[LMB] OT: President Hancock (was spammer alert, was do we like the same books)

[B. Ross Ashley]

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:59:50 -0700 (PDT), Harimad <harimad2001 at yahoo.com>
wrote:

 > One: The Articles of Confederation established a _confederation
 > characterized, legally, by very weak central government.  The
 > Constitution established a _federal republic_ with a moderately
 > strong central government.  I disagree that these two legal entities
 > are the same nation, despite having the same name.

The house Trotskyist: Same nation, different national State.

 > Two: I can't figure out how you get Hancock as first, even if one
 > accepts your argument that the nation established under the Articles
 > of Confederation is the same as that established under the
 > Constitution.

Same nation, different State. The Articles and the Constitution 
established governments, not a nation.

 > 2A: Hancock was the third president of the Second Continental
 > Congress, and during his time in office the Declaration of
 > Independence was signed.  But the Declaration did not legally
 > establish a nation*,

Nations are not legal entities; States or Governments are. Euzkadi, the 
Basque country, is a nation, even though it has no central government 
and no independence and contains parts of both Spain and France. Acadie 
is a nation, despite having no government at all of its own but that of 
New Brunswick.

 > ... so Hancock could not have been President of the
 > (a?) US as a result of the DoI being passed during his tenure.

[snip]

 > Bonus question: Why did those particular colonies decide to rebel
 > and not any of the rest?  There's nothing magical about those
 > particular colonies (although questions are subtly discouraged
 > by most history books by addressing colonial history only of the
 > ones that did rebel, and by how the books' maps have those colonies
 > in detail and the other sister colonies in faded colors if at all)
 > and it wasn't obvious at the time that, say, the anglophone parts
 > of Quebec (which at the time included chunks of what is now Ontario)
 > wouldn't join, or the New Brunswick.

One of my favourite eras of history is involved here: The revolution of 
1776 was a consequence, the most important consequence, of the alarums 
and excursions back in 1676. Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia and Maryland, 
and King Philip's War in New England, which combined to destroy the 
independence of those colonial governments under their respective 
Charters. All the colonial governments turned out to be heavily 
militarily dependent on the Royal Navy and the military alliance the 
Crown had made directly with the Iroquois; when Charles II in council 
revoked the charters, the colonial governments were in no position to do 
anything about it (beyond the Connecticut council hiding their copy of 
their charter in a hollow oak tree rather than surrender it to the 
Governor-General.) See the excellent books _1676: the End of American 
Independence_ http://qurl.com/m7gc5 , _The Name of War_ 
http://qurl.com/hs9hq ,  and in particular _Beyond the Covenant Chain_ 
http://qurl.com/kp234 for a discussion of the military ties of the Crown 
to the Mohawks.

They had a tradition of independence, even though it was a hundred years 
in their past and had lasted only 50 years. New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 
and Georgia and English Florida had no such traditions; Georgia went 
along because it was so far from the Crown and settled by convicts and 
malcontents anyway. (The Carolinas were full of Scotch-Irish like my 
ancestor Hugh Ross who were used to defying authority on religious 
grounds.) English Florida was so thinly settled as to make no nevermind, 
and it went back to Spain at the end of the Revolution, until Andy 
Jackson invaded.

The French threat went away. The Indians were obstacles to westward 
expansion, and were allied to the Crown. The colonies had governed 
themselves before. Bingo.

And Quebec? The population was still overwhelmingly French, with, again, 
no tradition of independence ... the major English settlement in Lower 
(and especially Upper) Canada was precisely those Americans who rejected 
the Revolution, the Loyalists, led by people like Justus Sherwood of 
Vermont and Lieutenant-Governor John Simcoe.

Apologies for running on at length, here, but you tripped one of my 
wires ... and Somebody might find an examination of the deeper roots of 
the Revolution to be a plot-inspiration, who knows? I'd read it.
-- 
B. Ross Ashley http://brashley46.livejournal.com 
http://brashley46.no-ip.info
"It would be too painful to think that there are worlds somewhere
where I got everything right."  Sulien, in _The King's Name_, by Jo Walton
Registered Linux user # 402119