The Presidents: Redux

Nathan Madien said:

Another volksmarschall AAR, another chance to be reminded of how smart you are.

I like your choice of Richard Mentor Johnson for President, if for no other reason than the unexpectedness of it.

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I'm glad you could make it over Nathan! After all, your "Presidents" AARs serve as the inspirations for your Victoria cousins!

Nathan Madien said:

Reminds me of when President Gerald Ford refused to bail New York City out of bankruptcy, leading to the famous newspaper headline "Ford tells NYC to drop dead".

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Some say that his decision, coupled with that infamous NYDN headline cost Ford the election as he lost NY by a slim margin over Jimmy... media spin if there ever was such a thing! :blink:

The Conquest of Empire: Texas and the Texas War

TEXAS AND THE TEXAS WAR​

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
-Thomas Paine, Anglo-American political theorist and revolutionary.

The Texas War and the Seeds of Abolitionism

The declaration of war and America’s involvement in the Texas War, as it became known, had later negative ramifications for the Union and the Democratic Party. Although it was not apparent when the war commenced, the war itself can be seen as the beginning of the formative years of the American abolitionist movement. While abolitionists had been active since even the colonial days, the war was seen as a catalyst for the Liberty Party, a political party dedicated solely to end “that evil institution.” William Lloyd Garrison, one of America’s most prominent abolitionists and radicals who credited Reverend John Rankin, another prominent abolitionist, for “converting” him to the righteousness of abolitionism. Filled with a religious zeal and conviction, Garrison condemned slavery in his newspaper The Liberator, going as far as calling slavery America’s “national sin” that was “one hundred times worse than the sins of Sodom and Gomorroah!” His radicalism was even more pronounced when he would burn the American Constitution at political rallies saying that the sacred document was marred with the Devil’s hand and that it defended slavery.

While Americans, who didn’t want the war or didn’t voice support for going to war in 1836, paradoxically signed up with enthusiasm to whip the Mexicans back beyond the Rio Grande, other Americans were enthusiastically whipped up into a fanatical frenzy in opposition to the war as they all saw the war for what it was – a war for the future expansion of slavery into Texas and other western territories the United States long had her eyes on. In Illinois, one of American’s most well-known abolitionists preached a fiery gospel of liberation for the slaves from his pulpit on Sunday, and then from the ink of his abolitionist newspaper. Reverend Elijah Lovejoy, a Presbyterian minister, a key figure in the Second Great Awakening, and a man who allowed Africans to attend his church services, along with Garrison, was one of the first Americans to voice his opposition to the war.

Although the war was gaining acceptance among an American populace who saw the war as a conflict to liberate their “brethren” (the Texians) and begin America’s divine march to the Pacific Ocean, the virtuous abolitionists drew the line in the sand and stood their ground. Condemning Lovejoy as a traitor and a turncoat, an angry mob stormed his church in Alton Illinois and set it afire and murdered Lovejoy. The death of Elijah Lovejoy began the mobilization of the abolitionists. In Hudson, Ohio, a young Baptist preacher and abolitionist named John Brown attended a church as a guest speaker. He stood before the congregation having received the news of Lovejoy’s death, lifted his right hand while placing his left over his torn and worn Bible and uttered the infamous words, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!” [1].

At left, a pro-slavery and pro-jingoistic mob burns down Elijah Lovejoy's church after having killed him. At right, a photograph of John Brown posing in the same manner in which he remarked his eternal struggles against the evils of slavery. Like many Christian abolitionists of their time, Elijah Lovejoy and John Brown would die for the struggle to free the slaves and became some of the more famous martyrs of the cause.​

The Texas War

Of all the wars America has fought, the Texas War is minuscule in scale, though not devoid of the valor shown by American soldiers in any war prior or since. The Mexican Army under Santa Anna adopted a bold war strategy – they would swing south in retreat, hoping to lure the American forces into Mexico proper where they would be defeated in unfamiliar and unsuitable territory. Mexican scouts and spies also reported that Houston was marching east to link up with the American Army. Preferably, the American Southern and Western Armies under the commands of Generals William Clayton and James Phelps would be routed in Mexico, and then the Mexican army would thunder back into Texas to defeat Houston and the American National Guard units that were also rallying in central Texas to follow the main invasion force south. Unbeknownst to the Mexican Army, another invasion force, composed of the New York and Pennsylvania volunteers (mostly from these two states), were prepared to land at Veracruz and push either west toward Mexico City, or north to aid in the Texas Campaign and contain the Mexican army from pushing south.

As the Mexican Army “retreated” south, hoping to cross the Rio Grande by June 21, 1837, the American Western Army of 15,000 men (including 3,000 national guardsmen) intercepted the Mexican Army at Laredo on June 20. Although initially outnumbered by the nearly 28,000 Mexican soldiers, General Phelps knew he just needed to hold the Mexican Army in place while General Clayton maneuvered around their flanks to try and pin the Mexican Army in and prevent their retreat. The resulting Battle of Laredo was a decisive victory for the American forces. About an hour into the battle, Mexican forces realized what was transpiring with the arrival of the first few regiments of General Clayton’s army deploying along the Mexican right flank. The 1st and 2nd New York Regiments, the first on the field, slammed into the Mexican right and shattered it in minutes. The rest of the battle was a fierce firefight as the Mexicans tried to dress their lines and recoup. By nightfall, the Mexicans were able to avert complete disaster and fled west after suffering over 12,000 casualties, about 4,300 were killed. American casualties numbered slightly under 4,000 with 919 dead. General Clayton, who oversaw the destruction on the battlefield that night wrote, “We have met the enemy, and they have been decimated.”

As the Mexican Army moved west to recover, Clayton relentlessly pursued the Mexican forces and again, on July 19, caught up with the Mexican forces near El Paso. The Mexican army dug in and posed a serious threat to the Americans who would be forced to assault the Mexican defenses. After two days of artillery bombardment, American forces were given the command to storm the Mexican positions. The 6th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the oldest professional units in the American military led the attack. Facing withering fire, the Bay Staters climbed over the defenses and broke the back of the Mexican Army. The Mexicans lost over half their numbers to comparatively few Americans, about 400 dead and 1400 wounded. After the Mexican defeat at El Paso, which coincided with the American landings at Veracruz, the remaining body of the Mexican Army fled westward to California where they were pursued by General Phelps and his men. The Mexican Army formally surrendered its forces at San Diego in April 1838; the surrender of the Mexican Army left the Mexican government with a scant force to defend itself from the oncoming drive to Mexico City.

The rest of the Texas War was more or less an occupation campaign as American forces moved south toward Mexico City, where they faced little opposition. After the surrender of the last 5,000 Mexican regulars in San Diego, negotiations for peace commenced and would not be finished until October. The resulting Treaty of Austin assured Texas’s independence and America’s claim over the rest of Mexican Texas. The battered Mexican Army and government had no choice but to comply with the American demands, and the actual dictates of the peace were generally positive from Mexico’s standpoint – only losing Mexican Texas (border regions north of the Rio Grande not part of the formal Texian Revolution). Furthermore, the war hawks in Congress, seizing on the good showing of American military muscle, also pressured Mexico to relinquish the territory of New Mexico to the United States for compensation for the war. Mexico had no alternative but to accept the American and Texian demands.

Clockwise (starting at top left): Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the appointed "Napoleon of the West," and commander in chief of the Mexican Army during the Texas Revolution and Texas War. Antonio Miramon, one of Santa Anna's close confidants. Rather than shaming himself in leading the Mexican forces in defeat, Santa Anna appointed Miramon as one of the principle field commanders during the war to save himself and levy blame upon his subordinates. General William Clayton, the leading American field commander during the war who engaged and destroyed the Mexican Army during the Texas Campaign, his success led him to become the second most famous American general behind Winfield Scott. Clayton would go on to become the most powerful American military officer until the onset of the Civil War. Brigadier General James Phelps, commander of the American Army of the West and a rival to William Clayton. He was also affiliated with the Whig Party. His rivalry with Clayton would later become a source of major contention during the later Mexican War (1850-1851).​

While the war marked the beginning of the Era of Manifest Destiny – in which America, by military force or colonial force, would expand west from sea to sea, it also marked the beginning of the maturity of the abolition movement. As the war was heralded as a great victory by most of the American media and political class, American abolitionists condemned the war for the obvious reasons of anticipating and laying the claims for Texas to join the United States as a slave-holding state. While this sectional tension was masked in the westward push and the maturity of young nation into adulthood, upon the completion of Manifest Destiny the very thing that had kept the fabric of American society together would become unhinged in the immediate aftermath.

The war itself also indicated to the European powers that the Monroe Doctrine, which stipulated a “hands-off” policy from the Europeans in the Western Hemisphere, could be backed by a good showing of American military muscle. The Mexican Empire was by no means a third or even second rate military power. The Mexicans were the most advanced of all the other American states, and possessed, at the onset of the war, a larger military than the United States before general mobilization and patriotic enthusiasm turned the scale of military manpower in favor of America. While certainly no Britain or France, the Europeans would have to trod carefully in conducting colonial and imperial ambitions in America’s backwaters. The only European power that may otherwise remain unchanged of their ambitions on the North American continent would have been the United Kingdom – and indeed, a showdown between the United States and United Kingdom was still brewing over the Oregon Territory, a region claimed both by the United States and UK. Furthermore, Mexico, realizing it would not be able to curb American interests in North America alone, starting aligning itself with the other great North American power who was still seen as a potential colonial rival of the United States – the United Kingdom.

Back in Washington however, the victory in the war couldn’t have come at a better time. The free banking system established by Jackson was collapsing, and the Economic Panic of 1837-1838 was hitting the United States harshly (see Section on the Panic of 1837) [2]. Not even President Johnson was sparred, who lost a great fortune of money in the downturn. Briefly, the news of America’s military triumph over Mexico could temporarily ease the burdens that many Americans had begun to suffer as a result of the economic downturn. Yet, perhaps a greater victory was won in the acquisition of Texas and New Mexico, soon to be reliable Democratic strongholds and slave states.


[1] Direct quote from John Brown, ca. 1837. John Brown gave his famous oath at a local church congregational in Hudson, Ohio in what was his first documented public speech against slavery. The First Congregational Church exists as one of the larger Mainline Protestant congregations in the city (now affiliated with the modern Congregational Church in the United States the United Church of Christ, but has since moved to a new location). The original church is still standing, and is a protected historical landmark in Hudson.

[2] This is not a triggered event, even though there was a historic Panic of 1837 following Jackson’s departure from Office that is generally attributed to the liberal banking policies that were started in the free banking era. Naturally, I had increased the national stockpile funds to fight the war, and the economy subsequently damaged significantly until the war ended and I lowered the funds to “peacetime” levels. For the purposes of the AAR, I have considered this downturn to be the Panic of 1837-1838. I will cover the Panic and the next section of this AAR.

Enewald said:

Hah, state causes the crisis of 'free banking' yet again

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I'm rather positive it was the game mechanics!

rorlegion said:

As a Texan (yes, we are our own culture group xD), I applaud this update.

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I figured anything with Texas would make any Texan happy (except for, perhaps, my use of the archaic spelling of Texian while referring to Texas as an independent republic in the game). After all, this entire subsection is "Texas and the Texas War!"

GulMacet said:

I never understood that in Vicky 2... the Texans get their own culture, but the Scottish and the Welsh don't! Why?

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Some things are best left not worth trying to understand, like how the American political parties are labelled and their policy stances (understandably geared on the classical European political models that don't really mesh with the reality of American political parties during this period!)

Enewald said:

Paradox sells more games to Texas than to Scotland and Wales combined?

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Pandering to the Texas market...that's just good research and marketing skills!

rorlegion said:

What about Afro-Caribbeanos and African Minors? And I'm sure those Picards also rack up the sales

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Or the French-Canadian since Quebec is part of British Canada/Britain. Well, perhaps its a result of Texas being an independent country at the beginning of the game so they get their own culture and the since they're some independent nations in the Caribbean and in Africa - maybe that's the reason why certain cultures are in the game while others, who could be added, are not? :unsure:

Nathan Madien said:

Elijah Lovejoy...the most ironic name you could possibly have.

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The name is even more ironic when you know that Lovejoy was a Presbyterian minister, his middle name was Parish. Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Presbyterian minister, abolitionist, martyr, who also had his church burned the day he was murdered...the irony of it all.

Apropos your response in Vicky 1, I do think you broke the universal law of America beating up on Mexico, but in HoI, it is understandable that you may not move that direction. After all, 100 years is a long time, and in between the lulls - sometimes I just get bored.

DKM said:

.

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I'm assuming the [.] must be a mark/text of agreement! :unsure:

99KingHigh said:

I'd just like to say this AAR is quite spectacular, and has just inspired me to write a new Victoria II AAR.

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Why thank you for such a compliment! I'm glad you like it, and I feel honored that this has helped to lead you to write a new Victoria II AAR that I presume you will come out with in the coming days!

DKM said:

volksmarchall- Yeah, I was going to say the exact same thing as rorlegion so I just quoted him. The period was because the forums won't let me post only a quote. It's too bad the forums don't have the yellow guy holding the sign saying "I agree" like at civfanatics.

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Ha! Civfanatics, I'm quite fond of that forum, especially in my younger days! I would conservatively estimate that I logged thousands of hours of Civilization 2 and 3 back in the good old days when Civilization was, quite literally, the only computer game I would play religiously. I'm still fond of Civ 4 and 5, but its sway over me has faded ever since I started playing Paradox titles back in about 2005.

There should be an "I agree" smily for these forums!

The Conquest of Empire: Texas and the Texas War

TEXAS AND THE TEXAS WAR​

Jesus was the loftiest of human souls…[t]his was and is the martyred Christ of the working class, the inspired evangel of the downtrodden masses, the world’s supreme and revolutionary leader, whose love for the poor and the children of the poor hallowed all the days of his consecrated life, lighted up and made forever holy the dark tragedy of his death, and gave to the ages his divine inspiration and his deathless name.
- Eugene V. Debs, American socialist and revolutionary leader, excepted from his speech: “Jesus, the Supreme Leader” to a gathering of American socialists and communist, 1914.

Texas Joins the Union

When the United States aided in achieving Texas’s independence from Mexico, the Texan government immediately moved for statehood within the United States. Their war hero, Sam Houston, who was elected in the immediate aftermath of the Treaty of Austin embarked on a policy to apply for statehood in the spring of 1839. Although there were some fervent Texian nationalists who wanted to retain independence, few challenged President Houston’s initiatives.

In the United States, the prospective entry of Texas into the Union was a major political goal of both the Whigs and Democrats, but more principally with the Democratic Party. Texas would enter as a slave state, and give greater political party to the southern wing of the party, which was staunchly supportive of rapid westward expansion for the twin pillars of Manifest Destiny and slavery. Again, as newspapers buzzed with the prospects of Texas being admitted into the Union as early as the summer of 1839, pro-slavery and abolitionist forces drew their lines in the sands and staked out their positions. In addition, there was hope among Democrats that the publicity of Texas’s entry into the Union would take voters minds’ away from the Panic of 1837-1838, of which the United States was only beginning to recover from.

The triumph of the United States is seen in the admission of Texas into this great and eternal union.
-New York Evening Post

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From hereon, it is my privilege to raise the flag of the United States and retire the flag of the Texas Republic. May we forever be a great and prosperous state in the eternal Union.
-Sam Houston, President of Texas at the admission ceremony.

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The flag of the Texas Republic being replaced by the flag of the United States of America in the official admission ceremony in Austin, Texas. A delegation of Texian and American politicians are at the right.​

In the north however, not everyone was singing hymns of praise or joy. William Lloyd Garrison called upon all “honest and Godly Americans,” both in their homes and within the United States Congress to “prevent the admission of Texas for the soul purpose of expanding slavery.” Writing in his newspaper, Garrison attacked President Johnson, the Democratic Party for sinful inhuman conduct, and the Whigs for cowardice political action hiding behind the guise of Manifest Destiny to support the admission of Texas and possibly New Mexico as slave-holding states:

Never, in all my years, would I have come to envision a nation which penned in its Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” yet so irreversibly take the opposite stance in its domestic politics and civil conduct. President Johnson, like Pharaoh, has brought a great stain upon this nation by going to war with Mexico for the only purpose of admitting Texas as another slave-holding state. Surely he had washed his hands clean after maneuvering in such a devilish and unjust manner. It is time for the New Moses to rise up and lead the children of bondage out of slavery and to a new freedom!

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Reverend John Rankin, at his church, gave an impassioned sermon to his congregation that was subsequently published in an abolitionist newspaper in Cincinnati:

Just as God had turned his back against the Israelites and allowed them to be taken into captivity by the Babylonians because of their wickedness, the entry of Texas into the Union as a slave-holding state will be yet another mark against this country. I have a great fear that the sins of our nation are so reprehensible – indeed so servile, that Almighty God himself will soon turn his back upon the United States of America and we will, as a nation, burn in a sulfuric storm many times worse than the wicked in Sodom and Gomorrah whom we are told by the Scriptures that Lot found not a single righteous man to save the cities…

…Surely there are righteous men among us? Now is the time to stand before the Altar of God and bring about an end to this sinful stain upon our country and bring forth the salvation of our nation and the [African] people. Is there not a righteous man among us to take up the eternal call of freedom?

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For some, the rhetoric of the abolitionists was tantamount to treason. Others saw their rhetoric as being bombastic and over the top – as usual from angry and crazy people, as their opponents often cast them. Pro-slavery advocates were more much subtle in their publications, almost never commenting on the issue in any of their works.

The pro-slavery crowd hid behind the guise of Manifest Destiny, commenting on the great victory of the American military, the heroism of William Clayton, who became a household name for his service in the war, and the Providential Destiny of the United States to dominate the American continent. Interestingly enough, the Protestant divide in America was so pronounced over slavery, that fervent Evangelical Protestants, as we would call them today – were so precariously fighting slavery and condemning the United States for sinful action while the more established churches untouched by the emotionalism and enthusiasm of the Second Great Awakening, due to their conservative and longstanding position in society and defended the institutional of slavery, dually claimed that Divine Providence was on the side of the United States. As the Civil War beckoned, this split over slavery would later come to split virtually every major Protestant denomination in the United States as the lines were drawn and the radical and pietistic Protestants began to champion a genius and radical version of the gospel promoting liberation and freedom to the downtrodden masses of the world to rally cross denominational support for the fight against slavery[1].

When Texas did petition for statehood, the United States Congress voted unanimously in favor of granted statehood to the now former independent republic. For slavery forces in America, this was a great victory, one of many more to come in the coming decade and a half before the election of John C. Fremont and the onset of the Civil War. For abolitionists, this admission of Texas into the Union could also be seen as a great victory in hindsight. Although the abolitionist movement in the United States lamented at the “defeat,” the admission of Texas into the Union as a slave-holding state further rallied abolitionist movements and societies together that had begun to unify as a result of the Texas War. It was after these events, and John’s Brown declaration of a holy war against slavery – that he, and other ardent Christian abolitionists would begin the long struggle for the freedom of the slave, by pen or the sword.

Naturally, as most Americans were not yet concerned over the issue of slavery, it was understandable that the abolitionist movement was considered a fringe and radical movement within American politics. Abolitionists were seen as rebellious and dangerous, and some were even deemed dangerous to the future of the Union. William Lloyd Garrison, upon receiving the news that the Congress voted unanimously in favor of Texas’s statehood ran outside in the streets with a copy of the Constitution and began moralizing the crowd. During the speech, he set fire to the Constitution and let in burn in his hands as he denounced the Constitution as a “document from the gates of hell!”[2].

At left, an abolitionist cartoon with the famous anti-slavery motto: Am I not a man and a brother? which was coined by English Congregational minister Josiah Wedgwood. The motto is rooted in the Biblical passages Matthew 25:31-46 and Luke 4:18. At right, William Lloyd Garrison, one of the most outspoken and "radical" abolitionists in the United States.​

The Texas-New Mexico Compromise

Despite being faint in the heart, President Johnson realized the trouble that was brewing over the prospective admission of Texas into the Union as a slave state. Ironically, he found an ally his one of his principal rivals – Henry Clay. Clay, ever the stout unionist, thought that the outrage wasn’t over Texas, per se, but the possible inclusion of New Mexico into the Union as a slave state, which would tilt the balance of political power in favor of the pro-slavery advocates.

Aligning himself with freshman Senator from Ohio William Allen, Henry Clay and William Allen quickly wrote up and advocated the Texas-New Mexico Compromise, hoping to curb abolitionist sentiment in the north. The plan called for the New Mexico Territory to be attached to Texas when Texas applied for statehood, therefore, New Mexico would not be admitted as another state but be part of a “Greater” Texas. Since Texas and New Mexico’s entrance as slave states would, most likely, give the Democrats an additional four pro-slavery Senators, the compromise which only allowed for Texas’s entry (as New Mexico would now be part of Texas) would mean that only an additional two Senators would be added to the Congress. The Texas-Mexico Compromise was passed with unanimous support in both houses of Congress. When Texas applied for statehood, the New Mexico Territory was attached to it, creating a greater Texas state – still called Texas.

The passage of the act was seen as great victory for President Johnson, but also for Henry Clay and the Whigs. For the abolitionists in the north, whom the act was meant to appease, some of the moderates were tempered by the act’s passage. William Lloyd Garrison and others however, still condemned the act. John Brown wrote to Garrison, “As if the United States Congress thinks that we shall abandoned this noble cause of liberty for fewer slaver Senators.” However, abolitionists quickly rallied and swelled into the ranks of Iowa to begin the push to bring Iowa into the Union as a free state. As news of this began to spread south, pro-slavery Southerners made the same move into Florida – still considered a territory, hoping to match the prospects of Iowa’s entry into the Union as a free state with Florida’s entry into the Union as slave state. As the United States would continue its march to carve out an “empire of liberty”[3] in North America, the great slavery debate was beginning to reach a boiling point as the lines were being drawn, all the result of a “little war in Texas.”

The passage of the Texas-New Mexico Compromise was yet another hallmark political success for America’s most famous and ardent statesman – Henry Clay, even if it marred his record over the moral issue (slavery). For the Democrats, the victory was only half complete – the loss of New Mexico as a potential slave state in its own rights since it was now part of Texas infuriated a few of the most ardent pro-slavery members of Congress and southern Democratic governors, but by and large – it was heralded as a great success. The young Senator William Allen also became an immediate star among Northern Democrats, as well as popular among some of the more modest Whigs as someone who exemplified the political ethos of compromise like Henry Clay.



[1] Mark Noll’s The Civil War as Theological Crisis (2006) examines the theological world of American and International Protestantism (and Catholicism) concerning the Civil War and its theological implications. Mark Noll is considered to be one of America’s foremost religious historians. Simplified, the Catholic Church was never split over slavery like all of American Protestantism. The Catholic Church stood on two legs; it was generally silent over the issue of slavery garnering suspicion from abolitionist Protestants in the North and from pro-slavery Protestants in the South. It did however condemn the succession of the Confederacy. In the north, the Civil War gave rise to liberal Protestantism in America (separate from Unitarianism) and is not akin to the German High Criticism movement in German Lutheranism in the later century. American liberal Protestants were strong moralists who argued a theory of moral progression – slavery had become a sin and now needed to be eradicated from society (slavery was otherwise permissible in the Old Testament but the New Testament called humanity to liberty). More conservative Protestants sided with pro-slavery advocates (because the OT seems to, at the very least, not condemn slavery), and thus the divide within American Protestantism laid the foundations for the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy in the early twentieth century. Liberal Protestantism won out in the north and caused their conservative brethren to go into hiding; from the 1860-1960s, liberal Protestantism with its emphasis on human social progress, the Social Gospel, and the need to eradicate the “social sins” (militarism, racism and poverty) became the embedded culture of the United States and of American Protestantism until the rise of the Christian Right and the Moral Majority in the later 1970s (the reappearance of the conservative Protestants who had been cast into the crevices of American society with the ascendency of American liberal religion). Women’s suffrage, Prohibition, anti-Child labor laws, union and labor rights, popular democratic reforms, and socialism were all championed by Protestant churches from the 1870s-1930s. It is widely accepted by sociologists and historians that most contemporary secular Americans are culturally liberal Protestant, regardless if they had come from one the “Mainline” backgrounds: Episcopal Church USA, United Church of Christ (Congregational), Disciples of Christ (Restoration), United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church USA, and the American Baptist Churches USA (the seven major denominations dating back to the foundation of the United States and the principle leaders and promoters of the reform movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century).

[2] A good biography of William Lloyd Garrison, one of the most famous abolitionists in American history, not only noted for his political radicalism but also for his antics, like burning the Constitution of the United States (could you imagine someone with that much prominence doing such a thing today?) is Henry Mayer’s All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (2008).

[3] Thomas Jefferson coined the term “Empire of Liberty” as a sort of nickname for the United States. The Jeffersonian ideal was that Canada would be added to the United States as part of this empire of liberty, and that America would help foster and promote democracy and liberalism abroad (he was one of the few American Founding Fathers who supported a strong internationalist foreign policy and supported the French Revolution). You can find the excerpts of the two times he used the term in his writings here. I will be playing the game with much of the same intentions, hopefully leading to the creation of the “liberal leviathan.”

Enewald said:

Empire of liberty is an oxymoron. Empire comes from the Latin world 'impero', meaning command, demand, rule, impose.
Liberty is about being free to choose yourself, not being commanded by others, not succumbing to demands of others, not being ruled by someone else, not having someone else's will being imposed upon you.

The tragedy of America. How a struggle for freedom turned into a creation of an imperium.

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99KingHigh said:

Enewald, put your anarcho-capitalism-crazism-elsewhere.

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I do think you have dabbled too much into the Mises Institute and libertarian revisionism about our political development and history Enewald! Although, I do share your (apparent or implicit) sentiments concerning Jefferson. I've never understood why he is so idolized by American libertarians despite his actual Presidency: of the early presidents he was oversaw the greatest expansion of federal government power of Washington, Adams (the Federalist), and his successors Madison and Monroe and the Qunicy Adams. Plus, his Embargo of 1807 is the antithesis of free trade and put us on the path to the War of 1812, and I also found it odd that libertarians tend to be non-interventionists on foreign policy but Jefferson was among the most internationalist of the Founding Fathers.

But we could always have a discussion of negative and positive liberty (via Isaiah Berlin) at a another place and time!

I would also kindly request, since written text is not always the best way to convey our tone, that we keep comments and replies in a liberal manner without prospective hostility or keep them to the developments of the AAR, although the thread itself is certainly permitting of dialogue on other topics as well.

BTW 99KingHIgh, I just started reading your L'orde Ancien AAR, and I must say, it's very enjoyable even if I'm only 1 page in. Although it appears that some of your early images no longer work, unless its just from my computer?

GreatUberGeek said:

Subbed!

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Naturally, you have a habit of finding my AARs! You might be happy to know that Bay State politics is going to be a heavy focus in the early part of this AAR, at least up through the Civil War!

99KingHigh said:

No, its the damned imageshack. JEWS WILL NOT PAY!

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Ah, I see. I've always preferred photobucket to imageshack myself, plus its free (the 2GB medium is at least, and I've had little reason to upgrade and starting paying money for the sole purpose of uploading images to forums!) Nevertheless, your AAR is just fine even with some broken images, just like so many of the great old AARs I was fortunate enough to see when the images still worked but are now broken. But this is life...