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Huh, I'd argue that the united states as we know it today is wholly a product of the civil war. Before that Virginians felt loyal to Virginia, New Yorkers felt

Huh, I'd argue that the united states as we know it today is wholly a product of the civil war. Before that Virginians felt loyal to Virginia, New Yorkers felt loyal to New Yorkers, and frankly the United States right before the civil war was not all that different from the EU today. They spoke Spanish in California, the western territories, and Florida; French along the Mississippi river, etc. I think this view of the US having a shared cultural identity at any point before the 20th century is very far-fetched.

kls 10y ago
Agreed we tend to reason from the perspective that we are in and see all things thru that lens, but antebellum America was a very different place from where we are at today. At the onset of the war and even before with the nullification crisis even antebellum America was very different than early post revolution America. Federalization, centralization and bureaucracy are the natural order of empires and America has been on a slow roll towards them since at least the early 1800's and the barons. Honestly probably since it's inception, Hamilton was a devout federalist and Modern America would be a realization of his dream. I think Jefferson and Franklin would be horrified to say the least. With all that said, it always seemed to me that the EU wanted to be America 2.0 and modeled the empire and not the early confederation that got us here. America used to look like a coalition of distinct states where basic rights (albeit for only some at times), where guaranteed so that a citizen has a host of options to find a representative government. More and more the states look like cookie cutter copies of each other and more and more legislation gets pushed to the federal level because there is little distinction between them. This makes for an efficient business environment but it comes at the cost of a representative government for the people. From the outside it seemed to me that the EU tried to fast track this homogenization in the interest of being a competitive business environment. In my view the EU took it one step further and fully embraced unrepresentative bureaucracies and set up, for the better part, a technocracy. The people of Britain felt that they had no reach into these un-elected representatives and therefore made the choice to exit as it was the only ripcord they had.
JPKab 10y ago
"They spoke Spanish in California, the western territories, and Florida; French along the Mississippi river, etc." This is a completely inaccurate and hamfisted statement. By the time of the Civil War, California was already predominantly Anglo. The only Spanish speaking parts at that point were the southern part of the state, which was sparsely populated compared to the Bay Area. Florida was already filled with Anglo settlers as well. Spain had a number of horrifically protectionist policies that doomed their outlying North American colonies to poverty and depopulation, making them extremely vulnerable to infiltration by settlers from the US, who ironically, were illegal immigrants.
- uncletaco 10y ago
  I should've been less broad, I wasn't saying that the entire state has Spanish speakers, just that a very large community was there. There was a significant Spanish speaking population in California though, they are called californios and I believe they were a significant minority (probably 1/3 of the population) at least in 1850. Also you're right,I was completely wrong about Florida.

kls 10y ago

Agreed we tend to reason from the perspective that we are in and see all things thru that lens, but antebellum America was a very different place from where we are at today. At the onset of the war and even before with the nullification crisis even antebellum America was very different than early post revolution America. Federalization, centralization and bureaucracy are the natural order of empires and America has been on a slow roll towards them since at least the early 1800's and the barons. Honestly probably since it's inception, Hamilton was a devout federalist and Modern America would be a realization of his dream. I think Jefferson and Franklin would be horrified to say the least. With all that said, it always seemed to me that the EU wanted to be America 2.0 and modeled the empire and not the early confederation that got us here. America used to look like a coalition of distinct states where basic rights (albeit for only some at times), where guaranteed so that a citizen has a host of options to find a representative government. More and more the states look like cookie cutter copies of each other and more and more legislation gets pushed to the federal level because there is little distinction between them. This makes for an efficient business environment but it comes at the cost of a representative government for the people. From the outside it seemed to me that the EU tried to fast track this homogenization in the interest of being a competitive business environment. In my view the EU took it one step further and fully embraced unrepresentative bureaucracies and set up, for the better part, a technocracy. The people of Britain felt that they had no reach into these un-elected representatives and therefore made the choice to exit as it was the only ripcord they had.

JPKab 10y ago

"They spoke Spanish in California, the western territories, and Florida; French along the Mississippi river, etc." This is a completely inaccurate and hamfisted statement. By the time of the Civil War, California was already predominantly Anglo. The only Spanish speaking parts at that point were the southern part of the state, which was sparsely populated compared to the Bay Area. Florida was already filled with Anglo settlers as well. Spain had a number of horrifically protectionist policies that doomed their outlying North American colonies to poverty and depopulation, making them extremely vulnerable to infiltration by settlers from the US, who ironically, were illegal immigrants.

uncletaco 10y ago
I should've been less broad, I wasn't saying that the entire state has Spanish speakers, just that a very large community was there. There was a significant Spanish speaking population in California though, they are called californios and I believe they were a significant minority (probably 1/3 of the population) at least in 1850. Also you're right,I was completely wrong about Florida.