Quote Originally Posted by rvg View Post
We were a year behind when the 14th Amendment extended citizenship (and thus voting rights) to all men born in the U.S. regardless of race.
So the Revolution didn't do much for political equality, especially since legal Apartied continued into the 1960's. In any case, citizenship did not necessarily equate to "voting rights" because the US had applied property qualifications to citizen sufferage in the past. In any case, as I have already said, there was never a racially discrimination between British Subjects in the UK, so that's not something to crow about.

Why wait for freedom to be granted to you when you can take it yourself?
Why fight a brutal Civil War when you can live in peace and negotiate?

Coudln't wait for respect forever. There was no indication of any sort of understanding coming from London.
That is patently not true, as you yourself have admitted the London had already compromised on the tax issue, and Howe was authorised to negotiate, it was the Patriots you declared "give me liberty or give me death."

I agree with the central thesis that Parliament could not tax a territory which did not return MP's, but it follows that Parliament should not really be spending British taxes on expensive wars in the Colonies. Ergo, the Colonies should pay for their own defence - something they were incapable of in the face of the French.

You look at who they were and I look at what they did. For starters, they managed to forge and implement the best Constitution the world had ever seen.
Objectively, this is clearly not true. The original US Constitution is a seriously flawed document from the perspective establishing "Freedom" and you had to have another Civil War to sort it out.

Having said that, the current settlemet in the US, at least until 20 years ago, exemplery. Possibly time for another tune up though.

Planned or not, death is death.
True, but not the point. Particularly if you were to ask Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse, who were murdered during Parlay.

Colonial troops fought and bled the same way as the regulars. There was no reason to discriminate against them.
They were not Disciminated against.

I don't know how many different ways to explain this to you.

A British Colonist was a British Subject, the same as a man born in England. Washington could have gone to England, or entered the Navy as a Midshipman the same as a man from Kent or Devon. What he did instead was fought in the Colonial militia - as such he had a Commission from the Colonial Governor, not the King. A Royal Commission takes precidence over EVERYTHING, and that is the end of the argument. Later, Line Regiments with Regular Officers were raised in the Colonies, other American Regiments were added to the Order of Battle, like the 105th.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Ame...ers_of_Ireland)

If Washington had brought the Virginia Regiment to the Loyalist side he would have recieved a Regular Commission.