Howdy Folks!
I enjoy the heck out of the movie 1776. It was a neat little musical about the Continental Congress trying to cobble together a new nation.
More little important tidbits coming.
Rather than cobble together a nation, they severed ties, declaring, "
That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States" The result was thirteen independent countries, rather than one.
Even the soon-to-be
Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union did not create a nation, merely a confederacy or league of independent sovereign states.
Similar for the Constitution. If the federalists admitted they were forming a single country, there would have been more fighting. They focused more on the idea of a "vigorous" government able to meet exigencies. (
Vigorous was their spin word for
powerful.)
It was not until the end of Lincoln's War to Prevent Southern Independence that it became a (singular) nation. Even as far along as the late 1850's, the states were considered independent countries, the fedgov in effect their agent for dealing with each other and other countries. Mark Twain reveals an interesting viewpoint in his essays on steamboat piloting. The pilot who trained him, Bixby, told him one day that pilots did not run the narrow, shallow channels between islands and shores during "low water". Bixby remarked that he thought there was "a law of the United States against it." Meaning,
The United States, was an alternate term for the federal government, not a country. Another example would be Robert E. Lee's reasoning for resigning his commission in the US Army: he could not lift his sword against his country--Virginia.
An interesting little side note that tells you a lot about the possible mentality of people in power. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were meant to last forever. Says so right in its name. Yet, in 1787 the federalists morphed* a convention to improve the articles into a convention to write a different form of government, the intention being to abolish a confederacy that was agreed to be perpetual. But! In 1861, when a number of states--countries holding membership in a union that was not perpetual--decided to un-unite, they got cannon balls for a reply. So much for Jefferson's idea, "
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
And, of course, that "one nation under God" business in the Pledge of Allegiance didn't help understanding matters any.
The lesson is that public school history lessons leave something to be desired.
Of course, in the foregoing I am misusing the term
nation. Mainly because I use it in the same way I perceive Taliesin misused it. I was just keeping the terminology consistent.
Country, state, and
nation are of course not synonymous. Even if we use nation properly, the congress that gave us the Declaration would not have been creating a new nation. In this meaning, the colonials were already one nation: English colonists.
*They did this without authority from their state governments. In fact, a number of delegates quit early in protest, saying they did not have the authority to re-write the scheme of the federation.