Status Updates From The Unknown American Revolu...

Gary spitting but I’m tired bro

I'm finally in the Epilogue. I have seen a few people critique this book as Marxist and liberal revisionism. Wait, Nash writing that Washington owned slaves and thought slavery was wrong is revisionism? You already knew that. How is it a liberal retelling? There was a point where conservatism talked about guaranteeing individual rights. The entire book is about how everyone bought into the dream of the Revolution.

As a friend noted, It's the only rich man's revolution in history. So our values are inherently colored by what rich people valued. Much of that has been good. And much of it has been incredibly harmful, unfair, and untrue. The framers of the Constitution may have been brilliant, but that doesn't mean they were virtuous.

The southern states and the major advocates for independence, continue to prove they do not want to sacrifice much more than time in pursuit of independence.
Virginia and South Carolina can't pay soldiers and basically ignore the problem altogether. Maryland at least allows people to use wildly devalued paper money.
While working men are fighting in the war, the landed gentry levies taxes that few families can pay.

The Newburgh Conspiracy has always fascinated me. What prompted Washington to that level of theatrics? What prompted officers to demand pensions, without supporting their enlisted men? Why didn't the Continental Congress have a meaningful plan to pay soldiers?
And 250 years later, what does "Support the Troops" mean? Should I show more loyalty to a paid army than Thomas Jefferson?

I've read a fair amount of American history, and the Revolutionary Era fascinates me. And the more I read it, the more I'm convinced that the brilliant ideas about restricted government and individual rights were never intended to extend to everyone.
The people who advocated the most for separation were the wealthiest, and when they need to pay soldiers on the ground they pull have short arms and deep pockets.

Virginia's flag says "Sic Semper Tyrannis" which translates to "thus always to tyrants", a nod to their role in advocating for freedom from Britain. Jefferson, Madison, Mason and others were crucial in defining our understanding of liberty and human rights. Virginians were not so invested, and struggled to raise a meaningful militia. 90 years later, they were the most notable traitors in the War of Southern Treason.

I think of John Adams of a defender of the oppressed, with his valiant defense of the soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre. But his machinations in creating the Massachusetts constitution are underhanded at best. It's not just him, either. Despite the push for a more democratic society, everyone with power works hard to maintain it. Men who fought in the War for Independence have the vote taken away from them.

The story we mostly get is one where a group of aristocrats realized that a monarchy was bad, and that the people, dadgummit, deserved some say in the government.
The truth is much closer to the masses realized that the aristocrats would love to reimplement an aristocracy. And so wherever possible, the masses wrote state constitutions maximizing the power of the individual.

I should spend more time with this book. It's well-written even if it is dense. Plus, i have been reading it for several years, and I should probably move towards finishing it.
As the states start writing their own constitutions in 1776, they aren't nearly as single-minded as we would believe. Each one has different characteristics and those different beliefs are reflected in the governing documents they create.