You’re certainly entitled to your view, no matter how pompous and myopic.

We went to war because we had no representation in England. Lawmakers there were telling us what to do without our consent. We were being taxed because of what happened during the French/Indian War (actually the Seven Years War). They couldn’t pay the bills and said we colonists had to do it because we didn’t do anything else but make money so we had plenty extra to pay the war debt. Therefore, Parliament taxed us, lawed us to death, and then, once they realized that we were about to rebel, decided to come over and try to take our weapons away because we did not have the right to rebel against them because we were supposed to be the “good children”. We weren’t under any type of representative government since we had no people in Parliament to speak for us colonists. Yes, we had freedoms but once you start putting soldiers in homes, and telling people what to do because you are afraid, then those freedoms are out the door. England would under no circumstances sue for peace. Yes we did have people in London who sided with us, espeically in Parliament, but George III would not hear of anything of peace even when he saw we were not going to give up. All he did was throw more and more people at us.

Also, Britain had no written Constitution prohibiting the government from doing anything it wished. Under the UK system, Parliament is supreme.

Most American history books used in schools today are just standard Jewish liberal propaganda that America is an evil White supremacist nation that should just kill all the Whites.

If you have kids check out their history books.

The Arnold’s moved to England . Arnold was pretty unhappy in England. He did get a pension but got little of the recognition he felt he deserved.

Ever since I found out that the founding fathers borrowed 13 billion from France and then demanded the frontiersmen pay for it with a whiskey tax in 7 th grade I haven’t admired them too much.

Washington led more troops against the frontiersmen than he ever led against English troops.

Get you a copper kettle
Get you a copper coil
Get you some new made corn mash
And never more will you toil
My pappy made whiskey
Grandpappy did too
We ain’t paid no whiskey tax
Since 1792

She committed no perfidy. She was a loyalist who worked for her country Britain through out the war.

Mrs Arnold didn’t just have pro British opinions. She was a British spy and agent and very successful in turning an American general to the British side.

How did Benedict Arnold article turn into a civil war discussion?

The slaves were paid in food, clothing housing medical care such as it was in those days, the option to hunt and grow their own food and improve their housing.

That’s all most small business people and employees earn, just the necessities plus the car that gets you to work and back.

And the slaves were never laid off and were never homeless.

England abolished slavery with a law passed in parliament and the House of Lords. Majority vote simple

Of course Britain wasn’t full of slave owners in the 1830s.

They would have to sail to a French carribean island. Canada and Louisiana territory were divided between England and Spain at the end of the 7 years war with the 1763 treaties

Not a word about his wife Peggy Shipton a staunch Tory loyalist and very effective British spy and agent for which I admire her.

One way of looking at the revolution is that is was just a massive property grab of Tory loyalist property after the revolution

It was a lot like the French Revolution Toried and neutrals were driven out of town and their property mostly real property was sold at a cheap price to the successful revolutionaries.

Who was driven out of town as a Tory didn’t depend on how much help the Tory had given the British. It depended on how much real property was owned. A carpenter who rented his home and shop would be left alone. But if he owned the home shop and maybe a farm and other real estate he would be run out of town.

It would have been difficult for the more than 50% who were neutral. One week the revolutionaries occupied the town. Next week the British. And who knew who would win.

One elite defeats another elite. Upper middle pushes out the upper class.

True enough.

My point was that I have seen many claims that a Congress and President, even one firmly under control of an abolitionist majority, could not have constitutionally done anything to attack slavery very effectively.

I think this is untrue, as prohitibiting interstate commerce in slaves is clearly within the power of Congress and would have been devastating to the institution.

You are no doubt right that there was no chance of such a law being passed, but that wasn’t my point.

Logan:

Unlike you, I can’t recite whole plot lines but Kenneth Roberts’ books did leave a listing impression lo these many years.

He did not swear an oath of allegiance to the Union and *then* betray the Union and break his oath.

Well, technically, when he obtained a commission as an officer in the US Army he swore an oath of allegiance to the Union.

When VA seceded, after considerable turmoil he resigned his commission and went into private life.

He later accepted commisions first from the state of VA and then from the CSA. While I think he made the wrong choice, unlike his fellow Virginians Scott and Thomas, I believe he was caught in a conflict of loyalties and his choice was honorable.

He did not accept a position of trust for the Union and then plot to secretly betray that trust for financial gain.

FWIW.

Monty Python, after the success of MP and the Holy Grail, discussed doing a satire on the life of Jesus.

So they kicked it around and couldn’t really come up with much to make fun of. Which considering who they were is saying a lot.

So they made Life of Bryan, who was not JC though often mistaken for him.

An unpaid workforce, in light of what he supposedly fought for — tells me all I need to know about his sincerity, honesty and honor.

While he seldom if ever talked about it, George spent the last years of his life primarily trying to free himself sufficiently from debt to be able to free his slaves and provide them with a start in free life.

AFAIK, no other of the major Founders did this.

The real test is always — what do those in the majority do in response to theose in the minority

An entirely reasonable test. However, it should read “those in power,” as this group is not always, and historically has seldom been, in the majority. Most dominant elites have been rather small minorities.

Yes indeed, the “demand” by the new president, to maintain the Union led to his promise to collect the revenue (i.e., the tariffs), his shrewd and devious maneuvering of the South Carolinians to fire
on Sumter (analyzed in detail in recent scholarship) and his call for troops in the aftermath, the latter
unconstitutionally and without consulting the Congress.

Presumably you are thinking of Federal legislation to prohibit interstate trade in slaves between, for
instance, Tennessee and Mississippi. At no point up to, and beyond, the eruption of the “unpleasantness” in 1861 could such legislation have passed Congressional votes. This might have
been a policy in the dreams of a cabal of Boston abolitionists but not a realistic one, and an effort in
that direction would only have encouraged secessionists in their fears.

How’s about taking sides with the monsters who did this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnadenhutten_massacre

96 civilians killed vs. 30 at Cherry Valley.

I’ve often read claims that abolitionists would have had no constitutional right to attack slavery within a state. But there is one thing they could have done, by statute alone.

They could have constitutionally prohibited interstate trade in slaves. Would not have necessarily ended slavery, but would have put a major crimp in the institution.

Had the Brits offered the 1778 peace terms in 1776, the war would probably have ended, and North America would have become a really, really big Canada.

But they didn’t, and for obvious reasons by 1778 those terms were no longer acceptable.

1090 books by “Kenneth Roberts” for sale.

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=%22kenneth+roberts%22&bi=0&bx=off&cm_sp=SearchF-_-Advtab1-_-Results&ds=30&recentlyadded=all&sortby=17&sts=t

Not all of them the specific KR we’re discussing.

I find it fascinating that I could recite whole plot lines from his books 40 or 50 years later, but other books I read a year ago I’ve completely forgotten.

Is the sanctity of the Union any more than an article of faith with you? And is it an immutable principle for the American people only, or are Catalonians, Scots, Lombards and others bound to
the sanctity of their political unions also?

Elite, what are you smoking? Nothing I have said purports to reading Lincoln’s mind.

The neutrality policy adopted by the Kentucky legislature was a smokescreen put forward by Lincoln Unionists (James Speed, etc.) to diminish the enthusiasm of the Southern Rights Democrats and
outright secessionists in the state. It gave the Lincoln sympathizers and Union forces the time to
establish an enlistment center in the Blue Grass region at Camp Dick Robinson and to move weapons into the state. Large numbers of Kentuckians were already crossing state lines to enlist in Union and Confederate forces. When Polk violated the policy by moving Confederate troops into the Jackson
Purchase region of Western Kentucky Grant countered by taking Paducah and the neutrality position
lay in ruins. The Federal military authorities began to establish control in that state, closing secessionist newspapers, arresting suspected Southern sympathizers and moving troops into the state.
Former Vice President and U.S. Senator John Cabell Breckinridge reluctantly abandoned the state
for Richmond and the Confederate Army rather than be arrested. There are numerous good studies
of recent vintage for information. MIchael D. Robinson, Christopher Phillips and Aaron Astor are among the authors.

Great turn of phrase with that last line.

One of the underlying issues to confederate failure was the disunion of the among the southern states as bemoaned by Pres Jefferson Davis.

Kentucky was neutral until the Confederacy invaded it. You’re right about Maryland. Missouri had its own Civil War within the state. Delaware was never in play. West Virginia was formed by Unionist counties which “seceded from the secession.”

You’re leaving out St. Pierre and Miquelon. Anyway, Spanish territory (including St. Louis and New Orleans) was not far away.

To compare the article to the deadly dull Onion is really unfair.

I found it educational.

Reading Fenimore Cooper’s maritime tales recently, it is clear that there were wild swings and divisions between sympathy for France and England, in Yanquiland, and many yanqui were practically loyalist in mentality long after the war of independence, or whatever you want to call it.

Perhaps the war of 1812 changed that, I don’t know.

The French who swayed the balance at the time were not revolutionary France (as many accounts deceitfully imply) nor Napeolonic, but royalists just in it as a game against the British.

Note: The states rights contention centered on slavery and its related dynamic. Pres Jackson an avid advocate for slaves held the same view that the union was sacrosanct.

when I say advocate for slaves — i mean slave owning and slave owners.

Correction:

the reason for secession was slavery and the fear that Pres Lincoln would somehow magically end it if he could — he couldn’t and wouldn’t have. The myth that Pres Lincoln launched a war to free slaves is just that a myth. He fought the war to maintain the union. Freeing slaves was a by product — as the war had already made it impossible to hold most slaves, anyway.

Few like to speak in frank terms about that reality — but Pres Lincoln used the same excuse every president who opposed slavery used – it’s the law.

The states rights contention centered on slavery and its related dynamic. Pres Jackson an avid advocate for slaves held the same view that the union was sacrosanct. Abolitionists might have gone to war over slavery — President Lincoln was not an abolitionist.

The for secession was slavery.

The reason for the war was the result of the attack on fort Sumter and the demand to keep the union — unified — it was not to free slaves, that was a side effect, fortunately.

“Confederate States of America – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union”

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

“In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” et al

Ohhh you mean slavery.

Laughing.

Laughing. The south did not secede over tariffs and even the issues regarding financial disputes centered around slavery. Plenty of tangential issues — but slavery was center stage.

http://www.historynet.com/secession

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/reasons-secession

states rights, sure what states get to do about and with their property, how to tax. when to tax, which property to tax —— primary property in question — black slaves.

I will tell you what is old hat and should cease being advertised — states rights as cause for war — it has effectively clouded reality for more than 240 years.

How about history as recorded.

President Lincoln had no intention, not one of doing anything that would cause the union to sever., including introducing any legislation to diminish slavery or set slaves free. And he made that every clear. Slavery was the law of the land —— and he intended to live it, even if he opposed it.

The South panicked. Nevermind your counter intuitive visions of reading his mind. Ohh good grief, given your response, if the south is a reflection of you, it is clear why they needlessly began a conflict over imagined fears. Furthermore, you obviously did not read what I wrote. Because of you had, you would know my views concerning the union and states rights, or at least my view on whether said membership in the union is voluntary.

You might want to read the emancipation proclamation if you want Pres. Lincoln’s view of union verses slavery.

Eliite, it looks like the whole business is too hard for you to grasp. Either in the swamp you crawled out from there is no knowledge of American history or you are an AI propaganda machine for Big Brother. Disunion was caused by Lincoln’s election as a sectional candidate, and the realistic understanding of what he would do in office (the secession of South Carolina within a month of the
election) and his inaugural threat to collect the tariffs notwithstanding the withdrawal of several seaside states with their ports. It is time to throw the “eternity of the Union” argument into the
dustbin of history.

More popularity is quite a different matter than character.

Here’s my response:

https://www.opposingviews.com/sports/packers-aaron-rodgers-more-popular-santa-george-washington-mother-theresa

https://www.ranker.com/list/most-important-leaders-in-us-history/mel-judson

note the category in which Gen Arnold is listed
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonianmag/meet-100-most-significant-americans-all-time-180953341/

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Famous%20Americans.htm

Clearly the matter depends on criteria, but there are enough polls that place other citizens ahead of Pres Washington. But I would bet even money that Jesus ranks above any US citizen when it comes to character. On fact, as is clear by the number of colonials that followed him — Jesus sets the standard for sound character.

Major historical figures are almost always complex and contradictory. Hagiography has its place but serious history writing shows people with warts and all.

The cable series Turn did a surprisingly good job showing complexities of Americans and Brits in the War for Independence. Including a thorough treatment of Gen. Arnold, the various factors that set him on his course and his wife Peggy. With British spymaster John Andre for the love triangle. People were earthy back then.

The globalist rabid zeal to mass import moslems and other nation-wrecking dysfunctional people groups will destroy both nations if continued.

On the Pilgrims and Plymouth Plantation, let me recommend Nick Bunker’s Making Haste From Babylon.
Bunker draws on recently uncovered original sources from England and Europe in addition to the existing known sources.

Perhaps cooler heads in Westminster and Whitehall could have headed off the War Between the States and spared North America 620,000 dead between 1861 and 1865.

I think that you are echoing Paul Kennedy and I agree with much of his assessment about geography, climate, and natural resources. However, I still have the impression that GW remains more popular than JC in public consciousness. Very few have written anything critical about the former because he was the preeminent founding father. The latter, however, has legions of critics.

I happen to think the US is exceptional. But we are exceptional for some reasons that have nothing to do with being exceptional as people.

Location, resources vast waterways, minerals etc., weather, few invasions of note, topography . . .

However, what has empowered our dominance has a lot to with the dysfunctions that have plagued other parts of the world draining them of their vitality. Our character is shaped by the colonists ambitions and fortutous spirit of risk taking. And time after time, those risks paid off, when they shouldn’t have. Part of the understanding of why that is the case is based on two primary beliefs

1. an all gracious providence — God and
2. Jesus Christ and no one – no one surpasses Christ with respect to character and impact on the development of the US.

And even without the above review provided by the above accounting from youtube. There was plenty of evidence that George Washington was as elitist as his peers whose primary interest was self interest. And while Jesus need no defense from me — As for the power before, during and life –

The Nazarene has no equal.

Well,

if you happen to be in the seat when the game is up and the is won, it is not uncommon for that person to receive the credit. And given that the inexplicable happened (maybe unexpected is a better phrase), General Washington will have the writers of history to his stead.

Trying to bring healthy realism to any of the founders is a very tough slog and taking on Pres./General Washington — cherry tree myths is a hurdle of hurdles. No one wants to hear that Gen. Washington was lucky, and a well connected bounder.

Laughing probably three hurdles higher than putting a comprehensible face on Gen. Arnold.

The real test is always — what do those in the majority do in response to theose in the minority. An unpaid workforce, in light of what he supposedly fought for — tells me all I need to know about his sincerity, honesty and honor.

I agree,

the revolutionary war was needless.

Hmmmmm . . .

excuse the late response. I just saw this response, wholly unintentional.

Had the south sued for succession instead of engaging in a war – which they started by firing on Fort Sumter, I might agree. But the attack against a federal institution, approved by the state legislature in which it was located amounts to a contract and that attack – was an attack against the nation.

I have to reject any attempt to advance any southerner who fought on the side of the confederates as anything but a traitor. Pres Lincoln, responded as one should have expected – war. It was not a war to free slaves – though the issue of slavery was key in the contention over states rights. It was a war to keep the union as union. I think the question of state succession may have some legs. but by engaging in an act of war, the south cut the argument short.

Laughing. I am going to beg off a discussion about treachery. The hypocrisy of slavery to the nation’s founding — is the treachery that has us all in its snare. And we have yet to wrestle the matter out .

To this day, I find the southern response to the election of Pres Lincoln, hard to grasp. He had no intention of doing anything that might cause disunion — including and especially moving to free blacks from slavery.

This is so beside the point.
We are not talking about a dissertation in connection with David Ray Griffin’s book, which I mentioned in connection with the topic of American exceptionalism.

Nor in the Fischer article under discussion.
Why are you arguing interminably just because I mentioned a book by the very well known author and public intellectual David Ray Griffin? Griffin has published books on a number of subjects with a number of university presses, has been a fellow at Cambridge University, etc.
What is your problem? What are you trying to prove?
You are a mite trying to bite an elephant.

There was nothing noble about the Revolutionary war because it consisted of one group of British, massacring another over taxes. Sure, there was the constitution and it was all about free speech and the separation of church and state etc. Fifty years after the Revolutionary war, Britain was every bit as free as the US was. The US is a bit more free than Britain is today, but they are both plagued by the same problems. The question to ask is, was the Revolutionary war worth it? Had the US never fought this war, the US and Canada would probably be one country with a parliamentary system of government. Until the 1960’s, Canada was every bit as free as the United States.

“Many historians rely primarily on secondary sources, citing primary sources as quoted in the secondary sources. I wonder whether you knew that.”

Not many good or academically-trained scholars/historians would do so. Their manuscripts would not pass their dissertation advisor’s scrutiny. If it did, it would not get the approval of their committee. Therefore, no career since an academic press would not publish their work. Peer review. Give it a try.

I wonder what Andrew Fischer’s credentials are.
Years of study to acquare familiarity with germane primary sources”?
Ya think? Not me.
I see no sign of original research in archival sources here.
S o o o o o
This credential nonsense is a distraction. From what is not clear.
It looks like Hank Yobo just wants to play gotcha and be right about something.
What a waste of (his) time.
Griffin provides a thorough overview and discussion of the deep roots and of American exceptionalism and how this conviction has played out throughout the history of the United States. A very useful book. NB, Hank: Many historians rely primarily on secondary sources, citing primary sources as quoted in the secondary sources. I wonder whether you knew that.

I haven’t disparaged you or the author of the book you mentioned. I merely pointed out that his training is in an academic discipline other than history. It takes years of study to acquire familiarity with germane primary sources. Hence my reference to educational credentials or lack thereof. Have a lovely weekend.

Maybe, but why shouldn’t the British have hanged Nathan Hale as a spy?
And why shouldn’t Andre have been executed?
Washington was personally fond of both Andre and Arnold was of course very supportive of Arnold, despite the latter’s volatility, giving him the important strategic command of West Point constantly expressing the great confidence he had in him to both Arnold himself and others, specifically, the members of the Continental Congress.

After his capture, Andre appealed to Washington personally to execute him *as an officer,* by firing squad.

But Andre had not be captured in a battle situation as a British officer. He had been captured as a spy.
Washington decided he had to make a clear example of Andre—no quarter for spies.
If Andre had been captured as a British officer he would not have been executed at all—much less hanged.

It is possible that Washington might have shown leniency toward Andre if he hadn’t been part of the plot with Arnold—Arnold’s perfidy was also a huge personal affront to and betrayal of Washington.

All of this is per Philbrick. I haven’t read other sources on either Arnold or Andre (other than Wiki entries), but I think that Philbrick covers the story in an evenhanded fashion.

The charge that Andre was involved in torture seems unlikely, Washington had a known policy
Of not using torture on prisoners of war, Washington’s opinion of Andre would have been
Much different if this was common knowledge at the time.

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.� – George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

If the British had not hanged Nathan Hale as a spy, Andre probably would not have been executed.

Why do Americans have such a high opinion of Washington? If it hadn’t been for him you might have attained the cultural level of the Canadians.

Too late, Benedict Arnold saw the error of his ways.

Re Theologian:
Same is true of Chris Hedges.
Does that mean you don’t accept his journalistic work?
Kinda surprised that you apparently disparage Griffin on the basis of his degree in theology, not of his writings on the subject at hand. (Which in this case, as you point out, is American exceptionalism.)
And, that you apparently have not heard of Griffin and had to look him up in Wiki. Or perhaps you have heard of Griffin but wanted to disparage my recommendation with an ad hominem comment that disparages Griffin plus me for, presumably, beign too dumb to know that Griffin has a degree in theology and therefore, presumably, in not qualified to research and write on any other subject.
Interesting notion.

It may be precisely Griffin’s being a theologian that has led him to make it a priority to delve deeply into the Grand Narratives that have been used to justify deeply immoral policies and strategies of American patriots and the U.S. govt. from the very beginnings.

Again: The American Trajectory is highly recommended as a well-researched and documented (mostly from secondary sources) precis of the evolving language and pretexts used to express and justify American exceptionalism from the very beginning.

Griffin has also brought questioning the Official Conspiracy Theory of 9/11 into the mainstream (although he has so far avoided any mention of Israel/Mossad, for which he has been called out by many).

I mentioned “any standard history textbook” because it will still contain the Grand Narrative about American exceptionalism. This remains a Hydra that revisionists have been unable to slay and remains a fundamental premise upon which many popular or academic histories are written. I never suggested that you are unfamiliar with such secondary works. Griffin’s Wikipedia entry, by the way, describes him as a theologian, not someone with degrees or extensive experience in historical research.

Logan:

At one time I had avidly read most if not all of Kenneth Robert’s historical novels. As with you they left a still remembered lasting impression. Benedict Arnold is a key character in Robert’s Arundel and Rabble in Arms.

I believe that Robert’s got involved in promoting immigration restriction. For this he got into hot water. So what else in new!

A thought. I’ll have to check if Good Maven Ron, our patron, has republished any of his works.

Why would you assume that I haven’t read any standard history textbook??
And/but, why read “any” standard history textbook? Not sure what your point is.
My suggestion to you:
For the “real” story of America’s underlying values, including those of most of the Founders and Framers, read David Ray Griffin’s The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic?

Thanks for the link to a primary source. First, as you are probably aware, Pitt was notorious for interfering with military operations in North America during the Seven Years’ War. A predilection he apparently was not able to shake even in old age, judging by this speech. Second, I don’t recall Pitt’s aversion to the use of Native allies during his term of office. In fact, if you check his published correspondence, you may find that he specifically supported the use such auxiliaries against the French during the 1750s and 1760s. Clearly, he did not practice in his youth what he preached in his dotage. His last word was apparently not his only word about the conduct of war in the New World.

You’ve probably heard, or, perhaps even sung, a few stanzas in your lifetime. America is the exceptional “light on a hill.” The republic’s founding fathers were heroic, intellectual wonder-workers, especially GW who remains more popular–and unassailable–than the carpenter from Nazareth. Destiny, whether divine or not, ensured that America would dominate the New World and then the entire planet since the nation’s institutions were the best ever devised by Mankind/Womankind/Humankind. It goes downhill from there. Read any standard history textbook for more particulars.

I’ll let William Pitt have the last word:

https://www.bartleby.com/268/3/24.html

You are right. He was hanged as a spy.
Yes, everyone admired him because he was very charming and talented.
But his personality had a dark side, or perhaps it was par for the course in privileged young men of the age. He had been involved in exaggerated cruelty toward captured soldiers.
His wealth came from sugar plantations worked by slaves on the island of Grenada.
A charming but callow and ultimately shallow young man who got himself captured through lack of caution.

His associate in the plot, John Andre, was caught and hanged as a traitor.

Andre was not a traitor. He was a British officer, so couldn’t be a traitor to a cause to which he owed no allegiance. He was hanged as a spy. Even the Americans who hanged him admired him. If I remember correctly Washington offered to trade Andre for Arnold, only hanging him when the trade was refused.

I read a novel about 50 years ago that made about these same points. Oliver Wiswell by Kenneth Roberts. Still remember significant segments of it, which indicates something of the impact it made on me.

Some of the main takeaways.

Our Revolution was in many ways also our first civil war.

The Patriots often treated Loyalist neighbors, who simply wanted to keep their allegiance as it had been the year before, abominably.

Many Loyalists fought heroically for their King, an entirely honorable thing to do.

Which doesn’t make Arnold’s betrayal any less egregious. Even the British despised him for it.

The traitor was A. Lincoln, and those who collaborated him, violating the Constitutional rights of the
states and invading some of them, This included, by the way, not only states seceding by formal
actions, but non-seceding Maryland and Kentucky, which found themselves quickly under military
occupation. Honorable and honest men like Lee were driven to support their states (their ‘countries’
in American usage) by the treachery and tyranny of Lincoln and the government subservient to him.

Had they been caught. French territory wasn’t that far away, and Washington was a woodland surveyor.

In the aftermath of the French and Indian War the nearest French territory was in the Caribbean. England controlled Canada, Florida and everything to the Mississippi. Spain had the land on the other side of the great river.

What “choir” would that be?

Perhaps Philbrick is just one more New England historian preaching to the choir. There have been a lot of them since the mid-nineteenth century.

“I have also read that part of the reason Benedict Arnold switched sides”

According to Philbrick, Arnold switched sides basically for monetary gain.
He had made a deal with the British that he would be handsomely rewarded if he engineered the defeat of West Point and handed this pivotal fort/American defense point over to the British.
It really doesn’t get much worse than that.
Arnold was able to make an escape literally out the backdoor because of a timing glitch resulting from the relatively inefficient communications of that day.
His associate in the plot, John Andre, was caught and hanged as a traitor.
The same would have befallen Arnold.
Peggy Arnold managed to save herself by faking a hysterical fit and playing the part of a woman who has completely lost her mind—something she was very practiced at doing. She could mount an accomplished performance, replete with torn, inappropriate garments that scarcely hid “anything” and crazy babbling about how her children had been murdered by General Washington and other such raving. Honorable men looked away, threw a cloak about her to shield her vulnerable state, and let her pass. In other words, she excelled at taking advantage of concepts of honor shown a woman to get away with . . . a lot. Including saving her own traitorous skin.

Yea , Gruskos , horrible mosters , worse than the monsters that threw atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

And ” being largely financial ” is not worth of some gratefulnes ,some recognition ? , no money no bullets . Have you read all my entries ? I don`t think so .

Plenty of spanish money and logistics in Saratoga and Yorktown . The securing of the Missisipi reargard for the yanks by Galvez was not war ? , The seizing of the british fleet loaded with weapons bound to America by Luis de Cordova was not war ?

You can thank the french all you want , fine . But you shoud aknowledge the big spanish role in your independence . You yanks are a very ungrateful and greedy nation , no wonder you are more and more despised around the world , and even at your own country .

And by the way you never payed the spanish loans , you can not be trusted .

This show how shortsighted were French and Spaniards. Supporting masonic insurrection was not smart. The enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

There is a window in St. Mary’s church in Battersea, London dedicated to Benedict Arnold, where he, his wife and (I think) a daughter lie in the crypt. The graves were disturbed and the precise resting places are unknown. The window depicts a likeness of Arnold surrounded by four flags, the Union Jack, an early continental flag with the Union Jack in the upper left, the first American flag of 13 stars and the modern American 50-star flag. The window is dedicated to Anglo-American reconciliation and friendship. St. Mary’s church is beautiful (one of my best memories of a year spend in London), although increasingly out of place among the high rises of Battersea.

I have also read that part of the reason Benedict Arnold switched sides was that he thought the peace terms offered by the British in 1778, after the defeat at Saratoga, were on the whole reasonable and should either have been accepted or at least served as the basis for a negotiated resolution of the war.

A principled resignation for personal and political reasons might have reduced his infamy, but offering to turn over West Point to the British was clearly an act of betrayal.

I had not known that, right from the time of the ratification of the Constitution by the individual states, that Virginia had clearly stated that, upon injury or oppression of their citizens by the central government thus formed, they reserved the right to again go their separate way, or at minimum to reassert their rights against the government constituted through the Constitution that they were ratifying. They could not have made this much clearer.

I was well aware of the sense that the states were entities to which citizens of those states still retained a primary allegiance, as seen in the times prior to the War Between the States through the formulation describing the Republic as these United States as opposed to the formulation after that war as the United States. Huge distinction from one to the other.

BTW, this accounts for the Southern name for the conflict as the War Between the States instead of as the Civil War; in a civil war, as commonly understood, two parties vie for control of the whole, whereas in the WBtS, the Southern confederation sought to withdraw from a previous compact, and not to gain power over Northern states and submit them to their – forcibly unified – rule.

The title was just tongue in cheek.

I could care less about yesterday’s traitors. I am concerned with today’s traitors.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/09/harper-bibis-covert-war-on-america.html#disqus_thread

20 September 2018
HARPER: BIBI’S COVERT WAR ON AMERICA

”A little-known unit in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is conducting a covert surveillance, espionage and blackmail campaign against American citizens on a large scale. Not since the arrest of Jonathan Jay Pollard and the 1992 expose of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith’s espionage against civil rights activists has the Israeli government been so actively involved in clandestine influence and espionage against American targets.

The unit is Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, headed by director general Sima Vaknin-Gil. Vaknin-Gil reports personally to PM Netanyahu. Vaskin-Gil is a former Brigadier General in the IDF, who once was the Chief Israeli Military Censor. Her Ministry has spawned a “private” security firm, Israel Cyber Shield, headed by former Ministry official and Israeli National Police officer Eran Vasker. According to Haaretz, ICS is part of the spy network gathering dossiers on anti-Israel activists from the BDS movement in the United States.

The existence and mission of the Ministry first came to prominence in a four-part documentary produced by Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based international news organization. In 2016, Al Jazeera successfully infiltrated the American Zionist apparatus via James Anthony Kleinfeld, a British Jew who graduated from Oxford, spoke six languages and was well-versed in Middle East affairs. Kleinfeld infiltrated The Israel Project and other pro-Israel US organizations to such an extent that the leadership welcomed him with open arms and let down their guard about their collusion with the Israeli government, in targeting pro-Palestine organizations and other Israel critics.
Armed with a hidden video recorder, Kleinfeld obtained large amounts of material on the inner workings of TIP, AIPAC, the Israeli-American Council, the Maccabee Task Force and the Zionist Organization of America. He got “straight from the horse’s mouth” that the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is a spy agency working as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government. One TIP official confided to Kleinfeld that they had to be very careful, because they were “a different government working on foreign soil.”
Earlier this year, Al Jazeera was scheduled to air four 50-minute documentary segments on Kleinfeld’s findings. But, Al Jazeera was required to first inform the organizations that were to be featured in the documentary about the pending airing of the series. At that point, the full weight of the US Zionist apparatus along with the Israeli government came down on the Qatar government to press for censorship of the documentary. Suddenly, the US Zionist lobby, which had allied with Saudi Arabia and the UAE in denouncing Qatar as a terrorist state, backing Hamas and other jihadist organizations, reversed positions and gave their support to Qatar. The documentary has never aired.
But bootleg copies of the devastating documentary are clearly circulating around. Alain Gresh wrote a lengthy summary for The Nation on August 31, based on his having viewed the entire four-part series, courtesy of a friend in the Middle East. Sooner or later, the entire series will surface, despite the Qatar censorship decision. Excerpts have already been posted on some websites.
I like to think this is a story that is too big to bury for long. ”

correction:

“But we don’t call him a traitor and the lives cost to betrayal — hundreds of thousands — the war itself over a million.

That’s the what . . .

and i care because there was a time in my life when i would desire to hang anyone who betrayed his country. But then i was confronted with blacks fighting in the Philippines who concluded it made no sense to fight for a country that was denying freedom of the very fighters battling on behalf of the country.

The moral contradictions are so deep and clear that i had to reconsider my views on what it meant to be a citizen and what it means to be loyal and to what cost of integrity that loyalty would be tested. were slaves and blacks who fought on the side of the British whose names are not synonymous with Gen. Arnold be considered traitors — not in my view. We engaged on war on a bruised ego after September 11. This business of identity and it treatment to the ones who serve this country is no small matter and it is unknown how many we have lost as spies, or something else traitorous, not for money but by some unrequited slight. In my view, Gen Arnold’s were more than a few —

I am going to tread lightly on how that dynamic plays out —

It is afterall ego that bids us to use Gen Arnold and Benedict as opposed to gen. His has insulted our honor.

Careful mistaking understanding for defense .

nod to Monarchial Spain

The so what is to the observation that Gen Arnold is not uniquely held in disrepute — the evidence says others — that the issue and the what. In fact, referring as we do to Gen. Arnold is unique in that if someone walks up to you and says you are a William Franklin, you might squint and say “Huh, who, what?”

But if one walks up to you calls you Benedict Arnold,, . . . . your response most likely would be one of consternation — glassy eyed stare or in your case as name calling is typical . . . something more colorful.

Because General Arnold is not general, he is “Benedict Arnold” and there’s a reason you would have a definitive response to what is an insult. He holds a unique place holder, contrary to the suggestion I responded to. And given the context — as noted in this article and others — it’s not quite as simple as we generally accept.

Unlike Gen. Lee who did betray his country, walked off the job, and took his training in violent rebellion. But we don’t him him a traitor and the lives cost to betrayal — hundreds of thousands — the war itself over a million.

That’s the what . . .

“General Lee was truly a traitor to his country yet we honor him as hero. ”
Incorrect.
Lee chose to side with the South, his homeland, at the *beginning* of the conflict.
He did not swear an oath of allegiance to the Union and *then* betray the Union and break his oath.
Big difference.

Whatever sort of traitor was BA
he didnt stunt nor kill the future nation.

Our current traitors, infiltrators have put
America in chains to a cult.
Death not far behind.

Nice to clarify history
but
we face an emergency.

Agree

Wow, I am stunned by the pool of ignorance that most responders tot his comment are drawing their arguments from. They don’t really know a thing about the subject and are just winging it with their personal conjectures. The Fischer article seems to be closely based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s Valiant Ambition, but he doesn’t present the whole context that Philbrick does.

One of Philbrick’s accomplishments is to present to the reader both the Arnold who was a kind of hero and could have been a great hero—such that the reader is completely on his side and dreads have to deal with the next part of Arnold’s story —and the Arnold whose venial traits and underhanded scheming make the reader “change sides” when it comes to Arnold. And, Philbrick shows how Arnold’s shortcomings, the opportunistic element of his “patriotism,” were a microcosm of the same elements in the whole “patriot” undertaking. Per Philbrick, the revelation of Arnold’s carefully laid perfidious plan was a kind of “shock therapy” to the rest of the patriots/rebels, especially the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, as they grasped that they had to get serious about their new country or the whole things would end not only in defeat but in an ignominious defeat for a dishonorable cause.

Sean, you are wrong.
So silly to be wrong for no good reason except a low opinion of women’s opinions and their success at getting theis husbands to listen to them. I guess you are a bachelor!!
Somen have always had strong opinins and many women have been very good at bending their husbands to their opinions. Peggy was one of these. You can inform yourself by reading Philbrick’s Valiant Ambition.

It just so happens that I just finished reading Nathaniel Philbrick’s brilliant book on Arnold, Washington, and their times, “Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution.” This essay of Fischer’s appears to be a precis of Philbrick’s book, making the same points that Philbrick makes (for example, Philbrick has a short essay on the implications of the fact that in effect all of the rebels were traitors), yet Fischer does not acknowledge Philbrick’s book and Philbrick’s research, much of it in original documentary sources.

Philbrick provides detailed background on Arnold’s second wife, the loyalist Peggy Shippen Arnold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Shippen), her unremitting efforts to “turn” Arnold, and the pressure the latter was under to maintain Peggy in a style that she and her wealthy Loyalist father were accustomed to. Philadelphia was a loyalist stronghold—and was the northern city with the strongest commercial, financial, and social ties to the slave-holding South.

I highly recommend Valiant Ambition to those who want to understand the world in which both Washington and Arnold were operating and be highly entertained in the process. Philbrick is a master of his field and genre. Or, start with the first two two in Philbrick’s American Revolution trilogy (so far), Mayflower, and Bunker Hill. I eagerly await the forthcoming (in October) In the Hurricane’s Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown.

The frontier conflict in New York was brutal and began before 1776. Ever hear of “tit for tat”? Monsters come in many shapes and forms; all not wearing red or green coats.

Some have classified this article harshly. I enjoyed it he reading. Arnold was an interesting character. War is hell in many ways.

Didn’t the British confront both Napoleon and the American revolutionaries, or, at least, the latter’s immediate descendants, during the War of 1812?

I found this article informative and for those who criticize Arnold as a traitor, remember that George Washington and the rest of the anti-Brits were traitors as well, and that’s not to say that I have any affection for the Brit empire or think that traitors are necessarily evil.

Besides being a traitor himself, Washington certainly was no saint and his actions against troops who wanted to leave the army after their terms expired as well as to his fellow Americans (e.g.,Whiskey rebellion) prove it. Additionally he advocated and ordered terrorism against Indians, and was known to the Iroquois as Conotocarious or Village Destroyer.

Orders of George Washington to General John Sullivan, at Head-Quarters May 31, 1779,

But you will not by any means listen to any overture of peace before the total ruinment of their settlements is effected. Our future security will be in their inability to injure us and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them.

https://almostchosenpeople.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/washingtons-instructions-to-sullivan/

Also, Arnold’s treatment at the hands of leading political busybodies reminds me of Thomas Paine’s abandonment while he was locked up in Paris. The “republic” has a less than pristine history than most people know or want to believe, and it’s no wonder that Patrick Henry quipped, when refusing to attend the convention in Philly, that he smelled a rat. The odor must’ve been overpowering since there were many. No wonder we’re what we are today. ( A stinking, perfidious, over taxed, Commie and Zionist supporting gulag of wage, tax and debt slaves where treachery was baked into the cake from the start.)

Note to those who can’t stand the truth.: Don’t come whining to me!

the Spanish contribution, while significant, was largely financial.

the French contribution, at Yorktown alone, was decisive. Upon learning from Cornwallis that a French naval squadron was in blockade and cutting off all his supplies, the Brit command at NYC sent down a strong flotilla under a first-rate Admiral – Hood – with orders to smash the blockade. Instead, O Wonder of Wonders, the French fleet – under deGrasse – turned about smartly, got the weather gauge, and administered a royal beating to the Brits…who limped back to NY minus a 44-gun Ship of the Line and with others badly damaged. That saved the victory at Yorktown and the entire War of Colonial Secession, a.k.a. the “American Revolution”.

“I was fine until your last comment . . ”

Thanks for sharing; no one cares.

“General Benedict Arnold is held to the US citizen as Judas to the christian. And it is that vein in which such references to the Gen’s name is most oft utilized. ”

So what.

“Under the descriptions — the comparison and use is clearly uniquely signaling out Benedict Arnold as the US Judas. ”

In context to what SVD said this comment is nothing more than obfuscation.

“General Lee was truly a traitor to his country yet we honor him as hero. Just a thought.”

This is an absurd equivalence, and worthy of no further rebuke. I already used up my “TROLL” action for you in a different comment (maybe RU should add a “CLOWN” action), so I’ll just type it at the end of this: TROLL.

No slights, no injustices, no ingratitude or congressional folly, can possibly justify anyone for taking sides with the monsters who did this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_Valley_massacre

Hunsdon

and see how the patriots used spanish money , pesos de a ocho reales , mexican silver , from which derived the dolar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dollar

And you sir, must be one of Lincoln’s RED REPUBLICAN’S
“Many patriots these days lament that the Republican Party has ‘lost its way’ and ‘gone wrong.’ It has ‘diverged’ from the fiscally responsible, small government philosophy of Republican heroes like Robert Taft whom Eisenhower’s handlers finagled out of the nomination for President in 1952. We are told that is why today’s Republican Establishment hates Dr. Ron Paul with such a passion; that they hate him because, like Taft, he is the quintessential Republican. Patriots who say that are mistaken, of course. The reason the Republican Establishment hates Dr. Paul is precisely that he is not a traditional, mainstream Republican, that his platform of freedom is an aberration. The Republican Party didn’t ‘go wrong,’ didn’t ‘go left.’

It has been wrong from the beginning, from the day it was founded. From the beginning, the Republican Party has worked without deviation for bigger, more imperial government, for higher taxes, for more wars, for more totalitarianism. From the beginning, the Republican Party has been Red.”
https://www.big-lies.org/usa-civil-war/alan-stang.html

General Lee was not a traitor to his country, Virginia, back when the United States was said as plural, not singular.

From the Virginia ratification, 26 June 1788: “The People of Virginia declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will.�

All you’ve done is reveal yourself as a Soviet-style collectivist.

Hunsdon : another link if you care , the english ships intercepted by Spanish admiral Luis de Cordova were bound for the english troops in America the main convoy , and for India .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_9_August_1780

this intercepted british material never arrived to the british troops in America ( the american rebels were happy I would say ) :

The Spaniards captured 55 of the 63 British merchant vessels, making it one of the most complete naval captures ever made.[11] The British lost 80,000 muskets, equipment for 40,000 troops, 294 cannons (the normal British troop size during the American Independence War was 40,000 troops), . The financial impact of the losses were estimated to be around £1,500,000[12] (£1,000,000 in gold and £500,000 – £600,000 in equipment and ships)…….

.

The title is there to grab our attention. Having read a sizable novel on Benedict Arnold a few years ago that portrayed him in a similar light to this article, I do now admire the guy for his courage and success, both before, during and after the war.

I am sure I would feel differently if I had been living in the 1770s but with a couple of hundred years gone by we can look at the whole situation more dispassionately. If a few of his narcissistic tormentors had just laid off on the gaslighting, he probably wouldn’t have switched sides.

Yes Hunsdon , ignorance , or deliberate bias , I don`t know what is worse .

Given the importance of the spanish contribution to american independence ( I am not opinating on the french contribution ) it is reasonable that that it should be recognized , at least recognized
by the US and the american people , don`t you think so ? .

Read my entries and links , with historic facts , and tell me what do you think .

another link , with an extract of the link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Gardoqui

” Diego de Gardoqui, the fourth of eight children, was the financial intermediary between the Spanish Court and the Colonies during the American Revolutionary War, meeting with John Jay on various occasions. He was a Basque and a member of the wealthy Gardoqui family of Bilbao, Spain.[1] The mercantile business of “José de Gardoqui e Hijos” in Bilbao (of which Diego was one of three sons in a partnership with their father) supplied the patriots with 215 bronze cannon, 30,000 muskets, 30,000 bayonets, 51,314 musket balls, 300,000 pounds of powder, 12,868 grenades, 30,000 uniforms, and 4,000 field tents during the war. After the Revolution he became Spain’s envoy to the United States. …..

This war material armed the yankee army in the battle of Saratoga

Ignorance?