Yes, I understand that point (recognizing Brent's request to desist from quibbling)
but ask you to question this idea with persistent historical
reasoning.  Why were "States" the polity in many southerners',
many Americans' minds?  Well, for one thing, the States had
established themselves by force, not specifically by reason.
Sovereignty in Britain lay in the Crown, then after the Civil War of
the 1640s in Parliament ("The King and Parliament is supreme;"
that is, the King without Parliament isn't much.)
  What were the loyalties of Virginia's white men disfranchised for
reasons of poverty, or of Virginia's white women, its Indians, and its
enslaved and free blacks?  These questions seemed immaterial
when decisions were  made by elections and other stable, peaceful
forms, but became greatly important when history began to be
written with the bayonet.
  We should be very careful NOT to accept simply at face value
what State leaders argued to rally State loyalty in the crisis of the
1850s.  For one thing, State loyalty does not help us explain the
many, many white and black men from Confederate states who
fought and died for the Union.  Were they "disloyal," out of step
with their times, or prematurely modern?

Date sent:              Mon, 24 Feb 2003 18:34:05 -0500 (EST)
From:                   [log in to unmask]
Subject:                Re: Gods and Generals
To:                     [log in to unmask]
Send reply to:          Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
        <[log in to unmask]>

> In a message dated 2/24/03 11:16:21 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
>
> > central parts of the
> > city, supplementing inadequate police power (The LA or Watts
> > "Riot", "Uprising," etc.)  Now, these chiefly white soldiers were
> > from out of town.  Would this then have been a justification to take up
> > arms against them?
> >
>
> you are using post Civil War thinking......many before the war thought of
> there state first then of the union particulary in Virginia. Virginia was
> their home and country. I still run into to some of that sentiment even
> today.... One of the thing I've noticed in read letters and speeches from
> before the war is the term "these United States"......after the war is
> almost always "The United States"
>
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Harold S. Forsythe
Assistant Professor History
Director:  Black Studies
Fairfield University
Fairfield, CT 06430-5195
(203) 254-4000  x2379

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