Also, I never intend to post a Rorschach test, where anybody can read anything into my words they wish.
My words actually mean what they say...
Sherman Logan: "I think you give the Founders too much credit for honesty and demonize the Fire-Eaters a bit too much."
Please re-read my post, you'll see there's no "demonizing" of Fire-Eaters at all, simply factual reporting that those people, unlike our Founders, began with the idea of dis-union, and then plotted to achieve it, by turning their majority Democrat party into two small minority parties, north & south.
This elected minority Republicans, and gave the Deep South all the excuse it wanted to declare secession.
So that's not "demonizing", just the facts, sir.
Sherman Logan: "None of the Founders every seriously expected to be give representation in Parliament.
Their slogan of “no taxation without representation” therefore in practice meant simply “no taxation.”
An understandable desire, but not fully honest."
In fact, as I quoted, history shows the idea was seriously proposed & discussed in the 1760s & '70s, by "William Pitt the Elder, Sir William Pulteney, and George Grenville, amongst other prominent Britons...".
Throughout this period, Pennsylvania appointed Benjamin Franklin in England to represent the colony's cause, and negotiate for better terms.
It was only in 1776, after Franklin concluded no better terms than war & oppression were to be obtained from Brits, that he returned in support of Revolution.
Sherman Logan: "Had they been granted 50 seats in Parliament, something unimaginable at the time (indeed no colony ever did get such) their reps would have been vastly outvoted on all colonial issues.
Taxes, probably much higher ones, would have been opposed over colonial opposition."
Don't know where your number, "50 seats in Parliament" comes from but note that today's total is 1,495 members in both houses, so 50 seats represents maybe 3% of the total.
However, in today's House of Commons, the majority coalition of Conservatives & Liberal Democrats enjoys a majority of just 103 seats, and historically, majorities have often been much less.
So a block of 50 seats would not necessarily always be insignificant -- if they were "swing seats" they could be quite influential indeed.
Further, your unfounded accusations of bad-faith, dishonesty and cynicism against our Founders are way out-of-line, FRiend.
Unless you have serious data to support such cynicism, I'd suggest taking Founders at their words, remembering that the Massachusetts Charter of 1691 did provide significant self-government and elected representation within Massachusetts.
So our Founders all had well-founded beliefs in the "constitutional rights" of Englishmen, and just wanted themselves included.
Indeed, we should remember: Franklin's defense of the colonies before Parliament in 1767, emphasized that colonies had already paid a large share of French & Indian war-costs by providing 25,000 troops (as many as Britain itself sent) and appropriating millions from colonial treasuries for the war.
So there was no hint of disloyalty to Britain here, only the entirely appropriate request for fair treatment.
Yes, by 1773, even Franklin's loyalty was beginning to strain, and so we have his remarkable document: Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One spelling out details of British mis-rule in her American colonies.
Some of these items will reappear in another document by Franklin, published July 4, 1776.
Sherman Logan: "At that point they would have been in essentially the same position as the South in the 1850s.
Or, more accurately, the position the South saw, correctly, they would soon be in.
Represented but consistently outvoted.
With no real hope of changing that equation."
Parliament today has three major parties and at least ten minor parties, so a block of 50 votes, if that's the number, would be highly significant in helping other parties form majority coalitions.
Likewise in the US by constitutional formula, Southern white votes were always overrepresented in Congress and electoral college, giving them eight of the first 15 Presidents, three more Dough-faced Northern Democrats, plus a large majority in the Supreme Court.
That such political dominance was destined to recede anybody might foresee, but that this must necessarily prove disastrous for "Southern interests" is not an inevitable "given".
It only became a "given" because Fire-Eaters decided to split apart their majority Democrat party, thus engineering election of minority Republican President Abraham Lincoln.
Sherman Logan: "Thus the Founders objected simply and somewhat disengenuously to (quite low) taxation, while the FEs saw, correctly, an existential challenge to their whole way of life.
If anything, the FEs had a more justifiable reason for rebellion and secession than the Founders."
Now that is a major mouth-full!
The truth of this matter is that Fire-Eaters had no objective reason to declare secession -- none -- and our FRiend DiogenesLamp admits as much when he claims (incorrectly) that they never needed a real reason, that secession "at pleasure" was their right & duty, if/when they saw fit.
By sharp contrast, on July 4, 1776 war by Brits on the colonists was already over two years old, much death and destruction had already taken place, and our Founders had a long list of grievances already committed by the Brits against them.
So for you to claim otherwise flies in the face of facts and reason.
Even your argument that slavery was objectively doomed in 1860 is unfounded -- certainly not "doomed" by Republicans, who had no problem with slavery in the South, simply did not want it exported (via Dred Scott) to the western territories, or their own northern states.
Yes, we agree that slavery had to constantly expand or eventually perish, but there were no tell-tale signs of "perishing" -- none -- in 1860.
So the issue in 1860 was what might happen sometime in the future, while in 1776 oppression was already happening, for the past two years and more.
That's why, legally, Fire-Eaters had no "standing" to complain against the Union, while our Founders' actual suffering gave them all the "standing" necessary for their Declaration.
DiogenesLamp post #343: "Saying that the southern "fire eaters" (a deliberate denigration) had everything the Sons of Liberty wanted is to entirely miss the point.
"Want" is in the eye of the beholder, and you are trying to judge people based on your modern preferences rather than from their perspective.
I have a simple position.
If a body of people don't want to be part of an existing government, then they ought to have a right to leave it and form a government which suits them."
A contractual obligation, such as the US Constitution, necessitates respect for the institutions & procedures established.
Your beloved Fire-Eaters disrespected the Constitution by:
- Unilaterally declaring secession "at pleasure" -- meaning without mutual consent or, in Madison's words: "usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect".
- Provoking war with the United States by unlawful seizures of dozens of Federal properties, threatening and firing on Federal officials.
- Starting war with the United States by demanding surrender of Federal troops in Fort Sumter, then forcing it through military assault, the process of which killed some.
- Sending military aid to support Confederate forces in Union states, clearly meeting the Constitution's definition of "treason".
- Formally declaring war on the United States, May 6, 1861, all of these before a single Confederate soldier was killed in battle with any Union force, and before any Union Army invaded a single Confederate state.
Benjamin Franklin before the Privy Council, 1774: