Civil War

Yeah. Things were going swimmingly - right up until most of our young men were killed and practically all our infrastructure was destroyed.
 
The Articles of Confederation only operated for 7 or 8 years. Even in that short time it was obviously not good enough.
There was a federal government under the Articles, but it had no way to enforce the laws of the Congress.

Harte
 
Sorry. I confused the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the Confederacy.

And you are correct, Harte. The A of C was very weak.
 
Kairos said:
Let the states govern themselves again. Federalization was a huge mistake. Federalization is the cause of the culture war. It is the cause of most of our national problems.
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Nah. I'm not in favor of a bunch of the states turning into third world countries.
 
Yeah, that's the nonsense explanation we were all taught as children, along with George Washington never telling a lie, and other mythologies. But nobody can really identify what exactly was wrong with the Articles without trying to Google some examples. The fact is, we fought a world's superpower under that contract and kicked their asses. We managed to levy and fund a continental army. We managed to work things out between states just fine.

But what happened after the Convention? Rebellions everywhere as urban grifters and speculators, such as Hamilton, used federal power to dispossess the American people of property and rights. Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion come to mind. It's been a massive shit show ever since.
 
Kairos said:
But what happened after the Convention? Rebellions everywhere as urban grifters and speculators, such as Hamilton, used federal power to dispossess the American people of property and rights. Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion come to mind. It's been a massive shit show ever since.
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So what do you think things would have looked like in 1929 just under the Articles of Confederation? Or during WWII? Methinks it would not have been as great as you make it out to be.
 
Cirrus said:
So what do you think things would have looked like in 1929 just under the Articles of Confederation? Or during WWII? Methinks it would not have been as great as you make it out to be.
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I seem to recall the Greek confederation defeating the largest empire that ever existed on this Earth (up to that time), twice.

Going back to the world wars, the Anglo world was hardly united under one government and yet we all fought together same as ever. This was our downfall in a way, since we backed Great Britain in WW1 which, in hindsight, was a mistake, setting up our civilization for ruin.

Confederation is the natural extension of human bonds. We tend to defend those with close ties to us, even when we kind of hate them anyway. If somebody attacked California with a nuke, I'd still avenge those soy bastards.
 
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Kairos said:
I seem to recall the Greek confederation defeating the largest empire that ever existed on this Earth (up to that time), twice.

Going back to the world wars, the Anglo world was hardly united under one government and yet we all fought together same as ever. This was our downfall in a way, since we backed Great Britain in WW1 which, in hindsight, was a mistake, setting up our civilization for ruin.

Confederation is the natural extension of human bonds. We tend to defend those with close ties to us, even when we kind of hate them anyway. If somebody attacked California with a nuke, I'd still avenge those soy bastards.
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I wouldn't call the Greek Empire a "confederation". All of the nation-states that made up the empire didn't necessarily want to be part of the empire.

I also wouldn't necessarily call the partnership of the Allies a "confederation". Sure, the Allies might loosely fit the definition of confederation, but there was no real driving central force.

Despite my disagreement with your use of "confederation", without a federal government I think there would be openings for states in the US it align with the Axis in WWII thus creating some question as to whether the Allies would have won the war.
 

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