[QUOTE=Sampiro]
Can’t speak for others, but my response would be "How about those who wore Continental Army blue? If your answer is “no”, then why not? They were by their own admission in rebellion against their formerly sworn sovereign and empire. If you answer yes, then are you saying that no new nation should ever be allowed to be formed- that the founders of Israel and Pakistan should have been executed? Or that the victorious army should always have the right to punish the vanquished? If yes, activate Godwin torpedo.
[/QUOTE]
Well, frankly, without meaning to diss those in the Continental Army, I’d like to point out that I expect that large numbers of the officer corps, at least, would have been hanged, had the British succeeded in putting down the rebellion. By the lights of the British, they were subjects of the crown in armed rebellion against the lawful authorities. That they did win the struggle meant they got to define their actions as patriotism, instead of treason. Which is just as true for the ‘freedom fighters’ in Israel and Pakistan, had they lost.
The old joke about ‘an it prosper, none dare call it treason,’ does have a hard core of truth to it.
Honestly, as much badwill as had been engendered by the actions of Reconstruction, things would have been infinately worse had the sort of Spartacus-like reprisals we’re talking about been taken. So, I am quite comfortable with how things worked out, vis-a-vis the nominal treason of the soldiers of the CSA, and Navy.
But that recognition of moral and social consequences doesn’t change that taking up arms against one’s country, whether one likes that country, or not, is usually prima facie evidence of treason. Once the fighting is over, at least.
I know I’m coming close to saying, in my usual long-winded manner, that might makes right, and that I’m certainly saying that victors write the histories. But both those cliches are based on certain hard facts - with sufficient might one can define, at least in courts, what right might be; and especially in the wake of a hard fought war, the victors will define the terms of the history. What else was the 1918 Treaty of Versailles, but a cold-blooded attempt to do just that?
The history we know after that disasterous treaty goes a long way to showing the potential costs of stretching definitions too far, but it remains a vivid example of how victors do define things in the wake of victory. For that matter, so do the Nuremburg, and other WWII war crimes trials. I believe that the Nuremburg trials are justified, but they were imposed upon those called before them willy-nilly, with many of the terms used in the trials defined at them, not before the actions which they were convened to judge.
A victorious army, and it’s civil authority, have the ability to punish anything they like. This does not make that action moral, but it is not unheard of for such to define things as legal, and do it anyways.
In the real world, things complicate the issue of treason for “every man in rebel grey” anyways. At which point would the individual be required, legally, to rebell against the duly, and legally, appointed authorities above him. I’m not an expert but my impression had been that there were Confederate troops who were just as conscripted as some Union troops.
So, I guess I’m stepping on your Godwin torpedo. Do I live?