Guest Post by The Zman
At the very beginning of the 19th century, the New England states were increasingly at odds with the the Southern states. One cause of the discontent was the sense that the slave states had too much power over the Federal government. Another was the decline in trade with Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. The Embargo Act of 1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 sharply reduced trade with Britain and France. There was also the rivalry between the North and South, which dated to the founding the colonies.
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Discontent with the War of 1812 brought things to a head. The Federalist Party in New England had been agitating for changes in the Constitution, like eliminating the three-fifths compromise. New England newspapers openly discussed secession. The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings among representatives from the New England states to discuss their grievances. The whole project collapsed with the wave of patriotism that resulted from Jackson’s victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
This episode in American history has largely been forgotten, mostly because the North won the Civil War fifty years later. The winners write the history books and this bit of history has never fit the narrative. It’s also why the The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina has been erased from the history books. Northern conservatives have made John Locke and the Scottish Enlightenment their base. The fact that Locke and Shaftesbury hoped to impose feudalism on the American South is inconvenient.
The point here is that Americans have been raised up on a history of the nation written by Yankeedom. The North won the Civil War so they became the dominant region both legally and economically. Through the 20th century, the North also came to dominate the nation culturally, writing the history books and defining the national narrative. That’s how we get nonsense about the Puritans seeking religious freedom and carving a nation out of the wilderness. Jamestown has been all but erased from the nation’s memory.
The dominance of the North over the rest of the country probably would have petered out in the 20th century, but world events changed the direction of America. Teddy Roosevelt badgered Woodrow Wilson into breaking with American tradition, with regards to getting involved in European affairs. The Yankee desire to dominate North America became a quest to dominate the world. Once the US chose to get into the Great War, the old traditional American conservatism was killed off forever. The Yankee Empire was born.
The aftermath of the Great War, the Depression, World War II and then the Cold War prevented any change in America’s domestic arrangements. These were great unifying events, in that they justified the suppression of anything challenging the established cultural order. The upheavals of the 60’s and 70’s were based in New England, the Upper Midwest and Northern California for a reason. American Conservatism was born at Yale and run out of Connecticut for the same reason. That where the ruling class lived.
All empires end eventually. Often it is from exhaustion, the cost of maintaining the empire having long ago exceeded the benefits. Other times the culture that built the empire runs its course. The empire remains as a brittle outer husk that eventually shatters. Other times, it is a slow, ad hoc retreat back to something resembling normalcy. The Soviet Empire is a good example of this. It’s not been an organized retreat, but it has been a fairly bloodless one. Russia is now back to something close to its historic norm.
America was never built to a be great crusading empire. Even after generations of cultural cleansing, Alabama is still a vastly different place than Vermont. Regionalism is still the defining feature of America. Having one region dominate the others was the fear of the Founders, which is why they struggled to craft a government after independence from the British. The solution was a small federal government that handled a narrow set of things, like war and trade, that could only be done by a central government.
America’s ruling class, especially over the last few decades, have gone to great lengths to explain why providence has ordained America as the world’s peace keeper. The usual suspect have twisted this into a foreign policy of keeping the world safe for the Jewish diaspora. The truth is, the American Empire was always built on serendipity. The total destruction of Europe and the technological backwardness of East Asia left a huge vacuum. The atom bomb locked in the gains of the victors, by locking out all challengers.
The world that birthed the American Empire is long gone. China is now taking up her historic role as the hegemonic power of Asia. Europe is fully recovered, in the material sense, from the 20th century. It is time for Europe to recover culturally and that can only happen when the Yankee Empire recedes. Whether or not the European people have the will to defend themselves from the barbarian hordes to their south, that’s not something that can be decided for them. Europe must live or die on its own.
Domestically, it is long past time for a return to normalcy. The Cold War has been over for 25 years. The rest of the country is economically and demographically in better shape than Yankeedom. The oldest and most sclerotic states in the nation are located in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. The election of Trump and the resulting chaos in Washington strongly suggest the rest of the nation is ready to step outside the shadow of Yankeedom. CalExit and similar rumblings from Progressives are another sign of change.
The fact is, America was never a singular nation. It was a hodgepodge of nations, thrown together with degrees of overlap. The regions of the country share a language and share some history, but they are significant different too. America, maybe even all of North America, is better run as a federation, like a continent sized version of Switzerland. The areas where there can be no agreement are delegated to the regions. The areas where the interests are shared are delegated to a Federal state.
That can only come with the end of the Yankee Imperium.
You lost me today, Z. We’ve got a Yankee run in the country right now, he seems to be doing a damn good job. Compare that with the last few southerners who had that job. LBJ, Carter, Clinton. No contest
Your Trump nut-sack licking is right up there with your Tesla delusions.
The author isn’t talking about any one individual person. Rather, the country as a whole. But, you see only what you want to see. You’re better than most with that talent.
“The fact is, America was never a singular nation. It was a hodgepodge of nations, thrown together with degrees of overlap.”
How the fuck can you be “lost” on such a straightforward article?
America was always a singular nation. And we ain’t going to break up now either. To believe otherwise is delusion
THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT!
“The Embargo Act of 1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 …”
There was a law …. against fucking???
Yes, but it only made intercourse illegal between Americans and Brits, and between Americans and the French. Americans were still free to engage in intercourse with each other and/or with people from countries OTHER than England and France.
Great article. Tells it like it was and is. A small group of greedy, envious, arrogant, self-righteous New Englanders couldn’t stand the thought that the South (as well as what we now call the Midwest) was in control of the country – this seriously affected their financial interests and self-image as God’s gift to the world. They actually rewrote history books after the Civil War to airbrush out the founding of English-speaking America at Jamestown in 1607 and deliberately ignored the ocntribution of the South to the American Revolution (South Carolina suffered far more than any other state in that war). When the South left the Union one Southern senator made a speech in which he honestly and accurately told his Northern colleagues that they now had what they wanted, the South was leaving and handing over to their care the honor and reputation of the United States of America, which a largely Southern dominated government had nutured for 90 years. And as he said, without a stain on that honor or an accusation of corruption against it. I will leave it to the reader what to make of the “care” given to that government since that long ago time. By the way, I agree completely with the estimation of the three “Southerners” who have recently held the White House. LBJ was a turncoat and probable murderer. Carter a befuddled fool. Clinton, well, Clinton would have sold toothless horses a hundred years ago.
I wonder, will the death of the “Yankee Imperium” be driven by the current suicide of “progressivism”, or will it be the cause of the death of progressivism? The sclerotic nature of the Northeastern states has been a significant contributor to the rise of places like Texas and the Midwest as new hubs of technology and economic power. Pretty much the only state in New England that still has anything like a strong economy is Massachusetts, and I suspect a lot of that appearance is really just inertia left over from the “dot-com boom” days. Connecticut is buried under the typical liberal regulatory state. Vermont and New Hampshire don’t have the kind of infrastructure that lends itself to significant growth. Maine is still recovering from its own bout of Democrat-run government, and likewise lacks the infrastructure for growth. Rhode Island suffers from the decay that liberalism frequently inflicts.
Dare we hope that, once the Salad Days are over in New England, all the progressives there will flee to the new concentrations of money, allowing the region to reclaim its former conservatism?
a joy to read, christmas came early, thank you
Outstanding article. Anyone like me that grew up in that yankee prison camp who also was capable of independent thought and hated being bossed around knows just how true Zman is. You can clearly see today the remnant attitudes of those connecticut-like liberals who don’t just disagree with someone of a differing opinion, they want to punish and humiliate them. Theirs is an arrogant, hate based society infused to their dna with libido dominandi. I fled that insane asylum as soon as I turned 18 and never looked back. Yes, they are losing population and political power and their demise can’t happen fast enough to please me.
Yes 22, the South was right.
“America was always a singular nation.” —- starfcker
Please ..
Vote UP …. if you agree
Vote DOWN … if you disagree
My guess is the Lone Star State folks might have a different opinion.
It’s a little more complicated. At some points in “American” history the nation as a whole has approached “singularity”. At present the trend is definitely in the direction of regionalism (“Nine Nations”) and factionalism (Red/Blue). These trends would appear to be related to the historical “Turnings” that have been discussed at length on TBP. The current 4th Turning will almost certainly result in yet another change in trend.
Let me clarify and cite an example of why this isn’t as clearcut as it is made to be. SOUTHERN is a state of mind, not just a place. Southern means live and let live, mostly, but with mutually agreed upon caveats laid out to prevent ugly future outcomes. Southern means to try and respect your neighbors, not inform them that you don’t agree with the height of their grass or the color of their house paint by initiating legal action. Southerners don’t walk by a hurt person or drive past a car wreck – we stop, because it is the right thing to help people in distress. You can be from Boston and have this mindset, or Alaska or even Washington state.
There are many ways ‘Yankees’ differ from southerners, and there are many southerners who are SINO’s (southerners in name only, ie Clinton-like). My neighbors are from Syracuse; I am southern born, raised and live here – yet it is easier for me to count the countries I haven’t been to than those I have (as in, I am NOT some guy from Swamp People).
My Syracuse neighbors share the exact values I do, yet they come from New York. I have friends from all over the world whose attitudes I would classify as “southern”; I have business associates that are not yet citizens, but who share southern outlooks and beliefs. I meet folks here online that share many of my beliefs in things, but who do not live south of the Mason-Dixon line, nor are they living in fly-over America.
I do believe there is a central core of these ‘Yankee’ types that inhabit the DC-NYC corridor and on into Ohio, Michigan, parts of Wisconsin and Illinois. They believe they know best and there is no room for dispute or compromise, and thus none for dialog. They are neither charitable nor civic minded, and they are self-focused to the exclusion of anyone not in complete agreement with their views.
Because southern is a state of mind, the division we are looking at is not clean as it was pre-Civil War. At best, it falls along rural/urban lines – but even then, the division isn’t a clean one. Enclaves of ‘Southerner’ mind-set are everywhere.
I don’t see national politics sorting this out, not when the pool of candidates is as rotten as this last batch was; not when the money is so rampant and the corruption and lies so evident. Even my blue-blood daughter was disgusted when her shining star, Bernie Sanders, was revealed driving a Tesla recently. The money required to mount the campaign to any national office successfully is so great that every candidate is tainted or compromised, willingly or no, by the process.
For the same reason, drawing a line as in Mason-Dixon is no longer possible – the country is too mixed up, no matter the line you try to draw. This would make any type of insurrection a completely local or state one. Even in Texas, there would be enclaves who disagree with secession – the same in Cali.
If we rupture apart, it seems likely that it will be into local zones or regions. Then there will be people leaving to find the ‘clan’ they wish to belong in – relocation based on similarities. The modern term is Balkanization – but ours will be more difficult and longer term. The only way this does not happen is if the ‘Yankees’ of the central government we share loosen the reigns of control – and that has never happened in our history. In every case where a state or a group has tried for some dispensation, the laws have been written, the taxes raised and the issues buried to the benefit of the ‘Yankees’ running the central government.
When the noose is so tight that people have less to lose by standing up and uniting, then things will change. It may be bloody in places, but the real truth of it is that there are about 10 million of ‘them’ and 350 million subjects (consumers is what they call us, remember?). They rule until we decide otherwise, and they know it – that’s why the national elections are always rigged by filling both the Democrat and Republican slots with the same type of candidates, leaving us to always choose the least corrupt among the compromised. I gives consumers the illusion of choice in the midst of our monopoly…
When the pain of playing is higher than the pain of opting for change, guess what happens?
Don’t look to DC for change – the only thing they can agree on is spending money we haven’t even made yet and protecting Israel. Don’t take my word on that – go look at the voting. It is up to all of us, as it always has been, to decide when enough is enough.
The Greedy evil Money Masters rule America; they are ripping our economic guts out and looting US. TPTB are flooding US and Europe with 3rd World garbage (that actually hate US) like pumping methane gas into a home’s basement. They will get their explosion and then call in UN Troops for mop-up. I hope they reach to far to soon for the Golden Ring while Trump is still POTUS.
@ RHS Jr
It’s always going to be too soon – they just don’t have the numbers to make anything stick that we don’t let stick.