[FLT-bird]

FLT-bird: "We have warned them for years and years that the South's intellectual legacy is not limited to the mid 19th century. It goes right to the very heart of the founding of the Republic. For all their self congratulation, it was not New Englanders who provided the overwhelming majority of the intellectual force behind the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution. It was Dixie. The Constitution is absolutely a product of the Southern mind." Not just the "Southern mind". The actual writers of the Constitution's drafts & final version did include Rutledge from SC, Randolph & Madison from Virginia, but also, Wilson from PA, Hamilton from NY, Ellsworth & Johnson from Connecticut, Gorham & King from Massachusetts and holding pen to paper, sometimes called "the rake who wrote the Constitution", Pennsylvania's Gouverneur Morris (Morris was then 35, single and we might say, a man about town. He, like Hamilton, was also closely allied to George Washington's views). George Washington was President of the 1787 Constitution Convention and James Madison is rightly credited as "Father of the Constitution", for his pivotal roles. Other Southerners contributed importantly to the Constitution as well, notably, the 3/5 rule & Fugitive Slave provision. So Southerners were indeed important, though there were plenty of others who also contributed. Regardless, the real story here is not how great Southerners were in 1787, but how far they fell by 1860. FLT-bird: "Had it been written by New Englanders it would have had a much more centralized and expansive federal government and no provisions for individual liberty." Sure, the South had it's fair share of anti-Federalists, but so did so did New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts & New Jersey. All objected because they thought the Constitution made Federal government too powerful.

LOL! Just as predicted. Your utter obsession would not permit you to avoid trying desperately to drag me in to your endless BS postings.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "Just as predicted.
Your utter obsession would not permit you to avoid trying despera tely to drag me in to your endless BS postings."

I'm not impressed with your "predictions".
And your refusal to respond merely suggests you have no good responses.
Nevertheless, Free Republic protocol suggests I address you if I mention you in my post.
But it's not an iron clad rule and can be ignored when n3cessary.