American Revolution

TLS Podcast Picks: Government Food Subsidies, Unbecoming British, American Privateers, and more

by on November 16, 2011 @ 3:07 pm · 0 comments

in Anti-Statism, Podcast Picks

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Favorite wars, favorite secessions

by on April 20, 2010 @ 2:15 pm · 8 comments

in The Basics, War

One way of identifying a person’s ideology is by referencing that person’s “favorite war.”

If you can get your average American to admit that both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars were wars against secession, the next heady notion to contemplate is that, just perhaps, the U.S. took the wrong side on at least one of them.

I’d guess that most Americans’ favorite war is World War II. Americans fought against three obvious evil empires (Nazi, Italian fascist, and the Rising Sun), and, in the end brought them down. The worst thing most people I’ve talked to will admit of the war is that “three out of four ain’t bad” — recognizing that the U.S allied itself with the worst of the four regimes then extant, and then fought a Cold War for forty-some years because of that dangerous alliance.

But surely the Civil War has nearly as many (or more) “buffs.” And the Civil War certainly exerts a great deal of influence over our (varying) sense(s) of allegiance.

For instance, I often talk up secession, refer to it as a basic right and an obvious foundational aspect to any free federal union. It may be traumatic, but it is as necessary as divorcing an abusive spouse, or as satisfying as telling a crazy boss to “Take this job and shove it.” The usual argument against secession is a knee-jerk “but the Civil War settled that” routine. How many times have I heard this? Must be dozens.

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Was the American Revolution Really about Taxes?

by on April 14, 2010 @ 10:20 pm · 7 comments

in Anti-Statism, War

Albert Esplugas blogs the following magnificent quote from Niall Ferguson’s Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power:

Schoolchildren and tourists are still taught the story of the American Revolution primarily in terms of economic burdens. In London, the argument runs, the government wanted some recompense for the cost of expelling the French from North America in the Seven Years War, and of maintaining a 10.000 strong army to police the disgruntled Indians beyond the Appalachian mountains, who had tended to side with the French. The upshot was new taxes. On close inspection, however, the real story is one of taxes repealed, not taxes imposed.

(…) In January 1770 a new government in Britain, under the famously unprepossessing Lord North, lifted all the new duties except the one on tea. Still the protests in Boston continued.

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