Posted on 09/01/2013 6:16:15 PM PDT by rlmorel
As I get further along I will add my opinion on the Bunker Hill book.
I think that additions of factoids from original sources can be used to make a distant figure human or to belittle them with trivia that is not typical of the record. I do like his notes at the back where he cites why and wherefrom he has written certain angles on events in each chapter.
By the way, LS, keep up the good work. I see you have another on on the New History shelves that I need to get. Your stuff is always outstanding.
I found this boring, poorly organized and padded, but not especially leftist.
Unfortunately America would need a national enema to wash out the awful effects of Zinn’s anti American tome.
I have done that exercise before. The point I made in posting this thread is that the default position by the author of the book for at least the first quarter to third of the book, is that the crown had every right whatsoever to tax the colonists in any way they saw fit in order to pay for their defense, and any objections the colonists had have not validity whatsoever.
This is completely 100% true in the book up to this point. The author has declared it in tone and in word. Maybe it is going to change somewhat, and now that I am progressing past this point, there are more salutary passages, at least towards Dr. Warren at this stage. I have yet to see if he has moderated his tone towards any of the other colonials as well.
NOTE: I am not claiming there was some kind of conspiracy. You and I agree that the British stumbled and mismanaged their way into a war.
I would also agree with you that it was a great deal more complicated, but In my opinion, complaints by the colonials are invalid only if one assumes that government by a monarchy is binding. Otherwise, these are valid complaints, not outright lies or mistruths. If one accepts that a monarchy, autocracy, or oligarchy can legally and morally exercise its will over people without assuming accountability to them, then these complaints shown below are invalid. If you believe on a fundamental level that they CANNOT do so, then these grievances are completely valid, especially given what was going on at the time the Declaration of Independence was written.
Many of these issues had their roots in the decades leading up to 1776, but at the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, the complaints with historical roots were true, and at the time of the signing over a year later, the rest were as well.
As I stated in my previous posts, it is true that less weight is given by Americans (then or now) to the explanations and excuses set forth by the crown, and there is some weight to some of them. But I disagree on any level that these are exaggerations, mistruths or outright lies.
LIST OF COMPLAINTS IN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
1.) He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
2.) He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
3.) He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
4.) He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
5.) He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
6.) He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
7.) He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
8.) He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
9.) He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
10.) He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
11.) He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
12.) He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
13.) He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
14.) For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
15.) For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
16.) For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
17.) For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
18.) For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
19.) For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
20.) For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
21.) For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
22.) For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
23.) He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
24.) He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
25.) He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
26.) He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
27.) 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.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Are you sure you aren't confusing it with another work? This book on Bunker Hill was only published back at the end of April 2013...
I think the crooked timbers make for much juicier telling...
Ah! I wasn’t making the connection...:)
I don't doubt that at all.
But wasn't that the whole point they made at the time, that they weren't represented, and that the distance both increased the level of bureaucracy and delay for immediate issues they could not get the Crown to make decisions on in any kind of timely matter, and that they had no say in the decision making process?
I have never read anything from this author except the book on the Essex, which I liked very much and recommended.
I don’t know this author from Adam, so I didn’t have any bias induced in me from listening to interviews from him (and to be honest, I didn’t even realize when I was listening to this book the he was the same author who wrote the Essex book...)
I have to keep in mind as well that the experiment that was the result of the American Revolution is somewhat of a sacred cow to me, so I am biased, no doubt, in that direction.
I guess I may have felt he was trying to slaughter my sacred cow, and that rarely goes over well with people...:)
I hold out hope that the rest of the book balances this beginning somewhat.
That they do. Drama is more or less defined as bad things happening, to people both good and bad.
Don’t worry bud. If it goes sour I will be the first to say you pointed it out. I did read that he is one of the country’s best experts on the island of Natucket’s history so he has a natural insight into the loyalist perspective.
Heheh, good twist there!
Yes. As time went on they decided they needed to be free from the king so they could live like Englishmen.
Truth be told, that was the final straw that convinced me to pull our kids out of Puget Sound area schools, quit Microsoft and move to north Idaho. Once I saw that they were using that book and had teaching materials - posters, handouts, etc - to go along with it, that spoke volumes to me as to how deep the corruption of our 'educational' institutions ran.
It's easier to fill in the blanks than it is to counteract outright lies. The antidote to Zinn's corruption: Paul Johnson's A History of the American People and Modern Times. Both excellent works.
I have both on my bookshelf!
The last one is worth the price for the introduction alone.
Thanks for the suggestions!
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