The Call of Citizenship

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." -- Napoleon

The Colonel has increasingly moved toward entrance into the camp of those whose version of past events is decidedly different than the majority opinion.  It happens to people who really study history objectively and comprehensively.  Most don't, and remain blissfully ignorant.

The Colonel is looking at you, Americans.

  

In the decades leading up to America's third major civil war (See King Philip's War of 1675 - 1678, and the misnamed American Revolutionary War of 1775 - 1783, for the first and second major civil wars), American politicians sought to preserve the union of states by compromising over the heinous practice of chattel slavery.

With the change of presidential administrations in 1861, under a new political party (the Republican Party) specifically organized to end the practice of chattel slavery throughout the entire union of states, American politicians effectively discarded the canard of compromise.  Southern politicians led their states in a revolt against the central government (a move they claimed, not altogether erroneously, echoed the revolt against the central government in 1775), and Northern politicians rallied their states in an effort to "preserve the union."      

Neither position was particularly popular to a majority of citizens in either region.  But, as is nearly always the case throughout history, and is certainly true today, the views of a malcontent minority  receive the most attention.  

Let's be clear -- the base cause of Southern secession was indeed the desire to preserve the institution of slavery.  Full stop.  Historians sympathetic to the antebellum south have cloaked that root cause in the threadbare cloth of "states rights," but the overarching "right" the southern states sought to preserve was the right to maintain the institution of slavery.  Period.

And..., let's be likewise clear-eyed regarding the real reason Northern politicians were so intent on preventing Southern secession.  Southern politicians weren't nearly so interested in whether western states would enter the union as "slave" or "free" as they were in the prospect of "tropical" lands to the south (much more conducive to agriculture based on slave labor) joining the union.  Northern politicians feared dilution of their power in that possibility -- they had prevented President James K. Polk from annexing all of Mexico (as he easily could have) at the conclusion of the War with Mexico in 1849.  Annexation of just the northern half of Mexican territory (the half least suited to agriculture based on slave labor) added enormously rich lands to the Union without the prospect of diminishing Northern politicians' power.  An independent Southern nation's manifest destiny would not be westward.  Had the Confederacy succeeded in establishing its independence, the Southern nation might very well have rather quickly extended itself to include at least the Caribbean and Central America.  Such a nation would have become an economic power-house with which the remaining states in the diminished United States would have had a difficult time competing. 

    

The vast majority of citizens on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line were not overly enthusiastic about the prospect of war in 1861 (just as the vast majority of colonists were not enthusiastic about the prospect of war in 1775).  Their politicians were, and they generated enthusiasm (as politicians always do) by rationalizing war as a means of projecting ideals (North) or protecting property (South).

And, so we find ourselves today -- politicians on one side of the aisle (the ideological Mason-Dixon Line, if you will) generating enthusiasm for projecting ideals (socialism) and politicians on the other side provoking an opposing reaction for the protection of property (capitalism).  But, in reality, as it has nearly always been, the politicians on either side care far less for their side's ideology than they do for the personal power that accrues to the leaders of the ascendant movement.  

Politicians are able to accrue personal power, at the expense of those they purport to serve, because the vast majority of the people are unwilling to do the hard work of citizenship in our Republic.  True citizenship is not a label; it is a calling. 

The call of citizenship requires education.  

A worthy citizen of our Republic should have an appreciation of the objective, unvarnished version of the Republic's history.  Public education textbooks do not provide this.  If a citizen's study of his republic's history ends with public school education, he or she is not answering the call of citizenship. 

A worthy citizen of our Republic should have ready access to our Constitution, through even the most casual study of which the least educated of us can determine for ourselves whether a politician's proposal passes the Constitutionality test.  If a citizen depends on the courts to tell him or her what is Constitutional, he or she is not answering the call of citizenship. 

The call of citizenship requires acceptance of responsibility.

A responsible citizen is one who leaves our Republic in better condition and in better hands than he or she inherited it.  Our Republic is indeed an incredibly valuable inheritance, and each generation of Americans should do all in their power to at least preserve the principal of that inheritance by observing and preserving the principles upon which that inheritance was initially bequeathed.

A responsible citizen ensures that his or her progeny are prepared to inherit the riches of our Republic.  Leaving this up to our public schools (love you, teachers, but you know the Colonel is right) is not a responsible action. 

The call of citizenship requires the sacrifice of service.  In some form or another, above and beyond just being a productive member of society, every citizen should seek a way to serve the other members of our Republic.  The older, if not necessarily wiser, the Colonel gets, the more he doesn't view his service in uniform as particularly sacrificial -- he was adequately compensated for his service.  

So, he'll seek to serve by sacrificing his time and continuing to write.

    

The Coming Fourth American Civil War

Ask any public school graduate to provide the very basics of the seminal wars of the American experience and you will be lucky to get a vague accounting that may or may not include the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the War with Mexico, the Civil War, the War with Spain, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and the two major campaign theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan) of the Global War on Terrorism.

Ask for causes and participants in each of the above and you will be lucky to get much more than a shrug of the shoulders and a dismissive, "Dude, that's history.  It don't matter anymore..."  

So, the Colonel knows that any post hereon which deals with any critical analysis of history (particularly causes and effects of military conflicts) runs the risk of finding their way to the bottom of the list of most-read.  Nonetheless, he is uncontrollably driven to posit a likely future event given the current state of American social and political discourse viewed through the lens of American history.

The Colonel believes we are on the cusp of the Fourth American Civil War.

At this point, the Colonel is sure that the lips of a majority of the Alabama and LSU fans who began reading this missive have already tired, and they have left to google search tree-killing herbicides and corndog recipes.  The rest of you dear and valued readers are no doubt scratching your hat racks and asking,

"Fourth American Civil War?"

Yep.  We Americans have endured at least three previous major civil wars since European colonists began beaching boats on the New World's coasts. 

"But, Colonel.  My high school U.S. History teacher taught us that there was just one civil war and it was fought by the North to free the slaves in the South."

The Colonel knows what you were taught.  He had the same textbooks.  But, you see, there are these marvelous things called non-fiction history books that actually contain critical analysis beyond the one paragraph summary indoctrinations provided by modern public school textbooks.  Read enough of these marvelous critical examinations of history and you can actually begin to discern the truth of history.  Not only that, but you can learn to critically analyze the present and predict possible futures.

The Colonel's bit-more-than-cursory examination of history informs him that there have actually been several major, and many minor, civil wars on the North American continent since the 16th Century.  Let's take a look at three from which we can draw conclusions that may inform us about the coming fourth.

King Phillip's War
            Hop in the way-back machine with the Colonel and let's flash back to the year 1675.  The scene is the northeastern region of the future United States we now refer to as New England.  Five decades of European colonists had established enclaves along the New England seaboard and despite on and off skirmishing with the Native American people then occupying the territory (having displaced others), the separate European enclaves had lived largely in peace by establishing alliances with the various tribes against those tribes enemies.  Under the paramount chief of the Wampanoag Confederacy, Massasoit, the native population, though decimated by disease had maintained an equilibrium of sorts with the European settlers and the two occasionally joined forces to resist encroachments and raids by outside tribes.  But, as the tide of European settlement continued rise, competition for land and resources began to mount correspondingly.  The natives were restless.

With the deaths of Massasoit and his oldest son in 1692, Massasoit's younger son, Metacomet assumed leadership of the Wampanoags.  He was a rather prideful man, full of his position, and assumed the name King Phillip because he believed himself to be on par not with the various village and town leaders of the colonists, but with their king in England.  He continued his father's strategy of peaceful social and economic interrelationships with the colonists.  However, he began to doubt that the colonists felt the same way about the relationship that he did, and he chafed at what he considered disrespect and breaking of promises as the settlements expanded into more and more of traditional Wampanoag land.

King Phillip began to conspire with tribes in the interior, whipping up anti-European sentiment and promising to destroy the European settlements before the European population got too big to stop.  But, King Phillip was not able to enlist all of the various tribes in his conspiracy and several remained loyal to the Europeans with whom they had developed deep social and beneficial economic relationships they were loathe to abandon.

During the spring of 1675, warriors from tribes loyal to King Phillip began raids against isolated European settlements.  The European reaction was swift and indiscriminate.  Soon open war wracked the region.  Native Americans were caught up on both sides of the war in fighting and destruction that eclipsed any the region had ever seen.  By the end of hostilities a year later some of the major native tribes had suffered 50 to 80% population losses.  The European colonists had suffered nearly 10% population losses.  Scores of towns and settlements on both sides were completely destroyed.

King Phillip's War, which had enough definitive hallmarks to be considered a civil war, was the most destructive war on the North American continent per capita.  Even surpassing the calamity of the War for Southern Independence (aka Civil War) in 1861 - 1865 in terms of percentage of population and property lost.

King Phillip's War was the first major American civil war.  It's casus belli was primarily competition over land and resources.

The American Revolution
             Arguably, the seeds for the American colonial rebellion against Britain were planted during what we call the French and Indian War  -- a relatively minor campaign in the titanic European struggle that wracked the world in the middle of the 18th Century.  Native American populations again found themselves on both sides of a conflict -- this time between France and England.  Native tribes that attempted to stay out of the fight were indiscriminately attacked by both sides.  

To pay for the cost of that war, Great Britain levied taxes on commerce with its colonies.  The so-called Stamp Act of 1765, requiring that all publications and public records in the American Colonies be printed on paper containing a paid-for stamp, was one of the most ubiquitous and irritating of these taxes -- particularly so because it was imposed without participation and/or approval of the political representation in America.  Ergo the resistance slogan: "No taxation without representation."  

Commercial interests in the New England colonies -- particularly Boston -- agitated more and more fervently against London's heavy-handed and dismissive attitude toward its colonial subjects in America and began to act out in not-so passive resistance.  This prompted a dramatic increase in British troop presence (including mercenary forces) that further exacerbated the situation. 

The British move to seize militia-stockpiled arms and ammunition in Lexington and Concord set the spark to the powder keg of Colonial resentment against the heavy handedness of the Crown -- at least in New England.

In the Southern Colonies the reaction to the anti-Crown activities in New England was a mixture of horror, revulsion, and fear.  There was already developing a cultural divide between the two regions and the Southern Colonies were, frankly, happy with the very beneficial trade of their agricultural commodities with Britain.  The majority of colonists in the Southern Colonies were either completely loyal to the Crown or, in the case of settlers in remote western lands, ambivalent to a concept of "independence" they already enjoyed de facto.  It took more than a year of open hostilities in New England, before the representatives of enough Southern Colonies were cajoled into supporting the Continental Congress' declaration of independence.

It wasn't until the British carried the war to the South in 1780 that more than a small minority of Southerners participated on either side.  But, heavy-handed tactics by Cornwallis and two of his more notorious lieutenants (Lt.Col. Banastre Tarleton and Maj. Patrick Ferguson), incited open warfare (true civil war) between loyalists and rebels (aka patriots).  The intensity of fighting in the war of maneuver employed by General Washington in the north (primarily aimed at keeping a viable force in the field -- the destruction of which would have snuffed out the rebellion) paled in comparison to the ferocity of fighting between Americans in the South as loyalists and rebels (in militia formations and out) settled old scores and created new scores to be settled.

The American Revolution, particularly in the South, was the second American civil war.  

The American Civil War
       The third major civil war on the North American continent (at least since the arrival of Europeans) was the war fought over southern states' secession from the United States.  History written by the winners of that conflict states flatly that the war was fought to "free the slaves." This belies the fact that Lincoln's war to "preserve the Union" did not assume the abolitionist mantle until halfway through the conflict.  Confederate apologists argue that the war was fought over "economic" reasons.  They are correct, but turn a blind eye to the fact that the economy in the south was built on the back of chattel slavery.  

The war fought between 1861 and 1865 was conceived by politicians from two regions (north and south) with widely different economic bases (industrial vs agricultural) and governing philosophies (bias toward national supremacy vs tendency toward state sovereignty).  The war was disastrous for the south -- a significant portion of its infrastructure was wrecked, cities and towns burned, and farms laid waste.  It took the better part of the next century for the region to recover economic vibrancy.  But, from a purely scientific viewpoint, it can be argued that the American Civil War actually sowed seeds of American Exceptionalism whose germination bore amazing fruit in the next century.                                  

The Coming Fourth American Civil War
       War is the single most prevalent theme in the history of man.  Wars between peoples who on the surface have all but the most superficial things in common is common.  Even the most cursory examination of history shows that.  To believe that the American experience will be any different..., well..., it hasn't been so far; and it will likely not be any different in the future.
               

The Colonel believes another major American civil war is all but inevitable, to be fought for much the same reasons the first three major civil wars (and countless minor civil wars) were.   It might even be America's next great conflict...


...or it might be the coming war with China.  The Colonel's crystal ball is a little cloudy on that point this morning.