[Tamaroa]

Mike,

A close look at our American Revolution will reveal that it was nothing more than a rebellion. Our traitorous forbears became patriots solely because they won the struggle. And as always the victor writes the history. Many years ago as a Senior in College, my history professor gave us an exam. the question was"Explain why you think the American Revolution was justified?" Well I didn't think it was and told him so. He said if that's the tact you want to take, back it up. Well I was the only student in the class that went in that direction. I must have done a fairly good job because I wound up with a B+ for the test and an A for the course.

Many of the reasons that are listed in today's text books are excuses for rebellion, NOT reasons for Revolution. It has been 29 years since I took that course but as I recall, some of my reasons were as follows:

The Boston Tea Party:

was supposedly a rebellion against taxes imposed on the colonists. Instead of destroying government stock, they destroyed private property.

The Gaspee Incident:

A British sloop of war was peacefully at anchor in a British colony when it was boarded and burned by rebellious colonists.

The Boston Massacre:

Tired British soldiers were just returning from a long scout when they were accousted by rabble rousers who began throwing rocks, etc at them. If you were one of those British troops, would you just stand there and be attacked?

Taxes:

The American colonies relative to the other British colonies had the least amount of taxes imposed upon them. Therefore they did not have a gripe vis-avis the other British colonies scattered throughout the world.

Wealth of the Colonies:

Charles A. and Mary Beard wrote a book entitled "An Economic Intrepretation of the American Revolution." Their theory was that the wealthy land owners wanted the rebellion to keep their money in the Americas. It is true that some of the colonists such as Paul Revere (a silver smith) were not wealthy landowners. the vast majority of the agitators were southern land owning colonists who had a good thing going.

Did they really want freedom and equality?

We all know that "We the people" mean white land owning males. "All men are created equal" was bunk. It took 625K deaths 80 years later to settle that issue.

No taxation without representation:

While this may have been an issue, it is a fact that the King appointed people to represent the colonists and even they recognized it was not an elected representative. During the Revolution, England tried to set up a meeting to resolve some of these issues. The Colonists disregarded the attempt.

I can't remember them all, Mike, but these were some of the issues, I brought up in my paper. My professor was very strict about backing up assertions with facts. Even though I got only a B+ on the test, I feel I made my point and he commented "good job" on the test.

The difference between revolution and rebellion (Secession?) is a very thin line. Lincoln's oft used quote sanctioning Texas's removal from Mexico is given as an example of revolution because allegedly, the yoke of an old form of tyrannical government was thrown off to introduce a new enlightened form of government. Well again, bunk!! Texicans were upset because the Mexican government expected the Americans to live by the agreements that they had made. In other words to practice the Catholic faith and to develop the land that they were given. The Americans decided not to follow the rules of the game at a later date and thus was born the Republic of Texas.

Was the situation in the south rebellion or revolution? Did the south have to throw off the yoke of a tyrannical government in order to function better. These questions are still open to interpretation. I maintain that comparing the Civil War to the Revolution is a dangerous thing to do because in reality the only thing that turned us from traitors to patriots was victory. What of the tories that remained loyal to the King? What happened to them. They who remained loyal, which in my opinion they should have done, were driven from this land and they lost everything.

Another angle to look at it would be from the U.S. government's view after the Civil War. It is rather interesting that not one person was tried for treason, is it not. Yes, Davis was imprisoned and Lee and Davis were indicted. However, none of them were brought to trial. That was for a simple reason. Suppose they had been found innocent? Then the whole war and the deaths of 625K men would have been invalidated. secession would have triumphed.

So better to let the issues go away and say it was the proper thing to do to aid the healing of the nation. Scholars far better trained than we will be arguing these points for many more decades. I doubt if there will ever be agreement as long a there are those who believe in a strong central government and those who believe that power should reside in the states. To quote the 10th amendment - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. "

That one sentence will be argued forever and ever as the justification for the war.

Bill