Seems that there were more "Yankee" states than "Southern" states in the original!!! Somehow when I think of the American revolution, I think of it starting on MA and being fought for the most part in NJ as well as PA and NY!!!
On Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 11:05 PM, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > > > At 07:52 AM 11/10/2014, you wrote: > > The last 16 slaves in New Jersey were freed in 1865. > yep ... hypocrisy at it's finest!!! > > On Friday, November 7, 2014 12:14:54 PM UTC-6, brine wrote: > I was born in NJ, moved to NY when I went to college, stayed there for > 18 years and have been back in Jersey for 20 years ... I am all Yankee!!! > > > > > > *"The ethnic division between Yankees and other Americans goes back to > earliest colonial times. Up until the War for Southern Independence, > Southerners were considered to be the American mainstream and Yankees were > considered to be the "peculiar" people. Because of a long campaign of > cultural imperialism and the successful military imperialism engineered by > the Yankees, the South, since the war, has been considered the problem, the > deviation from the true American norm. Historians have made an industry of > explaining why the South is different (and evil, for that which defies the > "American" as now established, is by definition evil). Is the South > different because of slavery? white supremacy? the climate? pellagra? > illiteracy? poverty? guilt? defeat? Celtic wildness rather than Anglo-Saxon > sobriety? " *April 24, 2003 > > *The Yankee Problem in America *by Clyde Wilson > > Since the 2000 presidential election, much attention has been paid to a > map showing the sharp geographical division between the two candidates' > support. Gore prevailed in the power- and plunder-seeking Deep North > (Northeast, Upper Midwest, Pacific Coast) and Bush in the regions inhabited > by productive and decent Americans. There is nothing new about this. > Historically speaking, it is just one more manifestation of the Yankee > problem. > > As indicated by these books (listed at the end), scholars are at last > starting to pay some attention to one of the most important and most > neglected subjects in United States history the Yankee problem. > > By Yankee I do not mean everybody from north of the Potomac and Ohio. Lots > of them have always been good folks. The firemen who died in the World > Trade Center on September 11 were Americans. The politicians and TV > personalities who stood around telling us what we are to think about it are > Yankees. I am using the term historically to designate that peculiar ethnic > group descended from New Englanders, who can be easily recognized by their > arrogance, hypocrisy, greed, lack of congeniality, and penchant for > ordering other people around. Puritans long ago abandoned anything that > might be good in their religion but have never given up the notion that > they are the chosen saints whose mission is to make America, and the world, > into the perfection of their own image. > > Hillary Rodham Clinton, raised a Northern Methodist in Chicago, is a > museum-quality specimen of the Yankee self-righteous, ruthless, and > self-aggrandizing. Northern Methodism and Chicago were both, in their > formative periods, hotbeds of abolitionist, high tariff Black > Republicanism. The Yankee temperament, it should be noted, makes a neat fit > with the Stalinism that was brought into the Deep North by later immigrants. > > The ethnic division between Yankees and other Americans goes back to > earliest colonial times. Up until the War for Southern Independence, > Southerners were considered to be the American mainstream and Yankees were > considered to be the "peculiar" people. Because of a long campaign of > cultural imperialism and the successful military imperialism engineered by > the Yankees, the South, since the war, has been considered the problem, the > deviation from the true American norm. Historians have made an industry of > explaining why the South is different (and evil, for that which defies the > "American" as now established, is by definition evil). Is the South > different because of slavery? white supremacy? the climate? pellagra? > illiteracy? poverty? guilt? defeat? Celtic wildness rather than Anglo-Saxon > sobriety? > > Unnoticed in all this literature was a hidden assumption: the North is > normal, the standard of all things American and good. Anything that does > not conform is a problem to be explained and a condition to be annihilated. > What about that hidden assumption? Should not historians be interested in > understanding how the North got to be the way it is? Indeed, is there any > question in American history more important? > > According to standard accounts of American history (*i.e.*, Northern > mythology), New Englanders fought the Revolution and founded glorious > American freedom as had been planned by the "Puritan Fathers." Southerners, > who had always been of questionable character, because of their fanatic > devotion to slavery, wickedly rebelled against government of, by, and for > the people, were put down by the armies of the Lord, and should be ever > grateful for not having been exterminated. (This is clearly the view of the > anonymous Union Leaguer from Portland, Maine, who recently sent me a > chamber pot labeled "Robert E. Lee's soup tureen.") And out of their > benevolence and devotion to the ideal of freedom, the North struck the > chains from the suffering black people. (They should be forever grateful, > also. Take a look at the Boston statue with happy blacks adoring the feet > of Col. Robert Gould Shaw.) > > Aside from the fact that every generalization in this standard history is > false, an obvious defect in it is that, for anyone familiar with American > history before the War, it is clear that "Southern" was American and > Yankees were the problem. America was Washington and Jefferson, the > Louisiana Purchase and the Battle of New Orleans, John Randolph and Henry > Clay, Daniel Morgan, Daniel Boone, and Francis Marion. Southerners had made > the Constitution, saved it under Jefferson from the Yankees, fought the > wars, acquired the territory, and settled the West, including the > Northwest. To most Americans, in Pennsylvania and Indiana as well as > Virginia and Georgia, this was a basic view up until about 1850. New > England had been a threat, a nuisance, and a negative force in the progress > of America. Northerners, including some patriotic New Englanders, believed > this as much as Southerners. > > When Washington Irving, whose family were among the early Anglo-Dutch > settlers of New York, wrote the story about the "Headless Horseman," he was > ridiculing Yankees. The prig Ichabod Crane had come over from Connecticut > and made himself a nuisance. So a young man (New York young men were then > normal young men rather than Yankees) played a trick on him and sent him > fleeing back to Yankeeland where he belonged. James Fenimore Cooper, of > another early New York family, felt the same way about New Englanders who > appear unfavorably in his writings. Yet another New York writer, James > Kirke Paulding (among many others) wrote a book defending the South and > attacking abolitionists. It is not unreasonable to conclude that in *Moby > Dick* <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679600108/lewrockwell/>, > the New York Democrat Herman Melville modeled the fanatical Captain Ahab on > the Yankee abolitionist. In fact, the term "Yankee" appears to originate in > some mingling of Dutch and Indian words, to designate New Englanders. > Obviously, both the Dutch New Yorkers and the Native Americans recognized > them as "different." > > Young Abe Lincoln amused his neighbors in southern Indiana and Illinois, > nearly all of whom, like his own family, had come from the South, with > "Yankee jokes," stories making fun of dishonest peddlers from New England. > They were the most popular stories in his repertoire, except for the dirty > ones. > > Right into the war, Northerners opposed to the conquest of the South > blamed the conflict on fanatical New Englanders out for power and plunder, > not on the good Americans in the South who had been provoked beyond bearing. > > Many people, and not only in the South, thought that Southerners, > according to their nature, had been loyal to the Union, had served it, > fought and sacrificed for it as long as they could. New Englanders, > according to their nature, had always been grasping for themselves while > proclaiming their righteousness and superiority. > > The Yankees succeeded so well, by the long cultural war described in these > volumes, and by the North's military victory, that there was no longer a > Yankee problem. Now the Yankee was America and the South was the problem. > America, the Yankee version, was all that was normal and right and good. > Southerners understood who had won the war (not Northerners, though they > had shed a lot of blood, but the accursed Yankees.) With some justification > they began to regard all Northerners as Yankees, even the hordes of > foreigners who had been hired to wear the blue. > > Here is something closer to a real history of the United States: American > freedom was not a legacy of the "Puritan Fathers," but of Virginians who > proclaimed and spread constitutional rights. New England gets some credit > for beginning the War of Independence. After the first few years, however, > Yankees played little part. The war was fought and won in the South. > Besides, New Englanders had good reasons for independence they did not > fit into the British Empire economically, since one of their main > industries was smuggling, and the influential Puritan clergy hated the > Church of England. Southerners, in fighting for independence, were actually > going against their economic interests for the sake of principle. > > Once Southerners had gone into the Union (which a number of wise statesmen > like Patrick Henry and George Mason warned them against), the Yankees began > to show how they regarded the new federal government: as an instrument to > be used for their own purposes. Southerners long continued to view the > Union as a vehicle for mutual cooperation, as they often naively still do. > > In the first Congress, Yankees demanded that the federal government > continue the British subsidies to their fishing fleets. While Virginia and > the other Southern states gave up their vast western lands for future new > states, New Englanders demanded a special preserve for themselves (the > "Western Reserve" in Ohio). > > Under John Adams, the New England quest for power grew into a frenzy. They > passed the Sedition Law to punish anti-government words (as long as they > controlled the government) in clear violation of the Constitution. During > the election of 1800 the preachers in New England told their congregations > that Thomas Jefferson was a French Jacobin who would set up the guillotine > in their town squares and declare women common property. (What else could > be expected from a dissolute slaveholder?) In fact, Jefferson's well-known > distaste for mixing of church and state rested largely on his dislike of > the power of the New England self-appointed saints. > > When Jeffersonians took power, the New Englanders fought them with all > their diminishing strength. Their poet William Cullen Bryant regarded the > Louisiana Purchase as nothing but a large swamp for Jefferson to pursue his > atheistic penchant for science. > > The War of 1812, the Second War of Independence, was decisive for the > seemingly permanent discrediting of New England. The Yankee ruling class > opposed the war even though it was begun by Southerners on behalf of > oppressed American seamen, most of whom were New Englanders. Yankees did > not care about their oppressed poorer citizens because they were making big > bucks smuggling into wartime Europe. One New England congressman attacked > young patriot John C. Calhoun as a backwoodsman who had never seen a sail > and who was unqualified to deal with foreign policy. > > During the war Yankees traded with the enemy and talked openly of > secession. (Southerners *never* spoke of secession in time of war.) > Massachusetts refused to have its militia called into constitutional > federal service even after invasion, and then, notoriously for years after, > demanded that the federal government pay its militia expenses. > > Historians have endlessly repeated that the "Era of Good Feelings" under > President Monroe refers to the absence of party strife. Actually, the term > was first used to describe the state of affairs in which New England > traitorousness had declined to the point that a Virginia president could > visit Boston without being mobbed. > > Yankee political arrogance was soulmate to Yankee cultural arrogance. > Throughout the antebellum period, New England literature was characterized > and promoted as *the* American literature, and non-Yankee writers, in > most cases much more talented and original, were ignored or slandered. > Edgar Allan Poe had great fun ridiculing the literary pretensions of New > Englanders, but they largely succeeded in dominating the idea of American > literature into the 20th century. Generations of Americans have been cured > of reading forever by being forced to digest dreary third-string New > England poets as "American literature." > > In 1789, a Connecticut Puritan preacher named Jedidiah Morse published the > first book of *American Geography* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0405026803/lewrockwell/>. The > trouble was, it was not an American geography but a Yankee geography. Most > of the book was taken up with describing the virtues of New England. Once > you got west of the Hudson River, as Morse saw it and conveyed to the > world's reading public, the U.S. was a benighted land inhabited by lazy, > dirty Scotch-Irish and Germans in the Middle States and lazy, morally > depraved Southerners, corrupted and enervated by slavery. New Englanders > were pure Anglo-Saxons with all virtues. The rest of the Americans were > questionable people of lower or mongrel ancestry. The theme of New > Englanders as pure Anglo-Saxons continued right down through the 20th > century. The alleged saints of American equality operated on a theory of > their racial superiority. While Catholics and Jews were, in the South, > accepted and loyal Southerners, Yankees burned down convents and banished > Jews from the Union Army lines. > > A few years after Morse, Noah Webster, also from Connecticut, published > his *American Dictionary* and American spelling book. The trouble was, it > was not an American dictionary but a New England dictionary. As Webster > declared in his preface, New Englanders spoke and spelled the purest and > best form of English of any people in the *world*. Southerners and others > ignored Webster and spelled and pronounced real English until after the War > of Southern Independence. > > As the books show, Yankees after the War of 1812 were acutely aware of > their minority status. And here is the important point: they launched a > deliberate campaign to take over control of the idea of "America." > > The campaign was multi-faceted. Politically, they gained profits from the > protective tariff and federal expenditures, both of which drained money > from the South for the benefit of the North, and New England especially. > Seeking economic advantage from legislation is nothing new in human > history. But the New England greed was marked by its peculiar assumptions > of moral superiority. New Englanders, who were selling their products in a > market from which competition had been excluded by the tariff, proclaimed > that the low price of cotton was due to the fact that Southerners lacked > the drive and enterprise of virtuous Yankees! (When the South was actually > the *productive *part of the U.S. economy.) > > This transfer of wealth built the strength of the North. It was even more > profitable than the slave trade (which New England shippers carried on from > Africa to Brazil and Cuba right up to the War Between the States) and the > Chinese opium trade (which they were also to break into). > > Another phase of the Yankee campaign for what they considered their > rightful dominance was the capture of the history of the American > Revolution. At a time when decent Americans celebrated the Revolution as > the common glory of all, New Englanders were publishing a literature > claiming the whole credit for themselves. A scribbler from Maine named > Lorenzo Sabine, for one example among many, published a book in which he > claimed that the Revolution in the South had been won by New England > soldiers because Southerners were traitorous and enervated by slavery. As > William Gilmore Simms pointed out, it was all lies. When Daniel Webster was > received hospitably in Charleston, he made a speech in which he > commemorated the graves of the many heroic Revolutionary soldiers from New > England which were to be found in the South. The trouble was, those graves > did not exist. Many Southern volunteers had fought in the North, but no > soldier from north of Pennsylvania (except a few generals) had ever fought > in the South! > > George Washington was a bit of a problem here, so the honor-driven, > foxhunting Virginia gentleman was transformed by phony folklore into a prim > New Englander in character, a false image that has misled and repulsed > countless Americans since. > > It should be clear, this was not merely misplaced pride. It was a > deliberate, systematic effort by the Massachusetts elite to take control of > American symbols and disparage all competing claims. Do not be put off by > Professor Sheidley's use of "Conservative Leaders" in his title. He means > merely the Yankee ruling elite who were never conservatives then or now. > Conservatives do not work for "the transformation of America." > > Another successful effort was a New England claim on the West. When New > Englanders referred to "the West" in antebellum times, they meant the parts > of Ohio and adjacent states settled by New Englanders. The rest of the > great American West did not count. In fact, the great drama of danger and > adventure and achievement that was the American West, from the Appalachians > to the Pacific, was predominantly the work of Southerners and not of New > Englanders at all. In the Midwest, the New Englanders came after > Southerners had tamed the wilderness, and they looked down upon the early > settlers. But in Western movies we still have the inevitable family from > Boston moving west by covered wagon. Such a thing never existed! The people > moving west in covered wagons were from the upper South and were despised > by Boston. > > So our West is reduced, in literature, to *The Oregon Trail*, a silly > book written by a Boston tourist, and the phony cavortings of the Eastern > sissy Teddy Roosevelt in the cattle country opened by Southerners. And the > great American outdoors is now symbolized by Henry David Thoreau and a > little frog pond at Walden, in sight of the Boston smokestacks. The > Pennsylvanian Owen Wister knew better when he entitled his Wyoming novel, *The > Virginian* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570984158/lewrockwell/>. > > To fully understand what the Yankee is today builder of the all-powerful > "multicultural" therapeutic state (with himself giving the orders and > collecting the rewards) which is the perfection of history and which is to > be exported to all peoples, by guided missiles on women and children if > necessary we need a bit more real history. > > That history is philosophical, or rather theological, and demographic. New > Englanders lived in a barren land. Some of their surplus sons went to sea. > Many others moved west when it was safe to do so. By 1830, half the people > in the state of New York were New England-born. By 1850, New Englanders had > tipped the political balance in the Midwest, with the help of German > revolutionaries and authoritarians who had flooded in after the 1848 > revolutions. > > The leading editors in New York City, Horace Greeley and William Cullen > Bryant, and the big money men, were New England-born. Thaddeus Stevens, the > Pennsylvania steel tycoon and Radical Republican, was from Vermont. (Thanks > to the tariff, he made $6,000 extra profit on every mile of railroad rails > he sold.) > > The North had been Yankeeized, for the most part quietly, by control of > churches, schools, and other cultural institutions, and by whipping up a > frenzy of paranoia about the alleged plot of the South to *spread slavery > to the North*, which was as imaginary as Jefferson's guillotine. > > The people that Cooper and Irving had despised as interlopers now > controlled New York! The Yankees could now carry a majority in the North > and in 1860 elect the first sectional president in U.S. history a threat > to the South to knuckle under or else. In time, even the despised Irish > Catholics began to think like Yankees. > > We must also take note of the intellectual revolution amongst the Yankees > which created the modern version of self-righteous authoritarian > "Liberalism" so well exemplified by Mrs. Clinton. In the 1830s, Ralph Waldo > Emerson went to Germany to study. There he learned from philosophers that > the world was advancing by dialectical process to an ever-higher state. He > returned to Boston, and after marrying the dying daughter of a banker, > resigned from the clergy, declared the sacraments to be a remnant of > barbarism, and proclaimed The American as the "New Man" who was leaving > behind the garbage of the past and blazing the way into the future state of > perfection for humanity. Emerson has ever since in many quarters been > regarded as *the* American philosopher, the true interpreter of the > meaning of America. > > From the point of view of Christianity, this "American" doctrine is > heresy. From the point of view of history it is nonsense. But it is > powerful enough for Ronald Reagan, who should have known better, to > proclaim America as the shining City upon a Hill that was to redeem > mankind. And powerful enough that the United States has long pursued a > bipartisan foreign policy, one of the guiding assumptions of which is that > America is the model of perfection to which all the world should want to > conform. > > There is no reason for readers of *Southern Partisan* to rush out and buy > these books, which are expensive and dense academic treatises. If you are > really interested, get your library to acquire them. They are > well-documented studies, responsibly restrained in their drawing of larger > conclusions. But they indicate what is hopefully a trend of exploration of > the neglected field of Yankee history. > > The highflying Yankee rhetoric of Emerson and Hillary Rodham Clinton has a > nether side, which has its historical origins in the "Burnt Over District." > The "Burnt Over District" was well known to antebellum Americans. > Emersonian notions bore strange fruit in the central regions of New York > State settled by the overflow of poorer Yankees from New England. It was > "Burnt Over" because it (along with a similar area in northern Ohio) was > swept over time and again by post-millennial revivalism. Here preachers > like Charles G. Finney began to confuse Emerson's future state of > perfection with Christianity, and God's plan for humanity with American > chosenness. > > If this were true, then anything that stood in the way of American > perfection must be eradicated. The threatening evil at various times was > liquor, tobacco, the Catholic Church, the Masonic order, meat-eating, > marriage. Within the small area of the Burnt Over District and within the > space of a few decades was generated what historians have misnamed the > "Jacksonian reform movement:" Joseph Smith received the *Book of Mormon* > from the Angel Moroni; William Miller began the Seventh Day Adventists by > predicting, inaccurately, the end of the world; the free love colony of > John Humphrey Noyes flourished at Oneida; the first feminist convention was > held at Seneca Falls; and John Brown, who was born in Connecticut, > collected accomplices and financial backers for his mass murder expeditions. > > It was in this milieu that abolitionism, as opposed to the antislavery > sentiment shared by many Americans, including Southerners, had its origins. > Abolitionism, despite what has been said later, was *not* based on > sympathy for the black people nor on an ideal of natural rights. It was > based on the hysterical conviction that Southern slaveholders were evil > sinners who stood in the way of fulfillment of America's divine mission to > establish Heaven on Earth. It was not the Union that our Southern > forefathers seceded from, but the deadly combination of Yankee greed and > righteousness. > > Most abolitionists had little knowledge of or interest in black people or > knowledge of life in the South. Slavery promoted *sin* and thus must end. > No thought was given to what would happen to the African-Americans. In > fact, many abolitionists expected that evil Southern whites and blacks > would disappear and the land be repopulated by virtuous Yankees. > > The darker side of the Yankee mind has had its expression in American > history as well as the side of high ideals. Timothy McVeigh from New York > and the Unabomber from Harvard are, like John Brown, examples of this side > of the Yankee problem. (Even though distinguished Yankee intellectuals have > declared that their violence was a product of the evil "Southern gun > culture.") > > General Richard Taylor, in one of the best Confederate memoirs, *Destruction > and Reconstruction* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/187994121X/lewrockwell/>, > related what happened as he surrendered the last Confederate troops east of > the Mississippi in 1865. A German, wearing the uniform of a Yankee general > and speaking in heavily accented English, lectured him that now that the > war was over, Southerners would be taught "the true American principles." > Taylor replied, sardonically, that he regretted that his grandfather, an > officer in the Revolution, and his father, President of the United States, > had not passed on to him true American principles. Yankeeism was triumphant. > > Since the Confederate surrender, the Yankee has always been a strong and > often dominant force in American society, though occasionally tempered by > Southerners and other representatives of Western civilization in America. > In the 1960s the Yankee had one of his periodic eruptions of mania such as > he had in the 1850s. Since then, he has managed to destroy a good part of > the liberty and morals of the American peoples. It remains to be seen > whether his conquest is permanent or whether in the future we may be, at > least to some degree, emancipated from it. > > - Sheidley, Harlow W. *Sectional Nationalism: Massachusetts > Conservatives and the Transformation of America, 18151834* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1555533701/lewrockwell/>. > Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998. > - Grant, Susan-Mary. *North Over South: Northern Nationalism and > American Identity in the Antebellum Era* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0700610251/lewrockwell/>. > Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. > - Bensel, Richard F. *Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State > Authority in America* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521398177/lewrockwell/>. > New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. > - Tuveson, Ernest L. *Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's > Millennial Role* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226819213/lewrockwell/>. > Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. > - Norton, Anne. *Alternative Americas: A Reading of Antebellum > Political Culture* > <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226595102/lewrockwell/>. > Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986. > > > > http://archive.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson12.html > > -- > -- > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. > For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum > > * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. > * Read the latest breaking news, and more. > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "PoliticalForum" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- brine http://brineb.blogspot.com/ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
