Slavery as the Primary Cause of the Civil War: the Real Lost Cause Argument.

[trice]

... There were approximately 450,000 black slaves in the 1860 census residing in Northern states that did not succeed. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to them.

Strangely, the four states you are talking about -- Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri -- were considered part of "the South" by the people who formed the Confederacy. They expected all four to join with them in the "Winter of Secession" and sent envoys to them to try to subvert their loyalty. They even tried to claim Kentucky and Missouri had seceded and joined the Confederacy during the Civil War. Yet here you are claiming they were "Northern states".

Legally, Lincoln had no authority that would have allowed the Emancipation Proclamation to apply to those four states because they were not in rebellion against the United States of America. That is why they were not included in the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln did try working to get those states to emancipate their slaves -- particularly in Delaware, recruiting the largest slaveholder in the state to head the effort, but Delaware turned the offer down.

 

[unionblue]

Strangely, the four states you are talking about -- Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri -- were considered part of "the South" by the people who formed the Confederacy. They expected all four to join with them in the "Winter of Secession" and sent envoys to them to try to subvert their loyalty. They even tried to claim Kentucky and Missouri had seceded and joined the Confederacy during the Civil War. Yet here you are claiming they were "Northern states".

Legally, Lincoln had no authority that would have allowed the Emancipation Proclamation to apply to those four states because they were not in rebellion against the United States of America. That is why they were not included in the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln did try working to get those states to emancipate their slaves -- particularly in Delaware, recruiting the largest slaveholder in the state to head the effort, but Delaware turned the offer down.

@trice ,

Ah! The "other side" of the story!

Thanks for providing some of it.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

 

[John Fenton]

Imagine if you will:

The status quo at the time of the war is that most, if not all, states had federal installations that were part of the federal infrastructure.
If South Carolina had the right to seize this federal property , within their state, why didn’t the federal authorities have the right to seize the whole state that was taken from the republic ?
If the state , using armed force, seized this federal property , why would it be wrong for the republic to use armed force to recover it or resist seizure ?
if organizations , whose primary aim was to teach lost cause doctrine, had not provided the text books that southern children used for a hundred years, would the perceived truth be the same ?
is perception , truth ?
the truth is that South Carolina seceded illegally and unilaterally. They fired on a federal unarmed ship and later a federal fort being resupplied, forcing it’s surrender. These were acts of war. No invasion had taken place nor were troops called up until after these events.

Some lost everything and were forced to leave their beloved states.

It’s called a gamble and they crapped (dice ref. ) out.

You wonder how the sentiments of the “Lost Cause” can still remain? It’s not a stretch...

It’s a hundred and fifty year stretch that is totally at odds with the facts.

 

[R Black]

Sincerely,
Unionblue

I was responding to the initial post in the thread. I would say the initial posters claims have been affirmed.

 

[unionblue]

I was responding to the initial post in the thread. I would say the initial posters claims have been affirmed.

Sorry, to what post do you refer to as the "initial post?"

 

[SarahTheGoodWitch]

My Fellow Posters,

Relatively new to this very informative site, I have observed on numerous occasions that whenever anyone suggests an alternative to the primacy of slavery as a cause of the Civil War that such a debater is frowned upon with the stereotypical and vacuous sobriquet "Lost Causer." My own caption for those who resort to this kind of debate is "Lost Logicers." But I don't like the euphony of that response, even though I think the caption is correct. I find it intellectuallly feeble that the only argument against other causes is the simplistic, "Oh, so you are a 'Lost Causer,' are you?" which question is supposed to end all argument once and for all. It doesn't, of course, even though those who use it sail happily away, confident in their course of history.

That's not how I see it, and thus I characterize those who argue for the primacy of slavery as the cause as the true "Lost Causers." If anyone has a better neologism for responding to these advocates, I would like to find something better and more euphonic I prefer something in the 2-3 syllable range for some shorthand.

In this context let me add that those responsible for exalting slavery to a primary cause, i.e., those antebellum Seceshers who offered that sorry Saran-Wrap-thin and phony excuse for what they contemplated and then did, were actually joined in their hermeneutical gymnastics by Northerners AFTER the war. Those Northerners had to come up with something noble to explain to grieving mothers, fathers, sisters, and brother, and everybody else --like my spinster grade school teachers and other non-thinkers-- that their loved ones did not die in vain or for something as grubby as greed for western land and railroads. No, no, no! Good heavens, NO!! Gotta have a noble cause. Gotta extrapolate one! In fact, I think Northerners were probably even more responsible for the "Lost Cause of Slavery Primacy" argument, as it is so atypical for Northerners to take at face value the arguments of any Southerners, especially Southerners long since dead and their dead cause with them. Just a thought, not an argument --yet.

Will someone help me coin a useful and comprehensive neologism?

James

As an admitted noob myself, I prefer to just stick to the term "civil war;" which evidence conclusively reveals to be one of considerable hypocrisy.

If it was indeed a civil war, then the USA would be a single unified independent state; and so it would be a domestic revolution which failed, regardless of detail.

However evidence refutes this, as proponents cling to various conflicting and inconsistent theories of how the states allegedly became united as a single independent state-- and
none of which stand up to scrutiny, even if they could pick one story and stick with it.

This is why the federal government engaged in such flailing attempts to deny prior history of the states being originally declared as separately independent from the start.
This began with the federal government first disclaiming any intention of interfering with the institution of slavery (from Lincoln's first inaugural address); and then conveniently and capriciously decrying the institution as being the original sin by both sides for which the Almighty God supposedly sent the war in order to cleanse from the world like the Great Flood in holy war and wrath (from Lincoln's second inaugural address).

So if you see where I'm going with this, "methinks the man did protest too much" in supporting his narrative, to draw attention away from the "elephant in the room"
that the states were indeed separately independent; with the full rights to enter or withdraw from agreements with other independent states, that all independent states have by right.

And as further evidence: anyone who mentioned the elephant would become the victim of forced disappearance, on the pretense of "treason" against this alleged common independent state, which all evidence defies all claimed allegations of its very existence.
Nor did this "national union" ever invade, harass, sanction, or even request any other independent state to cease from the practice of slavery; just as God never visited his wrath upon such in the manner which federal officials alleged as the cause of their own domestic "civil war" which was transpired strictly on the issue of the states being dependent vs. independent; with all Union arguments being thoroughly expounded as false, while the Confederate arguments were simply denied and dismisses as "settled by war..." a most convenient, and circular, bit of reasoning.

But hardly one that satisfies due scrutiny into historical accuracy, let alone legal muster.

So in sum: the practice of slavery was global, and happened everywhere in the world in the history of every independent state; and the selective outrage speaks volumes, in conjunction with the inconsistent history on the actual issue of the war pertaining to legal claims which are clearly enumerated in the historical record.
<edited by moderator>

 

[byron ed]

Can we keep emotions and "loyalty to extinct nations" in check please for a moment. Here's another way to approach the topic:

In practical terms the Confederacy was in substance just a reinvestment in the biggest slave enterprise in North America, in effect a re-issue of stock proffered to any other Nation that would recognize, that is invest in it, at their profit. All prior contracts to profit from slavery in North America; the Dutch-, Spanish-, English- and U.S.- supported contracts had progressively petered out by 1808.

It was no surprise to the movers and shakers of the world, then, that increased secession agitation would soon follow, which it did. Again, in practical terms, there was still too much profit potential left in North American slavery to let it slip away.

Yet by then private enterprise was at great risk to engage in the slave business. The British fleet, with some assistance from the much smaller U.S. Navy, were policing the high seas and were arresting and imprisoning privateers for slave-trading. Financial speculation in the growth of American slavery had become untenable without some nation's stepping out to issue right of marque.

Then by 1861 we have it -- The Confederacy could issue right of marque to privateers, and it did. That didn't initially include international slave trading (at its founding the Confederacy still banned import of slaves) but it could reasonably be expected (secretly promised?) that the new Nation would, as soon as it could, negotiate international acquiescence in a re-established Atlantic slave trade.

That's not to say that in practical terms means the same thing as in realistic terms, as if things could have actually happened that way. The first step would have required the Confederacy's gaining official recognition by some other government of consequence, which it didn't.

So emotions and "loyalty to extinct nations" aside, following the money is a valid and practical thing to explore in the study of history. It's not overplaying things to suppose that the attempt to re-enterprise slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War.

 

[SarahTheGoodWitch]

In practical terms the Confederacy was in substance just a reinvestment in the biggest slave enterprise in North America, in effect a re-issue of stock proffered to any other Nation that would recognize, that is invest in it, at their profit. All prior contracts to profit from slavery in North America; the Dutch-, Spanish-, English- and U.S.- supported contracts had progressively petered out by 1808.

It was no surprise to the movers and shakers of the world, then, that increased secession agitation would soon follow, which it did. Again, in practical terms, there was still too much profit potential left in North American slavery to let it slip away.

Yet by then private enterprise was at great risk to engage in the slave business. The British fleet, with some assistance from the much smaller U.S. Navy, were policing the high seas and were arresting and imprisoning privateers for slave-trading. Financial speculation in the growth of American slavery had become untenable without some nation's stepping out to issue right of marque.

Then by 1861 we have it -- The Confederacy could issue right of marque to privateers, and it did. That didn't initially include international slave trading (at its founding the Confederacy still banned import of slaves) but it could reasonably be expected (secretly promised?) that the new Nation would, as soon as it could, negotiate international acquiescence in a re-established Atlantic slave trade.

That's not to say that in practical terms means the same thing as in realistic terms, as if things could have actually happened that way. The first step would have required the Confederacy's gaining official recognition by some other government of consequence, which it didn't.

So emotions and "loyalty to extinct nations" aside, following the money is a valid and practical thing to explore in the study of history.

But not a relevant one; since the sole historical issue, is the prior agreements among parties: not later economics.

The sole cause of the war, was the Union's claim that the states were not individually independent; because there obviously could not have been a war without without it.

But all parties had originally agreed, that

1. each state was free, sovereign and independent; while

2. its respective people held final power over their state.

The 1832 Nullification Crisis involved the same issue, but simply didn't have an underlying controversy to divert from it; particularly since President Andrew Jackson owned 300 slaves, but was the first sitting president to officially deny the right of secession by any state.

So the economics of the period does not relate to the secession-rights of independent states, which is absolute... while the Union's claim was void.

And the baiting statements about "re-enterprising slavery," are simply an obvious attempt at further diversion from that fact; because addressing it directly, is a lost cause for the Unionists.

 

[unionblue]

But not a relevant one; since the sole historical issue, is the prior agreements among parties: not later economics.

The sole cause of the war, was the Union's claim that the states were not individually independent; because there obviously could not have been a war without without it.

But all parties had originally agreed, that

1. each state was free, sovereign and independent; while

2. its respective people held final power over their state.

The 1832 Nullification Crisis involved the same issue, but simply didn't have an underlying controversy to divert from it; particularly since President Andrew Jackson owned 300 slaves, but was the first sitting president to officially deny the right of secession by any state.

So the economics of the period does not relate to the secession-rights of independent states, which is absolute... while the Union's claim was void.

And the baiting statements about "re-enterprising slavery," are simply an obvious attempt at further diversion from that fact; because addressing it directly, is a lost cause for the Unionists.

Yet the phrase, "follow the money", is often touted as a cause of the war. And when we follow the economics of that phrase during that period, we are left with the most valuable institution in the United States at that time.

The nearly $4 BILLION dollars of slave property.

"One eight of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."

--Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address, March 4, 1865.

 

[byron ed]

...The sole cause of the war, was the Union's claim that the states were not individually independent; because there obviously could not have been a war without without it...So the economics of the period does not relate to the secession-rights of independent states...

or, the almost-sole cause of the war was slavery; in particular the economics of it in relation to the secession-rights of independent states.

It's not speculation or opinion that the secession South was immensely concerned* over its economic future.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* You know, we could spend a lot of time talking about what was "fair" or "not fair" to white secession Southerners. And let's be honest, that's what's really going on here. In context, whatever verbal outrages were expressed by white secession Southerners at the time (or their professed defenders today) they pale in comparison to the actual outrages that were endured by black slave Southerners at the time.

 

[SarahTheGoodWitch]

the secession-rights of independent states.

Those are absolute, and preclude war as a precondition.
And again, the Union states denied their own independence, as well as the supreme power of their respective people.
So it was simply a rebellion by each Union-state's officials, first against their respective sovereign people; and then against the CSA states; all on the False Flag basis of a fictional state.

It's not speculation or opinion that the secession South was immensely concerned* over its economic future.

It's not relevant to the fact of their states' independence, either; therefore clearly you're dwelling on it to distract from such.

 

[SarahTheGoodWitch]

Yet the phrase, "follow the money", is often touted as a cause of the war.

Because that's why it was waged by the north;

or specifically, the officials of the northern states, and their respective lobbyists;
i.e. it was an act of pure empire, rationalized by trumped-up legal arguments against the sovereign independence of the legal states, re-writing history other than as it happened, to claim agreements were other than as they were actually made.

The CSA states, meanwhile, were simply holding true to those facts and agreements, and thus were engaged in proper national defense against such terror and treachery by other independent states acting under False Flag of a fictional state and rogue coup.

 

[unionblue]

Those are absolute, and preclude war as a precondition.
And again, the Union states denied their own independence, as well as the supreme power of their respective people.
So it was simply a rebellion by each Union's state's officials against their respective sovereign people, and then against the CSA states; all on the False Flag basis of a fictional state.


It's not relevant to the fact of their states' independence, either; therefore clearly you're dwelling on it to distract from such.

I disagree with your above opinion.

The states were not denied anything they had not already given up by joining the Union. This was understood from the AOC onwards to the Constitution.

This was a rebellion that denied the people of the United States to choose their own leaders in a free and fair election by a terrified minority who feared their institution of slavery would be eventually driven to extinction.

In other words, $4 billion dollars of human property was in danger of being lost, the primary reason for the American Civil War.

"I have never been in favor of the abolition of slavery until since this war detirmend me in the conviction that it is a greater sin than our Government is able to stand... It is opposed to the Spirit of the age--and in my opinion this Rebellion is but the death struggle of the overgrown monster."

--Eli K. Pickett, US Sergeant, in a letter to his wife, March 27, 1863.

 

[SarahTheGoodWitch]

The states were not denied anything they had not already given up by joining the Union. This was understood from the AOC onwards to the Constitution.

1. The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, formed two different unions; with every state seceding from the AoC to ratify the Constitution.

So they didn't "give anything up" in terms of their independence. They simply voluntarily agreed, as independent states, to refrain from certain actions, or engage in others.

Like all international agreements between independent states.

So don't refer to them as the same union via using "the Union" in reference to both, as if they're one in the same; let alone pretend that they couldn't secede from the AoC (since they did), or that they couldn't secede from the Constitutional union in the same way (since they never expressly gave up their independence to another state).

2. Articles of Confederation, Article II: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

Therefore this was simply a compact among free, sovereign and independent states, like any international agreement; and so it had no power to deny the individual states anything.

And it was the same with the Constitution; which formed a completely, separate international agreement, with a minimum of only nine states.


So it's a fact that every state was free, sovereign and independent from 1776 onward by mutual agreement between all parties to the states; and from 1783 onward by all parties concerned.

 

[unionblue]

Because that's why it was waged by the north;

or specifically, the officials of the northern states, and their respective lobbyists;
i.e. it was an act of pure empire, rationalized by trumped-up legal arguments against the sovereign independence of the legal states, re-writing history other than as it happened, to claim agreements were other than as they were actually made.

The CSA states, meanwhile, were simply holding true to those facts and agreements, and thus were engaged in proper national defense against such terror and treachery by other independent states acting under False Flag of a fictional state and rogue coup.

Again, I disagree with your opinion above.

No attempt was made by the North to interfere with slavery (the most valuable of the South's assets in human property) where it already existed. There were no trumped up charges against their so-called sovereignty, only declarations of secession expressing their over riding concern over slavery's ultimate extinction and restriction from the federal territories.

The CSA were simply holding true to the facts of protecting slavery, ignoring states rights when it came to slavery, and started the numerous warlike acts even prior to the firing on Ft. Sumter, thus declaring it would take on the battlefield a minority view that it knew best over the majority.

 

[unionblue]

1. The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, formed two different unions; with every state seceding from the AoC to ratify the Constitution.

So they didn't "give anything up" in terms of their independence. They simply voluntarily agreed, as independent states, to refrain from certain actions, or engage in others.

Like all international agreements between independent states.

So don't refer to them as the same union via using "the Union" in reference to both, as if they're one in the same; let alone pretend that they couldn't secede from the AoC (since they did), or that they couldn't secede from the Constitutional union in the same way (since they never expressly gave up their independence to another state).

2. Articles of Confederation, Article II: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

Therefore this was simply a compact among free, sovereign and independent states, like any international agreement; and so it had no power to deny the individual states anything.

And it was the same with the Constitution; which formed a completely, separate international agreement, with a minimum of only nine states.


So it's a fact that every state was free, sovereign and independent from 1776 onward by mutual agreement between all parties to the states; and from 1783 onward by all parties concerned.

Again, I disagree with your views stated above.

No individual state of the original 13 colonies ever managed to free itself from English rule. It simply could not be done and the colonies recognized that only together could they achieve independence, hence the establishment of a continental Congress.

After the Revolution, the states recognized they needed to form a perpetual union, established the AOC where each state gave up part of it's sovereignty in order to be a united country. After realizing that there was still to much interference from states seeking their own agenda, the constitution was adopted, where the states surrendered even more of their sovereignty.

A more perfect Union was the goal, not 13 individual, squabbling children who could get nothing done on their own. Hence, the reality we all live under today, the United States of America, one nation, under God...

I'm sure you've heard the rest.

And slavery was the primary cause of the American Civil War.

 

[BuckeyeWarrior]

Again, I disagree with your views stated above.

No individual state of the original 13 colonies ever managed to free itself from English rule. It simply could not be done and the colonies recognized that only together could they achieve independence, hence the establishment of a continental Congress.

After the Revolution, the states recognized they needed to form a perpetual union, established the AOC where each state gave up part of it's sovereignty in order to be a united country. After realizing that there was still to much interference from states seeking their own agenda, the constitution was adopted, where the states surrendered even more of their sovereignty.

A more perfect Union was the goal, not 13 individual, squabbling children who could get nothing done on their own. Hence, the reality we all live under today, the United States of America, one nation, under God...

I'm sure you've heard the rest.

And slavery was the primary cause of the American Civil War.

It seems the continental congress thought there was a country called the United States of America. From the journal of the continental congress;
"Congress took into consideration the articled agreed upon by and between Richard Oswald, esq. the commissioners of his Britannic Majesty, for treated of peace with the commissioners of the United States of America,..."
https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lljc&fileName=024/lljc024.db&recNum=248
Looks to me like the representative of one Nation negotiating with the representatives of another nation.

And from the treaty of Paris itself;

"It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the Hearts of the most Serene and most Potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, Arch- Treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc.. and of the United States of America, to forget all past Misunderstandings and Differences that have unhappily interrupted the good Correspondence and Friendship which they mutually wish to restore; and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory Intercourse between the two countries upon the ground of reciprocal Advantages and mutual Convenience as may promote and secure to both perpetual Peace and Harmony; and having for this desirable End already laid the Foundation of Peace & Reconciliation by the Provisional Articles signed at Paris on the 30th of November 1782, by the Commissioners empowered on each Part, which Articles were agreed to be inserted in and constitute the Treaty of Peace proposed to be concluded between the Crown of Great Britain and the said United States, but which Treaty was not to be concluded until Terms of Peace should be agreed upon between Great Britain & France, and his Britannic Majesty should be ready to conclude such Treaty accordingly: and the treaty between Great Britain & France having since been concluded, his Britannic Majesty & the United States of America, in Order to carry into full Effect the Provisional Articles above mentioned, according to the Tenor thereof, have constituted & appointed, that is to say his Britannic Majesty on his Part, David Hartley, Esqr., Member of the Parliament of Great Britain, and the said United States on their Part, - stop point - John Adams, Esqr., late a Commissioner of the United States of America at the Court of Versailles, late Delegate in Congress from the State of Massachusetts, and Chief Justice of the said State, and Minister Plenipotentiary of the said United States to their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands; - stop point - Benjamin Franklin, Esqr., late Delegate in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, President of the Convention of the said State, and Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America at the Court of Versailles; John Jay, Esqr., late President of Congress and Chief Justice of the state of New York, and Minister Plenipotentiary from the said United States at the Court of Madrid; to be Plenipotentiaries for the concluding and signing the Present Definitive Treaty; who after having reciprocally communicated their respective full Powers have agreed upon and confirmed the following Articles." Treaty of Paris

Noticed all the representatives are identified as being from the United States of America. Not from Virginia, New York, etc.
The idea that America is not a country is so ludacrious that it shouldn't even need to be debated, but here we are.

The civil war was caused by rebels gaining control of several states and initiating hostile acts against America. The rebels reason for rebelling was because they saw the republican party as a threat to slavery. They mentioned this threat several times in their secession documents and in the debates at the secession conventions. Here is just one example;

"But the Tariff is not the question which brought the people up to their present attitude. We are to give a summary of our causes to the world, but mainly to the other Southern States, whose co-action we wish, and we must not make a fight on the Tariff question. . . .

African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism. . . . The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States."

Laurence Keitt South Carolina Secession Convention 1860

 

[arjo1861]

The document refers to the United States '...for their part...' This is plural. Today you would refer to the United States for it's part - singular. Shelby Foote pointed this out, the war effected a grammatic change, are to is. It was not a single sovereign state. Clue is in the name.

 

[SarahTheGoodWitch]

It seems the continental congress thought there was a country called the United States of America. From the journal of the continental congress;
"Congress took into consideration the articled agreed upon by and between Richard Oswald, esq. the commissioners of his Britannic Majesty, for treated of peace with the commissioners of the United States of America,..."
https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lljc&fileName=024/lljc024.db&recNum=248
Looks to me like the representative of one Nation negotiating with the representatives of another nation.

And from the treaty of Paris itself;

"It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the Hearts of the most Serene and most Potent Prince George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, Arch- Treasurer and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc.. and of the United States of America, to forget all past Misunderstandings and Differences that have unhappily interrupted the good Correspondence and Friendship which they mutually wish to restore; and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory Intercourse between the two countries upon the ground of reciprocal Advantages and mutual Convenience as may promote and secure to both perpetual Peace and Harmony; and having for this desirable End already laid the Foundation of Peace & Reconciliation by the Provisional Articles signed at Paris on the 30th of November 1782, by the Commissioners empowered on each Part, which Articles were agreed to be inserted in and constitute the Treaty of Peace proposed to be concluded between the Crown of Great Britain and the said United States, but which Treaty was not to be concluded until Terms of Peace should be agreed upon between Great Britain & France, and his Britannic Majesty should be ready to conclude such Treaty accordingly: and the treaty between Great Britain & France having since been concluded, his Britannic Majesty & the United States of America, in Order to carry into full Effect the Provisional Articles above mentioned, according to the Tenor thereof, have constituted & appointed, that is to say his Britannic Majesty on his Part, David Hartley, Esqr., Member of the Parliament of Great Britain, and the said United States on their Part, - stop point - John Adams, Esqr., late a Commissioner of the United States of America at the Court of Versailles, late Delegate in Congress from the State of Massachusetts, and Chief Justice of the said State, and Minister Plenipotentiary of the said United States to their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands; - stop point - Benjamin Franklin, Esqr., late Delegate in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, President of the Convention of the said State, and Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America at the Court of Versailles; John Jay, Esqr., late President of Congress and Chief Justice of the state of New York, and Minister Plenipotentiary from the said United States at the Court of Madrid; to be Plenipotentiaries for the concluding and signing the Present Definitive Treaty; who after having reciprocally communicated their respective full Powers have agreed upon and confirmed the following Articles." Treaty of Paris

Noticed all the representatives are identified as being from the United States of America. Not from Virginia, New York, etc.
The idea that America is not a country is so ludacrious that it shouldn't even need to be debated, but here we are.

The Treaty of Paris was in 1783, when the USA was under the 1781 Articles of Confederation.

I. The Stile of this Confederacy shall be "The United States of America".
II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

Clearly, sending ambassadors to the Treaty of Paris, was one of those delegated powers.

And so it's interesting that you should omit Article I, from the Treaty of Paris:

"His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

So Great Britain acknowledges each state's sovereignty, freedom and independence.

Which the U.S. Constitution does not expressly revoke.

Independent states, obviously, do not lose their sovereign independence to conjoin as larger independent states, simply by failing to expressly retain it in international compacts.

On the contrary, they must expressly manifest an intention to relinquish their independence to another state— whether joining to become part of an existing nation-state, or uniting to form a new independent nation- state; as noted in Blackstone’s influential Commentaries, that in the case of a nonconfederate, “incorporate union” such as the 1707 union of England and Scotland, no rescission option existed:

“The two contracting states are totally annihilated [qua sovereign states], without any power of revival; and a third arises from their conjunction, in which all the rights of sovereignty … must necessarily reside.”

However the precise wording in that 1707 document that united England and Scotland into the single nation of Great Britain, expressly manifested this intention. To wit:

"That the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall, upon the first Day of May next ensuing the Date hereof, and for ever after, be united into one Kingdom by the Name of Great-Britain, and that the Ensigns Armorial of the said united Kingdom, be such as her Majesty shall appoint; and the Crosses of St. Andrew and St. George be conjoined in such a manner as her Majesty shall think fit, and used in all Flags, Banners, Standards, and Ensigns, both at Sea and Land."

This is because such national union can only be expressly manifested by the nations themselves.

It can never be inferred by outside interpretation; for the obvious reason that sovereign nations are their own final authority, and hence any outside inference would be inherently void.

And this new “one Kingdom by the name of Great Britain,” was the very kingdom from which the Founders seceded; and therefore they would naturally be the first to know the difference between national vs. international compacts.

In contrast, neither the Constitution, or any other American founding document, ever likewise expressly manifests uniting the individual independent sovereign states together, to create a single new independent nation-state, to which they would become dependent states.

Rather, the Constitution is an international compact, just as with the UN or the EU, or indeed the Articles of Confederation.

The main difference, is that it is established by the respective people of each independent state, who were thus established as the supreme final authority therein; and they simply delegate various powers to state and federal governments, as detailed in the body of the Constitution.

 

[SarahTheGoodWitch]

Again, I disagree with your views stated above.
No individual state of the original 13 colonies ever managed to free itself from English rule. It simply could not be done and the colonies recognized that only together could they achieve independence, hence the establishment of a continental Congress.
The Continental Congress existed for 2 years before the Declaration of Independence.
After the Revolution, the states recognized they needed to form a perpetual union, established the AOC where each state gave up part of it's sovereignty in order to be a united country.

No. Article II of the AoC, expressly says that "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

So they did not give up sovereignty, but on the contrary they expressly retained it.
Rather, they simply delegated powers, jurisdictions and rights to the United States.

And accordingly, the 1783 Treaty of Paris expressly recognized each state as free, sovereign and independent; not dependent states of a singular free, sovereign and independent state.

After realizing that there was still to much interference from states seeking their own agenda, the constitution was adopted, where the states surrendered even more of their sovereignty.

The Constitution doesn't say that, either.

On the contrary, each state unilaterally seceded from the AoC, in order to ratify the Constitution; and did so by its power as an independent state.

And what's more, it only required nine of them to form the new union of independent states, so clearly it couldn't have been "the people of the United States in the aggregate."
As Madison observed in Federalist No 39:

On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.

That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a MAJORITY of the people of the Union, nor from that of a MAJORITY of the States. It must result from the UNANIMOUS assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

So each state ratified the Constitution by the act of its respective people; rather than its delegates, as under the AoC; or the people of all states in the aggregate, as Daniel Webster claimed in his 1830 "Contract Theory" before the US Senate.

This therefore established the people of each state, into the supreme power over their own particular independent state; and they their will was supreme over their state, however they chose to express it.

So while the Constitution does delegate more power to the federal government than before; sovereignty (i.e. supreme final authority) remains in the states themselves-- namely with the state's respective people.

So the states could unilaterally secede again, each by the will of its respective people.
Just like they did the first time in 1787-1789, to ratify the Constitution in the first place.