New audiobook release: An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes

If the contents of The 1619 Project are getting under your skin, here's a new audiobook for you.

Book summary: Collects the speeches, writings, public statements and legislative acts of the Founding Fathers and Framers of the United States against slavery. (Summary by progressingamerica)

Let me remind you of what I asked: whether or not every American colonist who purchased slaves (i.e. engaged in the economic practice of trading slaves) during the American Revolution were Loyalists (i.e. supporters of the British).

Instead of providing figures or at least some statistics to validate which share of the American colonists engaged in the slave trade during the Revolution (wherein overseas trading had been hampered to an extent), as I expected you would, you replied with the following:

The opposite. And I'm not insinuating. I'm stating it boldly to the point of non-refutation.

So you're affirming "boldly to the point of non-refutation" that those who purchased slaves during the American Revolution were all Patriots opposed to the British?

How does that help your argument? (I can only assume you misread what I actually said, because otherwise you make no sense.)

Only 3% of it came to the North American mainland...An extra 5 or 10% tax would've been absolutely devastating and the king knew it.

So an extra 5 or 10% tax on African slaves imported solely into America (Virginia, specifically, as that was the prior law cited in this thread), when such activity (by your own admission) accounts for less than 3% of all activity in the British slave trade, was of such character that it would have been "absolutely devastating to the king"?

How would additional duties imposed on slaves imported into Virginia have consequences on colonies outside of the North American mainland?

I'm not sure if you're double-checking what you write, because you seem to be undercutting yourself unintentionally.

Because here's what I don't get: your zeal in defending the character of the Founders with regards to the Atlantic slave trade (of which there were many with an abolitionist sentiment) has led you to decry or ignore factual matters on these topics:

- That the British, in a roughly parallel timeframe (if somewhat delayed by comparison to abolitionist sentiments among certain colonists), went from the Somerset ruling in 1772, to the suppression and prohibition of the slave trade throughout the Empire in 1807, to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 (which made illegal the practice of owning or purchasing slaves illegal throughout almost the entirety of the Empire, decades before America did so).
- That for however much many of the Founders opposed the transatlantic slave trade, many carried on with the practice of slaveholding after the Revolution, wherein British opposition could not longer be claimed to be a countermeasure to their wishes (though you seem to insist otherwise).
- That quite a significant amount of opposition to African slavery in America was driven to a degree (and in some more than others) by an animus against blacks out of preference to whites.

None of these negate the reality of those who legitimately opposed slavery purely for moral reasons.

But nor do they go away, just because you wish to ignore America's demons to focus solely on her angels.

Whatever you might like to call that, it certainly isn't history.

"The entire colonial government existed at the pleasure of the sovereign—the King of England"

Yeah, and they were very displeasured when they started going against the king's slavery ventures. He said so in plain text:

947. No Additional Duties on Slaves in Virginia Whereas at a general assembly begun and held in our city of Williamsburg in our colony and dominion of Virginia on the seventh day of November in the tenth year of our reign, two laws were framed and enacted by our governor, council, and House of Burgesses of our said colony and dominion of Virginia, entitled An Act for Laying an Additional Duty upon Slaves Imported into This Colony, and the other An Act for the Better Support of the Contingent Charges of Government, by which said laws additional duties, amounting to fifteen per cent were imposed upon every purchase of slaves imported or brought into that colony over and above a duty of ten per cent payable by former laws then in force; and whereas it hath been represented to us that so considerable an increase upon the duties of slaves imported into our colony of Virginia will have the effect to prejudice and obstruct as well the commerce of this kingdom as the cultivation and improvement of the said colony; whereupon we have thought fit to disallow the first mentioned of the laws, leaving the other, which is of short duration, to expire by its own limitation. It is therefore our will and pleasure that you do not upon pain of our highest displeasure give your assent for the future, without our royal permission first obtained, to any law or laws by which the additional duty of five per cent upon slaves imported, imposed by the last mentioned law, shall be further continued or to any laws whatever by which the duties of ten per cent upon slaves imported into our said colony, payable by laws passed antecedent to the seventh day of November, 1769, shall upon any pretense be increased or by which the importation of slaves shall be in any respect prohibited or obstructed.

Royal Instructions To British Colonial Governors

"So you're affirming "boldly to the point of non-refutation" that those who purchased slaves during the American Revolution were all Patriots opposed to the British?

How does that help your argument?"

What I said helps my argument, I could not have been more clear. I said it for that reason. What you said, I have no incentive nor inclination to defend. I mentioned several Founding Fathers by name and you choose to ignore those paragraphs, so I have nothing of my own actual words in that section to defend. I likewise mentioned several prominent abolitionists of the era. You also made the choice to ignore that. What else should I say when you go so far as to ignore basically the whole thing?

If you actually want to challenge what I said and not do a bait and switch for your own words, let's talk. For now, I'm not defending your words under the guise that they are my own.

"I'm not sure if you're double-checking what you write, because you seem to be undercutting yourself unintentionally."

If I had gotten something wrong in the paragraphs that specifically mentioned, by name, several founders and several prominent abolitionists of the era, I'm sure you would've highlighted that paragraph and shown what was wrong with it. I'm completely sure and convinced of this. The paragraphs must be accurate though. Here we are, zero corrections to fight over.

"was of such character that it would have been "absolutely devastating to the king"?"

I can think of no other colonial laws that got a direct veto from the King of England.

Can you? I'd bet there's one or two. But I can't think of them.

"Because here's what I don't get: your zeal in defending the character of the Founders with regards to the Atlantic slave trade (of which there were many with an abolitionist sentiment) has led you to decry or ignore factual matters on these topics:"

I'm an American, why wouldn't I defend America first? Besides, the New York Times didn't slander Britain, now did they? Is there a 1618 Project floating around that I don't know about? - or, what's the actual name of it? This 1618 Project, that is all about some British something I don't know, what specifically is the Slimes slandering Britain about with fake history? I'd like to see it so that we can both be informed about this.

What I said helps my argument, I could not have been more clear.

Are you sure?

Because in response to my rejoinder ("A slave trade can't exist if no one is willing to buy. Yet there were numerous American colonists who were willing to buy."), you retorted "Patriot or Loyalist?" (The implication, given the course of the argument, that one side was more willing to buy than the other.)

So naturally, I asked "Are you insinuating that every colonist who purchased slaves during the American Revolution were Loyalists?" (Because why ask the question unless you wanted to make hay with it? Even a simple documented majority of slave purchasers being on the side of the Loyalists would have bolstered your argument.)

Yet instead, you answered "The opposite. And I'm not insinuating. I'm stating it boldly to the point of non-refutation."

With you directly affirming that the majority of slave purchasers during the Revolution in the colonies were not Loyalists, but rather Patriots, I had to make sure there was no misunderstanding ("Let me remind you of what I asked: whether or not every American colonist who purchased slaves (i.e. engaged in the economic practice of trading slaves) during the American Revolution were Loyalists (i.e. supporters of the British)...So you're affirming "boldly to the point of non-refutation" that those who purchased slaves during the American Revolution were all Patriots opposed to the British?")

Your response is to instead double down ("What I said helps my argument, I could not have been more clear. I said it for that reason."), even though your affirmation directly contradicts your own points raised throughout this thread.

It's not a matter of me "ignoring" evidence (as you seem fit to claim), but rather you providing outlandish rhetorical takes that unwittingly detonate the very points you're trying to make.

It's not "baiting or switching" words or anything of the sort; rather, I'm trying to help you clarify what you're actually trying to say without unwittingly ignoring or being contradicted by the evidence you yourself bring up (because otherwise, your argumentation would be all too easy to dismiss). Yet you seem strangely persistent on doubling down for reasons I can't really fathom.

Such as here: Here we are, zero corrections to fight over.

Even though you explicitly affirmed that (at the bare minimum) more Patriots were involved with the slave trade during the Revolution than Loyalists were.

This isn't that hard to grasp: if you're going to argue for something, why say things that go against what you're actually arguing for?

I can think of no other colonial laws that got a direct veto from the King of England.

The "Royal Disallowance" was used far more frequently than you think. Per the eminent American historian Charles M. Andrews: "Before the end of the colonial period was reached, every colony had had one or more laws disallowed; during the eighty-three years of her second charter, Massachusetts had forty-seven public laws and twelve private laws disallowed; while with other colonies the number was much greater. The machinery of transmission was very far from perfect, even among the royal colonies. Many laws were never sent over; others were never acted upon or were held so long that months and even years elapsed before a decision was reached."

But I digress.

I'm an American, why wouldn't I defend America first?

And now we get to the crux of the matter: defending one's country should not influence you to ignore things which are true yet inconvenient.

It's a really telling example, but it's simply too educational to ignore: earlier in the thread, you favorably cited George Bancroft in one of your own blog posts; imagine that you're trying to pull someone away from the falsehoods of the 1619 Project, and so you provide them links to your blog.

What would this hypothetical person think when — after reading Bancroft write point blank that the colonies of Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina were alarmed "at the dangerous increase of the colored population", showing "an anxious preference for the introduction of white men" — they saw your little rhetorical flourish at the end about how "the race card couldn't have been played against the country", when the historical evidence you yourself provided played the same card?

Possibly that you don't read what you're providing, or perhaps that you're full of hogwash. Either way, you would destroy your own credibility in that person's eyes by doing so.

Refuting falsehoods means little if people see you ignoring or downplaying things which are nonetheless true.

"Are you sure?"

I am, 100% Instead of keeping it simple in response to actual names of Founding Fathers and prominent abolitionists, you've constructed this funky and contrived back and forth to fit whatever narrative is in your head.

I have no incentive to defend your words as if they were my own. I have no reason to comply with your contrivance here either.

"The opposite. And I'm not insinuating. I'm stating it boldly to the point of non-refutation"

I stand by those words even more now than I did before, now that you have gone 3 posts and refused to acknowledge the actual Founding Fathers and prominent abolitionists I named. How could such facts be this inconvenient?

In any case, the more you refuse it, the more I know I'm right.

"The "Royal Disallowance" was used far more frequently than you think."

This is a good link. I wish you would do this sort of thing more often than the mickey mouse games you've done over the last several others. I will probably use this link myself for various things - among those, people who cling to the myth that the empire had no meddlesome culture when it came to the colonies.

"And now we get to the crux of the matter: defending one's country should not influence you to ignore things which are true yet inconvenient."

That's funny, I keep saying this very thing. I just said it to you in the last post. Why is there an echo in here?

"Refuting falsehoods means little if people see you ignoring or downplaying things which are nonetheless true."

Couldn't have said it better myself. When I can name prominent Founding Fathers and abolitionists and you're ignoring or downplaying things which are nonetheless true, I have to ask.

Why are you here? What is your agenda for this discussion?

Oh, and BTW, did you either read the text or listen to the audio book, or is that too inconvenient for you also? The real question comes down to this: Do you even want to know anything in regard to the Founding Fathers and abolitionism? So far, you have avoided it like the plague.

You know, the thought occurred to me, you've already admitted the core argument I'm making and this includes it's connection with the abolitionist Founding Fathers.

"The British were quite keen on maintaining the economic activity brought by the African slave trade"

Now you don't have to go sugar coating this fact, my friend. The empire was also quite keen on maintaining it's economics from its plantations as well. This was just as true about its plantations on the islands such as Barbados as it is for it's plantations in the Carolinas. Let's not be coy and act like the empire only got gains from the ships. On and off the ships - no. It didn't end there my smoke and mirrors friend. The empire also got gains from the sugar plantations in the West Indies too. THAT is why 97% of the slaving went to the islands. That was their big money pot.

In any case, here, this, post 113. You can't delete that post. This, is the fact of why so many of the abolitionists were pal'ing around with the patriots, instead of pal'ing around with the British. The British were quite keen on maintaining the economic activity brought by their slaving interests. And let's not mince words here, as I have seen you do multiple times. The British were quite keen on maintaining the TAX INCOME brought by their slaving interests. The tax income. That's what the government got from slaving. Tax income, the king got the big $$$$ from slaving. That's what mercantilism is all about. Tax revenue. Tax income. Big government needs big taxes. The empire had to be fed.

It's interesting to me that I mentioned Patrick Henry and you didn't even bat an eye.

I suspect you could not care less, not one bit, about the fact that our Founders got this one right. I even have a suspicion that it's not just a lack of curiosity, this itch here is telling me you genuinely do not, do not under any circumstances, want to know. But I can't fathom what this sort of plausible deniability would gain you.

[woodpusher #46] Slavery was embraced as lawful by all thirteen original states.
[ProgressingAmerica #50] The fact that states like Pennsylvania tried before Independence to do something about the slavery problem only to be stonewalled by the empire, then pretty much immediately got to the business and abolished(gradually) slavery afterwards is by itself enough to permanently destroy the use of this word. Slavery was default because it was enforced by the empire.
[ProgressingAmerica #111] I'm under the impression that the empire forced the American legislatures at vetopoint to keep their meddlesome anti-slave laws out of British slaving affairs.
[ProgressingAmerica #124] Royal Instructions To British Colonial Governors

No state was ever stonewalled by the Empire. The empire never forced any American state legislature to do anything.

Your quote carefully edited out only the following:

Virginia: (§ 939); Dec 10, 1770

As was made abundantly clear to you, prior to the the colonies declaring independence there was no American state legislature, there was only a colonial government which answered to the British Colonial Governor. The colonials were English subjects of the English king.

Of course the Crown issued Royal Instructions to the British Colonial Governor in 1770. That is irrelevant to the Founders and Framers enshrining slavery in the Articles of Confederation, the Ordinance of the Northwest Territory, and the Constitution, and keeping it there until 1865.

The Empire did not force the Founders or Framers to do anything after they declared independence, won the war, and the British conceded in the Paris Peace Treaty of September 3, 1783 which stated:

Article 1st:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be to be free sovereign and Independent States....

After September 3, 1783, not even the British crown claimed any authority over the States. The Evil Empire did not force the Framers to do a damn thing. The Framers adopted the Fugitive Slave Clause all on their own, representing free, sovereign and independent states. And then those free, sovereign and independent states unanimously ratified the Constitution and its Fugitive Slave Clause, making it the Supreme Law of the Land, superior to all Federal and State statute law. The Evil Empire does not get credit for that unanimous free choice.

After 1776, no Evil Empire was responsible for the decisions of the free, sovereign and independent states. When the Evil Empire declared a mass manumission of its slaves in its remaining colonies, effective in 1834, it did not cause any great disturbance in the Force. The British proved they could mass manumit their slaves peacefully. Other European nations also gave up on slavery in their colonies. The United States soldiered on with slavery for decades, and did so for a reason. The American colonies differed greatly from all those colonies to the south. Outside of the thirteen states, mass manumission did not threaten NIMBY. The back yard was in Europe.

When speaking of the Founders and Framers, one speaks of the free, sovereign and independent States, not British colonies and British colonial governments and Royal instructions to British Colonial Governors.

The Framers and the States had a choice to make an they made it. The Evil Empire did not force them to make it. There were no Royal instructions to the Founders and Framers, and you did not quote one.

woodpusher: "John Marshall owned over 300 slaves. While Jefferson inherited, Marshall purchased.
BroJoeK claims the terms racist and racism have no definition anymore.
Of course John Marshall was racist, as was any life-long slave owner.
But that undercuts Brother Joe's contention that all Founders fought a lifelong battle for abolition of slavery."

Woodpusher, you reveal yourself as a true Democrat when you refuse to speak accurately of your opponents' opinions.

Nobody can deny that the word "racist" has no meaning in today's degraded political discourse, beyond Democrats saying, in effect, "you disagree with me on something important and that makes you a racist", or fascist, or sexist, or homophobe or... whatever pops into their little minds today.

And racism among our Founders is also meaningless, since "racism" was never an issue they discussed or even imagined.
No Founder ever accused another Founder of being "racist" or even attempted to define what such an unknown word might someday mean.

What our Founders did often discuss and act on were efforts to restrict or abolish slavery, not because of "racism", but rather because they understood that slavery itself was morally wrong and should be abolished, eventually, regardless of "race".

So, woodpusher, I'm asking you to overturn your lifelong Democrat indoctrination and look at the real truth for a change.
In the 1825 Antelope case, Marshall acted entirely typically of our Founders, which was to:

Express his repugnance for slavery as an institution.
Acknowledge that what we call "settled law" supported slavery in this case.
Ordered the vast majority of the surviving slaves to be freed.

I contrast Marshall to Democrat Fire Eaters of the 1850s who supported reopening international imports of slaves and about whom fellow Democrats like Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas said they were importing thousands of African slaves per year, despite laws against it.

woodpusher: "Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Marshall.
The most prominent Founders were lifelong slave owners.
Not every Founder was a saint. "

Nor were they all devils.
All of our Founders took or supported actions to restrict or abolish slavery wherever they could.
Their practice was gradual abolition and it worked until roughly 1835, when the next generation of Southerners reversed it, insisting -- for the first time -- that slavery was good and should be expanded wherever possible.

woodpusher: "Marshall, this great father of American law, was professionally deeply committed to slavery too.
His jurisprudence was guided not by justice but by the ideology and worldview of someone who held other humans in slavery.
In all of his opinions involving slavery, he always sought “justice” for slaveholders and never for the people they held—sometimes illegally—in bondage."

And yet... and yet... in the 1825 Antelope case, Marshall freed the vast majority of survivors.
In that, he was typical of our Founders and very not-typical of 1860 era Fire Eating Democrats.

woodpusher: "And a book which "Collects the speeches, writings, public statements and legislative acts of the Founding Fathers and Framers of the United States against slavery," is then good for what?
I am sorry you do not know what racism is, but I am sure you are on a lifelong crusade to stamp out whatever it is of which you profess no knowledge."

Seriously, woodpusher, what's wrong with you?
Why do you insist on falsely equating slavery with "racism", they are two very different subjects?
Historically, not all slaves were Africans and not all slaveholders were Europeans.
In many cases, it was the reverse -- Africans owned European slaves, notably the Barbary Pirates.

Even in the 13 Colonies there were European slaves, prisoners or captives shipped here from Britain to serve out their sentences as slaves.
Plus a huge percentage of the white population suffered under a form of slavery called "indentured servitude", to pay off their debts.
So, for our Founders, slavery was not about "racism" but rather was about the immorality of holding innocent people in bondage.

woodpusher: "You mean they could not say "no."
Poor babies.
It was a union of compulsion, they were forced into it.
It was not of their own free will.
Had they said no, there would have been two unions, and Virginia held the Northwest Territory."

Right, it was a compromise to preserve the Union, forced on Northern states at Southern insistence.
To claim anything else is to distort the actual history.

woodpusher: "Slavery was abolished after the 13th Amendment when New Jersey finally caved in.
As for your icons, we have their own words as to their meeting your Democrat BLM progressive ideals."

No, in fact, slavery was restricted and abolished in many places long before the 13th Amendment, and regardless of your Democrat BLM progressive ideals, our Founders knew slavery was wrong and did what they could against it.

woodpusher: "The Founders abolished slavery, then grew old and died, and then there was a war to end slavery. Got it!"

Seriously, woodpusher, why are you lying about this?
Is it just your trained Democrat mind-set which forces you to always miss the truth when a lie sounds better?

In this case, I'll repeat, our Founders legally abolished slavery in Northern states, in Western territories and in international imports.
Their practice was gradual abolition and it worked until roughly 1835 when Southerners began to defend slavery as not just a necessary evil, but as a positive good thing which should be protected and expanded wherever possible.

woodpusher: "As is firmly documented in the statements of the historical characters, they were firmly committed to removing the Black presence from the country and its territories.
As Jefferson stated it, "It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers." "

Jefferson's proposals for government paid compensated emancipation and forced recolonizations were never approved.
What was approved and voted by Congress and several state legislatures were large sums of money to support voluntary recolonizations.

It turned out that the vast majority of freed-blacks preferred to stay in their homes in the USA, despite allegedly intolerable "racism", rather than to "return" to their "homelands" in Africa, or elsewhere.

woodpusher: "What did Lincoln say?

"I have said a hundred times and I have no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all.
I have said that always. (CW 2:492, italics added)."

Right, Lincoln was considered a "moderate" in 1860, which is why he was nominated over more radical Republicans like the 1856 nominee, John C. Fremont.
In 1848, Congressman Lincoln did try to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which was under Congress's authority to do so.
Lincoln's attempt failed in 1848, but succeeded in 1862.

I see now that you are largely just repeating quotes you've posted before, and at the same time descending into insane nonsense like this:

woodpusher: "Nobody ever claimed they could all be like you, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Marshall on the slavery issue.
Not many could meet your standards, but that great pre-eminent conservative Willard Romney rose up and proposed "voluntary deportation."
That is like separate but equal, but different.
I had the same reception in the 21st century as it had in the 19th century."

Nothing rational there for me to respond to.

woodpusher: "What is insane is arguing that verified, factual history, with quoted words and recorded deeds, never happened.
But, here you are.... sounding like an idiot liberal Democrat."

And here you are simply accusing me of your own behavior.

woodpusher: "You stated, quite mindlessly, 'Beginning in 1775 the Atlantic slave trade was banned or suspended during the Revolutionary War.
It was only the 6% that had been going to the former colonies that was affected."

Even when there is no disagreement, you present it as if there is.

woodpusher: "The fact is that the Founders did not even abolish slavery in Washington, D.C. where it only required a majority vote of Congress.
The Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution remained the Supreme Law of the Land until after the Civil War.
Before the Constitution, the Founders put a Fugitive Slave Clause in the Articles of Confederation and the Ordinance of the Northwest Territory.
Neither Dog, nor the Evil Empire forced them to do that.
Slavery was abolished after the 13th Amendment when New Jersey finally capitulated."

No, the truth is that slavery was 99% abolished before ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Of roughly 4 million slaves in 1860, only around 50,000 remained to be freed in December 1865.

Even by 1860, when US total territory was roughly 3 million square miles, slavery was abolished from all but 1 million square miles. Even by 1860, slavery was abolished in 2/3 of the territory and also 2/3 of the population.

Those are facts, Democrat, deny them all you wish.

woodpusher: "Prior to May 2, 1843, the first constitution had not gone into effect.
As I stated, Rhode Island prohibited slavery in 1843, Wikipedia and its faithful slave, BroJoeK notwithstanding."

Here you are simply driving yourself crazy by refusing to look at the actual facts, which include Rhode Island's 1784 gradual abolition law resulting in the reduction of R.I. slaves to near zero by 1830, while the R.I. freed black population remained constant around 3,500.

Rhode Island's census slave population numbers are:

1790 -- 958
1800 -- reduced 60% to 380
1810 -- reduced 90% to 108
1820 -- reduced 95% to 48
1830 -- reduced 98% to 17
1840 -- reduced 99% to 5
1850 -- reduced 100% to 0

Your repeated claims that these slaves were all "sold down the river" are not supported by any evidence I've seen.
To me those numbers suggest actuarial declines and natural longevities.

woodpusher: "Perhaps we are to believe that when they were freed, the freed blacks no longer reproduced."

Or, we might well believe what logic tells us, which is that some freed-blacks did what any freed people sometimes do, they moved to a different state to find a better life.
There were soon several they could choose from with no risk of being re-enslaved.

woodpusher: "Your insane assertion that the Founders "restricted such imports again in the 1794 Slave Trade Act" will be shown to be another turd excreted from your imagination.
I will provide the entire Act from the Statutes at Large, with footnote."

And you will yet again post endless irrelevant facts to support your ridiculous argument that the 1794 Slave Trade Act was not intended to restrict the slave trade.

woodpusher: "The gentle reader may believe an internet idiot or a unanimous United States Supreme Court.
Whatever Britain and Canada have to do with a successful revolution by Vermont in 1777 is a mystery.
Vermont was recognized as an independent state with self-appointed borders.
It did not join the Union under the procedures for a territory.
Vermont had a State constitution in 1777.
It joined the Union in 1791 as an independent state."

The facts remain as I stated -- no foreign country ever formally recognized Vermont as an independent country, or signed a treaty with Vermont or exchanged ambassadors.
So Vermont was even more of a fake country than the Confederacy.

woodpusher: "In addition, he found that Vermont was not recognized as an independent state by Congress either under the Articles of Confederation or under the Constitution, but that her independence was recognized by New Hampshire in 1777, by Massachusetts in 1781, and by New York in 1790."

So the facts remain as I stated -- no foreign country ever formally recognized Vermont as an independent country, or signed a treaty with Vermont or exchanged ambassadors.
Vermont was even more of a fake country than the Confederacy.

"Recognition" by other US states simply made admission possible, of Vermont as a US state, a Northern free-state to balance out Kentucky's admission as a slave-state.

woodpusher: "On April 17, 1782, a committee of Congress to which the matter had been submitted reported that the Congressional resolutions of the 20th and 21st of August had been fully complied with, and recommended that the territory of Vermont as defined in these resolutions be recognized and admitted to the Union, as a free and independent state."

And yet, that's not what happened in 1791, when the question was left, at best, ambiguous.
Note the fact that none of these quotes refer to a "Republic of Vermont", and neither the US nor any other government ever formally recognized Vermont as an independent country.

And just so we're clear on this point -- to my understanding, The Republic of Texas was indeed formally recognized as an independent country, with treaties and ambassadors exchanged, though I cannot cite details without looking them up.

My understanding is that, unlike Vermont or the Confederacy, Texas was not a fake country.

"Apart from the United States, the Republic of Texas received diplomatic recognition from Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Yucatán (which in 1841 declared independence from Mexico).
The United Kingdom later also extended recognition to Texas."

"No state was ever stonewalled by the Empire. The empire never forced any American state legislature to do anything."

Reality is much more cruel than your cartoon depiction allows. Massachusetts' legislature was considering abolition as early as 1768 IIRC until it got vetoed by their royal creature Hutchinson.

Massachusetts wouldn't get back on track until 1783 - a setback of 15 years. And it was a judicial decision at that. Who knows how it would've been legislatively. Ultimately they would've banned it but it could've been 1785, could've been 1819. Who knows.

So yes,

Definitively,

I stand by that word force. It is by far the most succinct and applicable word to use. When the crown and its creatures went around vetoing anti-slavery laws it setback abolitionism by at least a decade in these United States. The numbers prove that the empire forced slavery onto Massachusetts alone - Massachusetts alone - by another 15 years. And that's just one single state.

Yes. Yes. Force.

"The Empire did not force the Founders or Framers to do anything after they declared independence"

Yes, they did. It is abundantly clear to any fifth grader who would set about, much less grown adults like us that when reading Madison's notes at the Constitutional Convention, the framers only set out to do one thing. They framed a government. Nothing more, nothing less. That's it. It was just a discussion and framing of a government.

What did not happen at the Convention? They didn't remold society using the coercive police power of government. The Founders left society as they found it. They didn't throw people into gulags for wrong think, or force them onto naval vessels via impressment like the empire did.

Who gave the Founders what society and what did that society look like? Oh! I know! It was a society that was _____________________sabotaged_____________________ by crown veto powers into accepting a slavery that (some of) its legislatures made clear it no longer wanted. That's who gave, and that's what it looked like. Instead of having what we should've had, what we deserved to have, on our birthday in 1776 of maybe 2, 3, 4 or more free states and only 9 or so slave states, we were stuck. We got %#@#&** over by the crown into having a full 13 slave states.

That's what the empire gave to us.

That's what the empire forced on us.

All for the want of a veto.

ProgressingAmerica, from #127I will probably use this link myself for various things - among those, people who cling to the myth that the empire had no meddlesome culture when it came to the colonies.

ProgressingAmerica, from #135: Who gave the Founders what society and what did that society look like? Oh! I know! It was a society that was _____________________sabotaged_____________________ by crown veto powers into accepting a slavery that (some of) its legislatures made clear it no longer wanted. That's who gave, and that's what it looked like. Instead of having what we should've had, what we deserved to have, on our birthday in 1776 of maybe 2, 3, 4 or more free states and only 9 or so slave states, we were stuck. We got %#@#&** over by the crown into having a full 13 slave states. That's what the empire gave to us. That's what the empire forced on us.

You seem to have a strange conception over what exactly a colony is.

To quote again from Charles Andrews on the royal disallowance: "I have now considered in summary fashion but as fully as my space will allow, the disallowances of colonial laws that were ordered by the king acting through the Privy Council and the Board of Trade. The policy that underlay these disallowances was in accord with the terms of the British constitution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and with the views held by British statesmen and merchants regarding the proper place of colonies in the British commercial and imperial scheme. The policy worked badly in operation, because of time and distance, and because the colonies in order to evade the requirement made a practice as often as possible of passing temporary laws to continue in force but a year, thus thwarting the royal will. Furthermore, the time allowance, notably in the case of Pennsylvania, frequently led to the transmission of so many laws at once that the board was not able to examine them as thoroughly as it ought to have done, a situation the more objectionable because the board was not the best judge of colonial needs, upholding a constitutional control that too often, even under the most favorable circumstances, hampered colonial action and development. The position taken by the board and its advisers was constitutionally and legally correct, and their rules were not without ample justification in their own eyes. But these rules were not favorable to colonial independence and self-government, and they were not designed to be. As the colonists were rapidly growing in independence and in a determination to govern themselves, it was inevitable that the disallowance should be frequently violated and brought to naught. Colonial self-government was incompatible with the maintenance of the royal prerogative, yet the authorities at home, with colonial subordination and dependence as the leading objects of their policy, could hardly have acted otherwise than they did. The disallowance was neither unconstitutional nor designedly oppressive, but the British authorities and the colonists in America did not always see the colonial situation eye to eye in the same light. The colonists were fashioning their own constitutional order, but in so doing they were performing acts of legislation and government that were undoubtedly illegal and revolutionary, when construed not in terms of the democracy that was to be, but from the standpoint of English law and custom by which they were legally bound and of the English commercial system of which they were legally a part."

Why do you seem so incensed by colonies being treated as colonies?

Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were chartered as proprietary colonies, wherein proprietary individuals or companies were delegated the authority to administer the colonies and select officials accordingly. All of the others , by the time of the Revolution, had been chartered as royal colonies, whose administration was therefore overseen under the authority of London. Yet you seem to act as though self-governance was an inherent right of the American colonies, when the charters codifying their very existence as sociopolitical entities stated otherwise.

But again, as has been reiterated over and over: any claim that the British forced the Founders to do anything following the conclusion of the Revolution doesn't pass the smell test.

The Founders left society as they found it.

This is probably your most outlandish rhetorical take of all.

"The Founders left society as they found it"?

The very existence of the American Revolution is enough to refute this assertion; they took a society of chartered British colonies and transformed them into a union of independent states. This is not "leaving society as they found it".

"No state was ever stonewalled by the Empire. The empire never forced any American state legislature to do anything."
Reality is much more cruel than your cartoon depiction allows. Massachusetts' legislature was considering abolition as early as 1768 IIRC until it got vetoed by their royal creature Hutchinson.

NO, you sub-cretinous creature. As every fifth-grader knows, there were NO STATES in 1768. Massahusetts was the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, as declared by King George in 1726. And your memory appears to serve you serves you ill. American-born Hutchinson was not the Governor in 1768.

The area of Massachusetts was initially chartered as colonial land by the Charter of Virginia of 1606. ("James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c").

In 1620 came the Charter of New England. ("James, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c")

In 1691 the Charter of Massachusetts Bay was issued. ("WILLIAM & MARY by the grace of God, King and Queene of England Scotland France and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith &c.")

1726 saw the Explanatory Charter of Massachusetts Bay. (GEORGE by the Grace of God of Great Britain France and Ireland king Defender of the Faith &c.)

Whereas our late Royal Predecessors William and Mary King and Queen of England &c Did by their letters Patents under their Great Seal of England bearing Date at Westminster the Seventh day of October in the Third year of their Reign for themselves and their Heires and Successors Vnite, Erect and Incorporate the Territories and Colonies commonly called or known by the Names of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay and Colony of New Plymouth the Province of Main the Territory called Accada or Nova Scotia and all that tract of land lying between the said Territorys of Nova Scotia and the said Province of Main into one reall Province by the name of Our Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England."

And so it was the Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England until July 4, 1776. The British recognized it as a free, sovereign and independent state by the Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783.

In 1768 the state of Massachusetts did not exist. What did exist was the Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England as per King George of England.

No amount of feigned ignorance can change that fact.

My sarcasm wants to post some of the statues torn down over the last few years, but you don't listen anyways so why would pictures make any difference to you?

BLM is a non sequitur.

We are still feeling the pain of these vetos, now, 250 years later.

So on the one hand, you claim that we are feeling the pain of British actions 250 years later. Yet in the same breath, you would seemingly absolve the Founders of their role in maintaining the institution of slavery within the borders of the American continent, as though they were impotent to implement the abolition they had long desired (by your argumentation), when they were right there, in the moment, to deal with slavery however they wished.

Methinks you give the British too much credit, and the Founders too little.

When you removed the word "government" from the context, it ceased to be what I actually said. Now you're just knocking down your bait and switch strawman. Go ahead and show us the north american gulags built by the founders for all dissenters on google maps. We'll be waiting. Tilt at your windmills, carry on.

No, you're engaging in what's known as the "false dichotomy". By your request, let's quote you again: They didn't remold society using the coercive police power of government. The Founders left society as they found it.

Just because the Founders didn't engage on a total revolt against all institutions — razing down the colonial government in favor of total social upheaval, French Revolution style — does not therefore mean your statement "the Founders left society as they found it" is true.

'Leaving society as they found it' would mean no American Revolution whatsoever, and remaining loyal subjects of the British Crown.

Cease the zealous hyperbole; it's causing you to spout nonsense.

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