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To: BroJoeK
“In fact, the words “domestic rebellions” referred not only to slaves, but also native-Americans, whom the Brits did in fact stir up.”

No.

Read the words of the DOI.

“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

Domestic insurrections referred to slave rebellions. The merciless Indian Savages were referred to in the same sentence but were a separate, named offense.

That may be a small point, but why not get it right?

Regardless, you are coming around to the recognition that the colonists, north and south, were fighting not to end the peculiar institution but to preserve it. Later northern and southern colonists would agree to incorporate the peculiar institution into the U.S. Constitution.

You and I may not like the fact northern and southern colonists were fighting to preserve the peculiar institution but it does no one any good to distort history into its opposite.

There is nothing wrong with you including rejected drafts of the DOI in this discussion. The rejected portions provide context for what the founders agreed to accept - and what they agreed to reject.

585 posted on 07/29/2015 11:34:05 AM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: jeffersondem
jeffersondem: "Regardless, you are coming around to the recognition that the colonists, north and south, were fighting not to end the peculiar institution but to preserve it."

No, you continue to misread what should be obvious.
Slavery was only threatened by the Brits as a tactic of war -- Brits of 1776 had no problems with American slavery, so long as colonists remained loyal to the king.
So there was no sense in which Americans fought to "preserve slavery", it's just that Brits (like Lincoln in 1862) threatened to abolish it, if they rebelled.

And, in fact, that's just what the Brits did, and some escaped-slaves did serve the Brits, in exchange for promised freedom.

But even more served the American Continental Army, to the point where one British army officer at Yorktown in 1781 reported the Continental Army was about one-fourth black.

588 posted on 07/29/2015 1:15:23 PM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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