Quote:
Originally Posted by pj67coll
The British Empire put those colonies in place and ran them. The inhabbitants were British citizens and there was no such thing as America. Therefore the continentals were in rebellion against their own government and it was a civil war. The only reason it's seen as a war of "independence" instead of a civil war today is that the rebels won.
The fact that the government may have been crap, doesn't change the fact that it was the government - against which its own citizenry rebelled.
Nope. Just accepting the legalities of the situation. Given that the US only came into existance because the folks figured it was legit to secceed from the host country if they didn't like it, and that that is exactly what the south did later on, the Union had no legal right to force the south back into the fold thru military action. Once again. That point is happily glossed over as history is written by the victors.
- Peter.
|
I don't agree with much of that and most historians don't either.
The revolution did not originaly start out as a war of independence, but thats what it turned into fairly quickly.
The Civil War was a test of the Constitution, luckly it held. The Constitution provides a right to change the government if it fails to serve the people, it does not provide the right to disolve it or succed from the Union. That was the whole crux of the Civil War really, slavery was tacked on later; but not until Lincoln was pretty sure we would win.