[jeffersondem]

“It depends on how you define “first shot”.”

This, you say, in response to my post 319 which reads in its entirety: “The colonists may have fired the first shot in the First War for Independence. So what if they did? It does not invalidate the actions of the Free and Independent States (even though 13 of those states were slave states).”

It would be interesting for you now to define “first shot” in any fashion - any fashion - that would invalidate the actions of the colonists. I don’t think you can do it; and I’m surprised you have suggested that it can be done.

I repeat(about the possibility the independence seekers fired the first shot): So what if they did?

Yes, I know the 13 states seeking freedom from the King were slave states.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "It would be interesting for you now to define “first shot” in any fashion - any fashion - that would invalidate the actions of the colonists.
I don’t think you can do it; and I’m surprised you have suggested that it can be done."

Naw, you just inferred more than I implied.
Sure, I "get" that you & other Lost Causers wish to argue there was something inherently unlawful in American 1770s era responses to British "abuses and usurpations", so you can equate those to Confederates in 1860.
But there wasn't.

Instead, many years before colonial militiamen lined up at Lexington to confront British regulars, the British government had begun work to redefine and restrict American self-government and impose direct British rule.
That is what colonists resisted, "no taxation without representation" they said, and the harder Brits pushed, the more colonists resisted.
When Brits began using military force, colonists responded with military force and Revolutionary War was on.

Nothing remotely similar happened in 1860.