How Long Did it Take For Awareness of Loyalism in America to Fade?

[Socrates]

You are interpreting the past events in the times of the 13 colonies, in terms of modern day values and concepts. Slavery and other taboos you are disagreeing with were acceptable back then. It would be complete and utter ASB to give slaves and women the rights to vote in those days.

For a start, we're not just talking about slaves, we're also talking about free black people. They had the vote in the UK but not in much of the US. Even for women, you are overstating your case, since South Australia (another loyalist colony) started giving women the vote in the 1860s.

Secondly, I wasn't arguing about what was plausible. I was arguing about what can be said to be democratic.

 

[ManintheField]

It was claimed opposing the American Revolution was opposing democracy. I pointed out this demonstrably was not the case. You tried to move the goalposts by redefining the time period to include several decades after the Revolution itself, and redefining democracy to be only about white men. I showed that was incorrect. You then start arguing against strawman arguments I never put forward.

Considering the way Parliament worked in the 1770's, and what was at stake in the Revolution (whether Parliament -- where no Americans had real representation -- could over-ride and even dissolve local colonial legislatures -- where at least some Americans had representation), yeah, it's not that far fetched to say that someone who opposed the Revolution was against representative government of some form.

And I'm not re-defining anything. People at the time would have called white male suffrage democracy and frequently did. The New England states were castigated constantly for the broad participation of their electorate amongst all classes as 'democratic' (back when 'democracy' was a curse word amongst the educated classes). Pennsylvania's radical 1776 constitution was given the same treatment for its lack property requirements.

What do you think would have happened if the Americans had lost the Revolution? Do you think the US would just be a nice little southern Canada, otherwise everything unchanged? Hell no. The smooth process of increasing local independence and the rise of practices like Dominion status were a result of British experiences in losing most of their North American colonies. If the Revolution had been crushed, there is no reason to expect that the abuses that initially caused it wouldn't have continued. Even white settler colonies wouldn't have had a reasonable expectation of fair treatment and relative independence from the metropole. Even in Britain things wouldn't have gone as rosily as they did. In the 19th century, British middle and working class radicals got to use the US as a constant example of the power of democracy and its capability at ruling a nation. Suffrage would have stayed much more curtailed for much longer if the aristocracy had proven itself on the battlefield in the Revolution.

The democracy Americans fought for in the Revolution (and beyond) was flawed, no doubt, but it was better than the alternative model on offer by leaps and bounds.

I was using objective measures to show how the US was slower to move to democracy after the supposedly democratic revolution, and how it was a more fragile democracy even when it finally got there. That's not a political agenda. That's you losing the argument.

No, that's you being wrong. 'Slower to move to democracy'? What the hell does that mean? What percentage of the British population could vote for Parliament in 1880? What percentage of the US population could vote for Congress in 1880? 1900? It was only in the 1920's that you could even begin to make the argument you're making, and then your transition to modern politics is just a sign of the agenda you've got hidden under the hood.

Honestly, the idea that the UK was more democratic than the US in the 18th or 19th century is utter bullshit and you should be completely embarrassed and ashamed for even thinking about making that claim. Whatever advantages the British had on racial grounds (which I'm doubtful of in practice), they had massive issues of class. The size of the electorate tripled from the 1910 to the 1918 general elections, entirely because of the 1918 Representation Act. Tripled. British electoral law into the 20th century disenfranchised significantly more British subjects than Jim Crow and the lack of women's suffrage (which, by the way, the US was neck and neck with the UK on, giving all white women the vote several years before Britain removed property qualifications for women's suffrage) ever did in the US.

The UK only became superior to the US in this respect in the late 1920's and enjoyed that advantage for only a few decades until the Civil Rights Movement re-enfranchised the African American voters who had lost their rights in the 1870's and 1880's.

Your modern day point is pure political agenda and casts a shade of doubt on the motivations for the rest of your argument. More fragile? What pure, 100% USDA A grade bullshit. Take your crap to Chat.

 

[ManintheField]

For a start, we're not just talking about slaves, we're also talking about free black people. They had the vote in the UK but not in much of the US. Even for women, you are overstating your case, since South Australia (another loyalist colony) started giving women the vote in the 1860s.

I mean, this is the real funny part of it is that yes, free black people could vote in 18th and 19th century Britain -- if they met the property qualifications. Just how freaking many do you believe did so?

And yeah, South Australia, with a hundred thousand or so of the British Empire's total population, let women vote before the US. Same thing with New Zealand, you know. Meanwhile, British women in the UK still couldn't vote at all until 1918 and universally until 1928 Color me unimpressed.

You seem to easily lose sight of the raw numbers involved here.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

I mean, this is the real funny part of it is that yes, free black people could vote in 18th and 19th century Britain -- if they met the property qualifications. Just how freaking many do you believe did so?

Well, at least one can plausibly earn money, while one can't change one's melain content, so that's somewhat fair. In fact, I wonder what would happen if they replaced the property qualifications in Britain with "you must pay at least 10 pounds in income taxes OR pay more in VAT (when we make up a VAT since that comes after qualifications were abolished) than you collect from the government to vote" instead of just getting rid of the qualifications.

 

[frustrated progressive]

New Jersey did, by accident, because its election laws didn't specify male property owners of a certain value. It was gone soon.

Several states did let blacks vote, too, although the law and the practice could differ (there's a story of a black business owner bringing his white employees to vote -- and them voting the way he told them to -- in Pennsylvania, where it was technically legal for him to do so, but him not daring to vote himself because of the violence he knew would follow). This also was gone soon.

The presentism of it isn't really entirely on the moral side, it's on the definition side. The people of this period called what they had democracy, both those in favor of it and those against it. The white men speaking up and voting in this time (occasionally over the objections of local electoral law! Massachusetts was rife with men who didn't meet the property requirements showing up at elections and voting anyway) are the people who made democracy not a dirty word, like it had been in ages prior. While they were some of the people most ardently against suffrage for blacks (just as an example, the wealthy Federalists often had what we might call more enlightened views on race than the poor Democratic-Republicans, but from a perspective that wealth whitens and what matters is class, not race. Wealthy black gentlemen are just as much welcome members of the aristocracy as wealthy white gentlemen), they blazed the trial that Civil Rights activists would tread more than a century later.

Saying the democratic ferment of late 18th and 19th century America was 'essentially the same' as the wealth and class limited suffrage of the contemporary UK is an absolute crime against history and would be enough to pull someone's license if you needed to be licensed to be a historian (amateur or not). It both devalues of the struggle of regular American whites in that time period and of the British middle and working classes that spent the 19th century fighting for political equality that they only achieved in the 1920's, after the greatest battlefield blood-letting British arms had ever suffered.

Sorry I didn't notice this earlier, but yes, this- a thousand times this!

 

[Socrates]

Considering the way Parliament worked in the 1770's, and what was at stake in the Revolution (whether Parliament -- where no Americans had real representation -- could over-ride and even dissolve local colonial legislatures -- where at least some Americans had representation), yeah, it's not that far fetched to say that someone who opposed the Revolution was against representative government of some form.

And I'm not re-defining anything. People at the time would have called white male suffrage democracy and frequently did. The New England states were castigated constantly for the broad participation of their electorate amongst all classes as 'democratic' (back when 'democracy' was a curse word amongst the educated classes). Pennsylvania's radical 1776 constitution was given the same treatment for its lack property requirements.

What do you think would have happened if the Americans had lost the Revolution? Do you think the US would just be a nice little southern Canada, otherwise everything unchanged? Hell no. The smooth process of increasing local independence and the rise of practices like Dominion status were a result of British experiences in losing most of their North American colonies. If the Revolution had been crushed, there is no reason to expect that the abuses that initially caused it wouldn't have continued. Even white settler colonies wouldn't have had a reasonable expectation of fair treatment and relative independence from the metropole. Even in Britain things wouldn't have gone as rosily as they did. In the 19th century, British middle and working class radicals got to use the US as a constant example of the power of democracy and its capability at ruling a nation. Suffrage would have stayed much more curtailed for much longer if the aristocracy had proven itself on the battlefield in the Revolution.

The democracy Americans fought for in the Revolution (and beyond) was flawed, no doubt, but it was better than the alternative model on offer by leaps and bounds.



No, that's you being wrong. 'Slower to move to democracy'? What the hell does that mean? What percentage of the British population could vote for Parliament in 1880? What percentage of the US population could vote for Congress in 1880? 1900? It was only in the 1920's that you could even begin to make the argument you're making, and then your transition to modern politics is just a sign of the agenda you've got hidden under the hood.

Honestly, the idea that the UK was more democratic than the US in the 18th or 19th century is utter bullshit and you should be completely embarrassed and ashamed for even thinking about making that claim. Whatever advantages the British had on racial grounds (which I'm doubtful of in practice), they had massive issues of class. The size of the electorate tripled from the 1910 to the 1918 general elections, entirely because of the 1918 Representation Act. Tripled. British electoral law into the 20th century disenfranchised significantly more British subjects than Jim Crow and the lack of women's suffrage (which, by the way, the US was neck and neck with the UK on, giving all white women the vote several years before Britain removed property qualifications for women's suffrage) ever did in the US.

The UK only became superior to the US in this respect in the late 1920's and enjoyed that advantage for only a few decades until the Civil Rights Movement re-enfranchised the African American voters who had lost their rights in the 1870's and 1880's.

Your modern day point is pure political agenda and casts a shade of doubt on the motivations for the rest of your argument. More fragile? What pure, 100% USDA A grade bullshit. Take your crap to Chat.

Haha. You suddenly swap out "democracy" for "representative government" as you know you can't defend the democracy point. You also try to change the argument into me saying Britain was more democratic in the 1770s, something I never said. What I said was that the newly independent US could not be considered to be democratic, and that is true either by a non-racist modern perspective or by the racist standards of the contemporary USA. The Founding Fathers themselves specifically contrasted their new republic with democracy, regarding the latter as mob rule. And this manifest in practice. The first presidential election had only 6% of the adult population voting. You have to have vision more tinted than a mobster's limo to claim this was democracy.

And your tinted vision is pretty clearly on display given your apoplectic reaction to my evident statements. You can claim something is 100% crap, but I am citing the most widely respected objective measure of democracy by the EIU, which classes America as a flawed democracy. The USA has always been below northern European democracies in their ratings (hence the fragility I cited) but has finally dropped down a whole class. Go and read their report if you want a view not coloured by chippy nationalism.

You see, unlike Canada, Britain and others, the USA split into bloody full blown civil war over simply giving all adults basic rights as non-property. Then, even after black people theoretically had voting rights, they were denied them in practice for another century. And then the reaction to having them legally enforced by the federal government kick-started a white backlash that started with Goldwater's insurgency, was followed by Reagan's alliance with it, then this ethnonationalist conservative movement gradually taking over one of the two major parties, ultimately resulting in the current openly racist president attacking minorities and most of the basic institutions of democracy. I'm sorry if this offends your national pride, but the reality is the undemocratic racism and "paranoid style" in American politics is well-documented as a force in academia.

 

[funnyhat]

This argument should probably go into Chat.

 

[Alex Zetsu]

Why are we talking about voting requirements and not pro-crown sentiments and the path they took to death?

 

[Roland Traveler]

Haha. You suddenly swap out "democracy" for "representative government" as you know you can't defend the democracy point. You also try to change the argument into me saying Britain was more democratic in the 1770s, something I never said. What I said was that the newly independent US could not be considered to be democratic, and that is true either by a non-racist modern perspective or by the racist standards of the contemporary USA. The Founding Fathers themselves specifically contrasted their new republic with democracy, regarding the latter as mob rule. And this manifest in practice. The first presidential election had only 6% of the adult population voting. You have to have vision more tinted than a mobster's limo to claim this was democracy.

And your tinted vision is pretty clearly on display given your apoplectic reaction to my evident statements. You can claim something is 100% crap, but I am citing the most widely respected objective measure of democracy by the EIU, which classes America as a flawed democracy. The USA has always been below northern European democracies in their ratings (hence the fragility I cited) but has finally dropped down a whole class. Go and read their report if you want a view not coloured by chippy nationalism.

You see, unlike Canada, Britain and others, the USA split into bloody full blown civil war over simply giving all adults basic rights as non-property. Then, even after black people theoretically had voting rights, they were denied them in practice for another century. And then the reaction to having them legally enforced by the federal government kick-started a white backlash that started with Goldwater's insurgency, was followed by Reagan's alliance with it, then this ethnonationalist conservative movement gradually taking over one of the two major parties, ultimately resulting in the current openly racist president attacking minorities and most of the basic institutions of democracy. I'm sorry if this offends your national pride, but the reality is the undemocratic racism and "paranoid style" in American politics is well-documented as a force in academia.

My my, that's quite a lot of condescension there. The post that started this argument was clearly referring to how Americans viewed democracy two generations after the Revolution, and you go and say "Well actually, by modern standards the US wasn't a democracy." Who gives a shit? You might as well argue that the US didn't exist back then because the modern definition of the US involves owning Alaska, Hawaii, and a bunch of islands in the Pacific. Was early America undemocratic? Yes, but to us. To them they were most definitely democratic, and that's all that matters in this context. So please, stop with this "Look how smart I am!" and get back on topic.

 

[Umbric Man]

pointless whining

I feel like this is some European or Canadian teenager trying to piss on those evil, EVIL Americans, especially the way he's deflecting examples of Britain given here and completely ignored the entire topic's original point in the first place.

Just ow. The edge....

 

[B-29_Bomber]

I read once that when the American Revolution began, the population was like 1/3 Patriot, 1/3 Loyalist and 1/3 undecided. I'm sure the breakdown was very different from that by the end of the war though.

You have to look at the make up of the loyalist side to get a clearer picture.

I'm sure that the vast majority, in the beginning, were loyalist due to the simple fact that they expected the Crown to win.

They weren't that fanatical. Once the British lost they were probably, "Uh, shit! Is it too late to switch sides?". Certainly 1/3 of the population didn't leave the newly born United States!

Edit to Everyone above me: Democracy is bullshit anyway. Indirect representation is dead sexy!

 

[CalBear]

Folks y'all need to start playing the ball in here and move away from debate about the nature of democracy, especially in the current day.

 

[Socrates]

My my, that's quite a lot of condescension there. The post that started this argument was clearly referring to how Americans viewed democracy two generations after the Revolution, and you go and say "Well actually, by modern standards the US wasn't a democracy." Who gives a shit? You might as well argue that the US didn't exist back then because the modern definition of the US involves owning Alaska, Hawaii, and a bunch of islands in the Pacific. Was early America undemocratic? Yes, but to us. To them they were most definitely democratic, and that's all that matters in this context. So please, stop with this "Look how smart I am!" and get back on topic.

I actually made arguments about history, including the fact the founding fathers didn't consider the new USA democratic. Your post was nothing but sneering, so you should look up the old saying about greenhouses.

 

[Socrates]

I feel like this is some European or Canadian teenager trying to piss on those evil, EVIL Americans, especially the way he's deflecting examples of Britain given here and completely ignored the entire topic's original point in the first place.

Just ow. The edge....

Sorry to break your bubble, but I'm an American citizen in my 30s. I'm just one that is capable of reflecting on long held academic evidence about my country without throwing out thin skinned, childish insults to those raising it.

 

[Socrates]

Folks y'all need to start playing the ball in here and move away from debate about the nature of democracy, especially in the current day.

At which point in history are we allowed to debate up to?

 

[CalBear]

At which point in history are we allowed to debate up to?

Pretty much anything related to whether modern day United States (or anywhere else) is actually a democracy goes to Chat. Debating anything that requires reference to current politics to answer is a Chat subject. You have been here since 2011, I am sure you understand why we don't want current political debate to start crowding out the AH in pre/post 1900.

Neither of those have ANYTHING to do with the OP's question.

 

[Umbric Man]

Sorry to break your bubble, but I'm an American citizen in my 30s. I'm just one that is capable of reflecting on long held academic evidence about my country without throwing out thin skinned, childish insults to those raising it.

That's great man, but you're still being a conscending dick to others.

The only insulting one is YOU.

 

[Roland Traveler]

I actually made arguments about history, including the fact the founding fathers didn't consider the new USA democratic. Your post was nothing but sneering, so you should look up the old saying about greenhouses.

It's not sneering, it's annoyance that you entered a thread and launched into a political screed, ignoring the context of the post you quoted.

 

[Socrates]

That's great man, but you're still being a conscending dick to others.

The only insulting one is YOU.

Why don't you read back in the thread to see who started saying other people's arguments were an "embarrassment" and "100% crap"? If you want to disagree with an argument bring up some evidence. Don't claim others are the ones being insulting while you accuse people of being dicks.

CalBear, what's the situation here? I am deliberately restraining myself while others are ignoring the warning and throwing abuse at me.

 

[Socrates]

It's not sneering, it's annoyance that you entered a thread and launched into a political screed, ignoring the context of the post you quoted.

We began a discussion about the first couple decades after the Revolution, it extended into the early 19th century, then into the late 19th, then into the early 20th and then the late 20th when the USA finally became a democracy for a few decades. I won't go into it any more as the moderator has forbidden it, but the whole discussion is political as it is a political subject from the get go. Trying to bring this back to the original discussion, I was merely making the point that the US always struggled to be a democracy because of a strong white supremacist strain in its politics.