While I agree with his general thrust--that (as Iraq seems to many) the early US didn't look for very promising for forming a government either--Publius errs slightly when he writes:

There were Scottish, Irish, English, Indians, Dutch, French, Germans, and those who had lived in America since its founding. And more; many speaking languages other than English at the time.

Yet we ended up with a Constitution and a country to rally around. Our eventual Civil War was never fought on the basis of ethnic differences either, but serious compounding issues over nearly forty years that led to a war not of national origin, but of the preservation of our nation.

The roots of the War Between the States did in fact lie (at least partly) in national (or at least regional) origin. It was a war between groups of people descended from the English settlers who first settled North America. The Union was an alliance of the Puritans of New England (originally from East Anglia) and the Quakers of the Delaware Valley (originally from the Midlands), fighting against the Confederacy, which was an alliance of the Cavaliers of southwest England who settled the Tidewater country of Virginia and the Piedmont and the redneck Presbyterians from the borderlands and Ulster who had colonized Appalachia and the deep south. The war was to a large degree a fight over different conceptions of liberty, and in some senses, could be said to be an echo of the English Civil War, with a similar result.

For more information, read Albion's Seed, by David Hackett Fischer.

Rand, do you think the war was over different conceptions of liberty or different conceptions of *humanity*? While there were other issues that rubbed the North/South relations raw, the critical tinder was slavery, i.e., preservation as an institution vs. abolition thereof. Do you believe that the CW would have occurred without the slavery issue? And if not, what analogous issue do you see as fomenting civil war in a future Iraq?

It was both, but I'm not sure that your question makes much sense, because slavery in a very real sense was a symptom of the problem, not a cause. As I said, you'd really have to read Fischer's book. I unfortunately don't have time to enter into a detailed debate on the subject today, but perhaps other commenters will chime in (on both sides, of course).

I should add that I don't see any obvious analogous issues in Iraq. I am hopeful about Iraq. I was just pointing out that the argument here--claiming that there weren't nationalist divisions that caused the War Between The States--isn't necessarily valid.

I think you overstate the relevance of where the American Colonists orginated from within the British Isle to the subethnic breakdown of the combatants of the American Civil War. Certainly, the "redneck" settlers of the Appalachians could never be counted on to be supporters of the South (or the North--the Phillipi Races had southern combatants from north of the Mason-Dixon line). In fact, I can't recall which one right now, but an entire county of one the Appalachian areas of the Confederacy essentially seceded from the CSA and the mountain backwoods of the Carolinas were no place a lone CSA agent could be safe. In this case I think the ubiquity of the exceptions very much weakens the rule.

Albion's Seed I think likewise overstates that notion.

Yours, TDP

I think Tom is referring to some counties in western Virginia that refused to go along with VA's secession and remained loyal to the Union. Those counties were detached from VA became the state of West Virginia.

No, I'm actually referring to a less publicized case: Winston County in NW Alabama. The formation of WV is equally tangled. To fight at Phillipi for the north, some combatants had to go north to muster, while some Southern sympathizers had to get out of the northern Va counties in big hurry...because the secession debates in Wheeling weren't going in their direction. For the Scotch-Irish "rednecks" at least, it is a great exxageration to lump them in with the Confederacy.

Yours, Tom Perkins
molon labe, montani semper liberi, & para fides paternae patria

Yes. I was all over the mountainest parts of the south. East Tennesse tried to split from the rest of the state early on, and was generally sympathetic with the north. I always thought it was about economics (where the east was subsistance farmers in the smokey mountains and the middle and west planation farmers). But who knows?

It was complicated even then. Looking back now and trying to explain it in less than encyclopedic detail, the more so.

Rand is, I think, correct to argue that slavery can be seen as an expression of a particular view of humanity. In simplistic terms, that view is one that holds it is morally acceptable to consider other humans as property and to buy and sell them. That's a view that was, and is, not confined to the U.S. or to the 19th century.

On the other hand, the economics of slavery made it an unattractive proposition in the northern industrializing states, while the South's eventual fixation on slavery had, at least, something to do with it's reluctance to industrialize. I say that because both regions suffered from the racism that justified slavery, yet it survived only in a region where it was, to a degree, a viable source of labor.

I think "Albion's Seed" is one of the most useful discussions of real differences between sections of the U.S. that I have ever seen. I have family from all four of DH-F's "folkways" groups, and I'd say his conclusions at least square roughly with my own experience.

He's just talking about broad influences and common tendencies, not absolutes. I don't think he meant it to be any more than that. As far as it goes, I think the book is frankly brilliant.

I have only two quibbles with your comments about the Civil War.

First, the "Back Country" culture that DH-F talked about broadly affected the whole Trans-Appalachian, both north and south.

Second, the Civil War was "about" so many things, that it's hard to be "wrong" when citing almost any cause of friction: culture, economics, philosophy, raw power, class war, and on and on.

One way and another, though, it always comes back to slavery. America's own ideals created a form of slavery that was, in important ways, uniquely cruel in Western history. This is sometimes called the "terrible syllogism." "If all men are created equal, then those who are not equal cannot be men." This was like a bone in our throat or a deadly splinter between our ribs. We could not go on forever without addressing this contradiction. We still grapple with it today.

The Iraqi's face different contradictions of similar magnitude, but that's another post...

Side note - the situation in Eastern Tennesee was the same as for what became West Virginia. Locals who were pro-Union and (perhaps more strongly) against the flatlander and tidewater gentry. West Virginia was detached becaue the Union Army could force the issue. Eastern Tennesee was isolated from the Union and so could not be won with force-of-arms. Bruce Catton covered this pretty well in one of his history books.

I really must get 'Albion's Seed'. T.R. Fehrenbach devoted a chapter to this topic in his Texas history book, but the thrust of that was to show how and why the Scotch-Irish horde kept moving West and how that affected history in Texas. Great part of very good read.

From the amazon link:

This cultural history explains the European settlement of the United States as voluntary migrations from four English cultural centers.

Okay, future history time. Which "cultural center" will initiate the first voluntary (permanent) migration out into space?

This cultural history explains the European settlement of the United States as voluntary migrations from four English cultural centers.

Errrr, the first of my name in America was transported to Virginia to be an indentured servant -- not voluntarily according to all I've read, for him or for most of the many who arrived under similar circumstances.

Heh, another quibble.

Well, I have read sci-fi about prison colonies on Mars. A new fangled Botany Bay, not that I find that economically plausible for the future as robots would be cheaper and less likely to rebel.

On McGehee's point, from an amazon comment to the book:

The second were the, "Distressed Cavaliers and Indentured Servants," who left Southwest England between 1642 and 1675 settling principally in Virginia. The ruling elite, primarily the second sons of noblemen, brought with them the sense of pride and honor of which so many Southern legends are told.

This appears to tie into the concept of "hegemonic freedom" where freedom for the "elite" is paramount and freedom for the lower classes deemed essentually irrelevant.

Hmmm. . .

Sounds rather contemporary. ;-)

= = =

In the context of Albion's Seed, goy's question in the first comment is an excellent one. One of the author's theses seems to be that Quaker "freedom", Puritan freedom, Virginian hegemonic freedom and Scotch-Irish freedeom are very different things.

google "hegemonic freedom" and a wealth of material is uncovered.

This appears to tie into the concept of "hegemonic freedom" where freedom for the "elite" is paramount and freedom for the lower classes deemed essentually irrelevant.

Hmmm. . .

Sounds rather contemporary. ;-)

It does indeed. I assume, of course, that you refer to leftist academics' notion that one can have freedom of speech, as long as it isn't freedom to speak unliberal things...

Okay, future history time. Which "cultural center" will initiate the first voluntary (permanent) migration out into space?

The Scotch-Irish carrying the borderer instinct to new and far away places. Note the Scotch-Irish these days are no longer Scotch OR Irish but the ethos is intact.

I went ahead an posted an old, old essay of mine on how our Civil War was unavoidable. While of course different religious groups and ethnic groups resided on the different sides, I don't think it was even a secondary cause of the war. When it came down to the bare bones of it all, the south depended completely on slaves for plantation labor, and the north didn't (thus affording them the benefit of taking the moral stand). I can see why the south would have defended states rights and such so vehemently; they were barely even recovering until Roosevelt's WWII pump which turned it into the Sun Belt.