OK, but the actual result is the same. That is, I’m still waiting for the Brit to come on here & say “yes, I had the American Revolution crammed down my throat in school… and it was a complete waste of time!”
(responding to #119)
And survive it intact.
And which led to crucial improvements in the Constitution.
Yet isn’t exactly the poster boy for a “stable government”, which was the point I am making.
Maybe I am out of line here - and please tell me if I am - but it seems to me that the only people that seem to think that the US Constitution is a perfect document that we should all praise is … Americans. The rest of us tend to find it somewhat bewildering that a document is held is such high regard, especially seeing as said document didn’t stop a civil war (and hence didn’t create a stable government) and contains something that many in the world think was a huge mistake (ye olde gun debate - and I promise that is the last time I mention that).
So bearing that in mind, that is why “it strikes me as a bizarre concept to believe it could be a reason [for America’s success] full stop”.
I’ll be honest, the reverence to the Constitution that many Americans show is frankly bizarre to me and many like me. As an example, just about anyone that discusses it on something like The Daily Show, when they have on a historian that has written a book, seems to refer to it as some kind of mythological perfect document.
It is way overrated, but as governing documents go, it might be the best one out there. FTR, I disagree with Ellis completely- I just don’t think he’s nuts.
What? That makes no sense at all. For one thing, pretty much no document could have stopped the Civil War, which was ultimately about slavery. For another, the federal government continued to exist before, during, and after the Civil War. That sounds stable to me.
Makes sense if you follow the discussion:
Really Not All That Bright:
It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the Constitution was the biggest reason for America’s success.
amanset:
To be honest, as a Brit living in Sweden, it strikes me as a bizarre concept to believe it could be a reason full stop.
Really Not All That Bright:
Why? Stable government is certainly a factor in economic/industrial and social development.
amanset:
The US managed to have a Civil War whilst it had a constitution.
The implication from Really Not All That Bright is clearly there; the Constitution created a stable government. I then disputed that it was a stable government seeing as it managed to have a civil war, which you have to agree is a reasonable argument.
That really is all it comes down to.
That only makes sense if having a civil war is somehow unusual, which it isn’t; I can’t think of any major industrial power that hasn’t had a civil war or other regime change.
I’m a Brit. We believe you don’t even need a singular governing document. Saying “but as governing documents go, it might be the best one out there” is like saying “I don’t like slaps in the face, but as slaps in the face go that was a pretty damn good one” 
Oh I agree, although most “major industrial powers” had theirs a long, long time ago whereas the US’s was in 1861. I’m sitting in Sweden where the civil war was in 1597. I was born and grew up in England, where the civil war was in 1641. In contrast I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that my Great, Great Grandfather was alive in 1861.
So no, I don’t see the US as a stable government over the past 200 years or so (which I’m guessing is the timeframe we’re discussing as, well it is pretty much the timeframe of the US Constitution and was also what Ellis APonte Jr referred to earlier) as it wasn’t that long ago that all hell broke loose (and only a couple of weeks ago that the head of one state was talking about leaving the union). I just don’t see a connection between the US Constitution and Stable Government.
Britain is a special case. Nearly every other country in the world has adopted a formal written constitution.
And 1264. And 1453. And 1685. And 1688. And 1708. And 1745. And I am sure a lot of others.
To be fair, these weren’t the kind of civil wars that really count as civil wars. Look at the Wars of the Roses, for instance. Most of the people in the country weren’t involved and couldn’t give a shit, unless it so happened that they decided to fight a battle in your cabbage field. People within the same households, husbands and wives, supported opposing sides. These minor quarrels don’t amount to serious civil wars; they’re just a few nobles getting rowdy. Even what we refer to as “THE” Civil War, with Cromwell and all that, made only some changes, many of which were reversed after the Restoration, and never threatened the integrity of the nation. Your civil war nearly tore your country apart.
(Captain Carrot - seriously, the American Civil War was “ultimately about slavery”? That’s not what I learned in school.)
I’m British, by the way. They all threatened regime change. I didn’t include other stuff like the Chartists (with attendant violence) or the Peasant Revolt, but I thought about it. There were differences in degree, but I thought the discussion was more about the stability of the state, and these were all efforts to overthrow the government by military action.
Multiple threads about this on its own. But yes, it was about slavery, to the extent that the South would not have seceded had it not felt slavery was at risk. While individual Southerners, on the whole, didn’t fight to maintain slavery, and nor did individual Northerners fight to end it, I’d also doubt that the majority of those in the British Army in World War One went to fight to protect Belgian sovereignty.
Then your school had it wrong. Lots of people here* claim it wasn’t about slavery- mostly right-wing revisionists- but it certainly was.
*in America
Sorry Villa. From the Midlands, perhaps?! (Tell me I’m wrong that your last point seems to be that the First World War was ultimately about Belgian sovereignty?) But my point was that Britain was still going to be Britain - as I said, the integrity of the nation. Regime change is only what happens after each election, after all. In theory. But the USA would have been gone in the form we know if that Civil War had gone another way.
I’m appalled to discover that I’ve been taught history by right wing revisionists, and will immediately go and read some more books.
From the South, lived in the Midlands, was a season ticket holder on the Holte End for a while. Now in this football wasteland. I must have done something wrong in a prior life.
No - as soon as I wrote that I realized that the analogy wasn’t right that way. I don’t think WW1 was about Belgian sovereignty in entirety, though it was important for Britain declaring war. I simply meant that the reasons for individuals fighting and reasons for government’s declaring war don’t always match. There were many reasons for the Great War, few if any of which were shared to any great extent by the individual participants.
The most recent of which was still 120 years before the American Civil War and not within the time frame discussed earlier in the thread.
But that’s beside the point. I’m not holding Britain up as some kind of startling example of a stable government. The argument was that the Constitution is somehow responsible for the US’s stable government. I’m disputing that by saying 100 years after the Constitution came in there was a civil war, just about the obvious example of a non-stable government as you can get.
Yes, the US may seem stable over the past fifty years, but the discussion was about whether the US’s power was a quick development or came about over time. If it came about over time it wasn’t due to a stable government as, quite simply, there wasn’t one and thus, by default, the Constitution isn’t responsible for one.
(And you’d better not be a Villa fan, otherwise you’re getting a slapping)
Sorry - didn’t mean to disagree (or agree) with you on anything you were saying. I was just being smug and adding…
Bring it on sparky. What are you? Blue scum? Baggies? I’d say Coventry but your ability to turn a computer on negates that unless someone did it for you.
Fucking Brummies ruining another thread.
Coventry but not cursed to have come from that city or even the dirthole that is the West Midlands. From Kenilworth in sunny, leafy Warwickshire. You know, that county that Brummies like to pretend they’re from.