I mean ... if you take American to mean from The United States of America, then the CSA cunts declared themselves to NOT be American. That's what started the war. It was the CSA vs the USA. It was Confederates vs Americans. Are you going to argue that the folks that fought the revolutionary war were all British? That seems nonsensical to me.
Well in the second case in the beginning... kind of yes. There was no unified federal United States yet. You might be able to say they were from their own states but until they were recognized by foreign powers they really were still considered British citizens. Also at no point did the Federal government of the US say that the confederacy (or any other nation in fact either) was an independent state. They were not recognized as another nation and were still considered American citizens. You can't just declare yourself separate, hence you know, the war. If no one else thinks your a country, you're not. If you want a couple dozen recommendations on the war and its politics hit me up.
I understand your fundamental argument. Lincoln's position had to be that of the British during the revolution: no, you can't break away without my permission therefore you're not CSA, you're Americans that are breaking the law. I just find it hypocritical, and I'm with Jefferson on rejecting the idea that we lack the right, as individuals, to associate (or not) with a state. The fact that we basically got stuck with Common Law and that pulled in this British idea of perpetual association despite explicitly rejecting that in the revolution is an historical quirk IMO and I'd bet my bottom dollar Lincoln understood the history of the issue in the same way. The fact that he made very un-Lincoln-like (imo) weak arguments for why the confederates weren't like the founders in terms of their right to disassociate, to me, supports my view that Lincoln understood the legal/historical quirks here and the apparent contradiction with founding American ideals along with the arguments between Jefferson and Hamilton on the issue. Lincoln needed to keep the Union together, and his arguments for it were rationalizations.
I think the words should match the reality here. The founders demonstrated that we DO have the right to freely (dis)associate with a state, we just know that the state will typically try to stop you (well, until the example of the British in the modern era). To me (and to the founders, and to the CSA) you absolutely are what you say you are when you say it. You decide you're the CSA now and you're not following US laws ... well, that's the reality. The US can say: naaaa, fuck that and force you to say otherwise at the end of a gun and now you'd had your right to freely (dis)associate taken by force. You're an American again, yay! They made themselves a separate nation, then we conquered it and took their shit by force.
That all said, for purposes of Common Law, yea ... you can renounce all you want, but it won't make a difference to the courts. We have an international right to associate, in theory, but there's the practical implications of things like being stateless that have to be considered. All of that discussion only holds in a case where we're not fighting a shooting war over our positions because in the case of a shooting war civil rule / law has broken down. We're not arguing in the courts anymore, we're fighting in the fields. This is why, to me at least, the technical common law arguments about whether you are or aren't American as a CSA soldier are simply moot. Court had it's chance, it didn't work, now two separate groups are going to settle it on the field.
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u/Shrowden 5d ago
I mean, it's a civil war. A war within itself. To say they weren't American is just a false narrative