded up by other blacks on the African continent to the United States and other areas in the Caribbean after it was illegal to do so in the US. The southern chattel slavery economic profitability was on the downward trend as most economists expected maybe 5-10 years left in this business model.

It should also be noted once more that Lincoln offered the seven southern states “perpetual legal slavery” via the proposed 13th amendment (Corwin Amendment) if they re-entered the union. Not one state considered that. They really wanted independence and all the risks that entailed instead of a continued marriage to the northern states. Even if it meant that run-away slaves making their way to the United States (all but those seven states that seceded) would indeed be free and not be required by law to be returned as the Fugitive Slave Act mandated. Most people in the North did NOT want ex-slaves fleeing north to take the lowest paying jobs, as even Lincoln feared this.

With that long introduction and setting of context, there was an article that brought to light (for me anyway) what this internal conflict offered to the world. A clip from it said:

So in a very literal sense the Civil War was the first World War. It not only created a powerful nation of organized resources and potential military might, but the greater world wars took their pattern from the American one, even to the trench system Lee set up at Petersburg .. What this country brought to Europe was unconditional surrender. The actual phrase was used by Roosevelt in the Second World War, but it was not his phrase. Grant had delivered it to the Confederate Command at Fort Donelson in February, 1862. Its implication is total surrender or total destruction, or slavery, or whatever. A strange alternative to be delivered by one Christian state to another; and yet it had precedent in Sherman’s harrying the lands of Mississippi and Georgia ..

U.S. (Unconditional Surrender) Grant or William Tecumseh (Total War) Sherman transitioned warfare to not only be brutal for military personnel and civilians in proximity, but also back to the way pre-Christian influenced empires operated, the slaughtering/slaving of the people in conquered lands.

The nineteenth century abandoned God officially, and the faith of Christian communicants was absorbed into the powerful western will; and this will set out, openly at last, to know and control not only nature but the universe. In the late stages of any society there is always the aging form and the formlessness of the new pistis, but this is no new faith; it is a perversion of faith, the final and open acceptance of Machiavelli’s science of politics, the politics whose end is absolute power, whose technique is reason without any theological restraint.

The transition from a republic that was a federation of states to a democracy that makes politics a god, will always keep evolving lower and lower in morality as the narcissist leaders practice power over principles.

Sherman said “War is Hell,” and by this he meant total war, openly carried out upon the civil population, with the shrewd understanding that if the source of supply was cut off, the armies would dwindle and perish.

This policy was then brought to the American Indians, then to the Spanish empire after Spain was falsely accused of blowing up the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba and to the Germans during WWI as well as the failure to include the Germans in the negotiated surrender, treating Germany like the North treated the South after the war with military districts, corrupt politics and the hatred of the people.

Yes, this part of the American “Exceptionalism” is rarely taught in schools or even in “approved” books. I would rather have American history taught in books like the authors of the Bible described the events of the Hebrew people, the nation Israel and the leaders of Jesus’ day .. communicating the good, the bad and the ugly.

Truth.

Truth-seekers these days have to expend a lot of effort to mine the accounts of days gone by, but it is written that “the truth shall set you free”

-SF1

 

 

Roots of the Empire Obsession Go Back How Far in US History?

Andrew Jackson @ New Orleans

Many will say that at the conclusion of WWII that the US emerged unscathed and became the sole superpower. Sure the USSR tried to stay in the contest until it dissolved in 1989 after 40 years of Cold War, but the US was definitely the replacement for the British Empire by then.

Others will point to the Spanish-American war in 1898 as the turning point when the fake news that the Spanish blew up the USS Maine in Havana harbor in Cuba resulted in the US expanding all the way to the Philippines in the Pacific and in Teddy Roosevelt’s day, expanded its Navy to match its ambitions.

Still others will point to the fateful day when states rights, the last thing keeping the republic from becoming a centralized democratic (not a good thing) nation, was not only beaten back with bayonets, gunfire and cannon, but continued to steamroll the section of the country (the South) through over a decade of military rule and economic plundering that had rallied around the founder’s idea of a federated republic. The post war correspondence quoted below from this post shows what was gained, and what was lost:

Lord Acton, the British historian and philosopher, and General Robert E. Lee, corresponding in 1866, both saw States’ Rights as an essential component of free government.

Lord Acton:

“saw in States’ Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will.” He mourned over the defeat of the Confederate States and what it meant for liberty.

General Lee,responding, feared:

“Whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.”

So yes, after steamrolling a defiant South from 1865-1877 the “Union” focused on the American Indian and proceeded on the breaking of all Indian treaties, genociding the defiant and bringing the rest of the population under a dependency on government to pacify it for generations.

So the seeds for empire actually go back even further. In this post, a former history teacher at West Point points out that the War of 1812 actually was out of a desire for added territory. What complicated things politically, was that the party (Republican) that was principled against standing armies actually turned into war-hawks!

The Republicans clamored for war even though their party supposedly hated standing armies and militarism. To wage this war, Madison and the Republicans would have to restrict trade, build a military establishment and coerce obedience—the very actions most abhorred in Republican ideology.

Seems that there was a lingering effort from the American Revolution that desired Canada to be part of the American Republic:

There were other motives for this war [of 1812] besides the affirmation of neutral rights and the reclamation of national honor. Many Westerners (who tended to be avid Republicans) had long coveted Canada, then a British colony. In fact, the Continental Army had previously attempted, unsuccessfully, to conquer Canada during the Revolutionary War. And, strikingly, the first American constitution, the Articles of Confederation, claimed the province of Canada as a future state within the expanding American union. In 1812, “Free Canada!” became a rallying cry, and the U.S. would spend most the war in this fruitless endeavor. We were the invaders!

So yes, the desire for empire had been there from the start.

What was the most interesting part of this post is a statement here:

Canada was primarily (though sparsely) populated by two types of people: French Canadians and former American loyalists—refugees from the late Revolutionary War. Some, the “true” loyalists, fled north just after the end of the war for independence. The majority, however, the “late” loyalists, had more recently settled in Upper Canada between 1790 and 1812. Most came because land was cheaper and taxes lower north of the border.

Yes, post American Revolution, cheaper taxes existed in the British Empire in Canada than in the United States. I thought we fought the War for Independence over high taxes?

Another myth that was busted was the “David and Goliath” slant most history books take on the War of 1812:

In point of fact, the British were busy and spread thin. They had been at war with the powerful French on a global scale for some 19 years. The only British force within striking distance of the U.S. was in Canada, and this—in a stunning reversal of the popular myth—represented a stunning mismatch. There were barely 500,000 citizens in Canada, compared with about 8 million in the United States. The British had only a few thousand regular troops to spare for the defense of this massive Canadian landmass. The Americans might be unprepared, and might prove “bad” at war, but by no means was the initial deck stacked against the large and expansive American republic.

The myth of American defensiveness is also belied by a number of other inconvenient facts. The United States declared this war, a war that Britain had no interest in fighting. Furthermore, despite the exaggerated claims of war hawks and patriots of all stripes, this was not a Second War of Independence. There is no evidence that the British sought to reconquer and colonize the mammoth American republic. Any land seizures were planned to be used only as bargaining chips at an eventual peace settlement. Tied down in an existential war of its own, Britain had neither the capacity nor intent to resubjugate their former colonists.

The bottom line is to question everything .. and to be willing to learn, unlearn and relearn.

-SF1