The Super Summary of World History (34 page)

These and other flaws in the Constitution haunt the present day. The framers could not imagine our modern society. We try to bend the words of the Constitution to fit modern times rather than amend the document to deal with contemporary challenges. These results come from revering the document and believing the words came from on high. This delivers unlimited power to the federal courts because the courts step into the power vacuum and tell the millions of people in the United States what the Constitution means, thereby controlling how the United States operates its government. One striking example of this power is the Supreme Court decision changing the way states govern themselves. In the 1964 case of
Reynolds
v.
Sims,
the US Supreme Court required every state in the union to
abolish
its
Senate
[100]
,
which
was
elected
by
area
(county) and replace it with a body elected by
population
. The one-man-one-vote rule adopted by the court destroyed the constitutional compromise which allowed the government to come together initially. As a result, all states are now governed by population only, which delivers all the power into the hands of liberal urban areas. This horrific result remains (no Constitutional Amendment was passed) because once the population centers gained the power they were going to keep it. The ONLY way rural areas can get voting protection is before the Constitution is adopted. Thereafter, they can never bring enough political pressure to obtain fairness from dominating urban areas. The Supreme Court has set itself up as the arbitrator of how we can govern ourselves at the most basic level. All this happened because the framers of the Constitution failed to specifically list and limit the court’s power, and “We the people . . .” refuse to amend the great document.

Now the American Revolution is over, and it is 1790 in the United States of America, but we have skipped a lot of history in Europe. So we will venture back to1600 in Europe and bring that story forward to about 1800.

Let Us Learn

The story of the American Revolution displays the futility of holding onto far away resources, the results of mistreating loyal people, and the importance of flexibility. Spain lost its colonies in the Americas through inflexibility and disrespect for the populace. Britain made similar errors. Neither took the time to figure out what the colonies needed or wanted. Both made false assumptions about the areas and peoples they controlled. Gathering accurate information, and evaluating that information coldly (no emotion) is vital to holding on to people and resources. Try not to assume. Set out to understand who and what you are dealing with, and then take the time to analyze the entire situation. What was the best “end game” for England once the American Revolution started? How about letting the colonies go politically and keeping a preferred trading relationship? Spain’s end game might have included a special political relationship giving Spain extraordinary privileges in their former lands. By strongly opposing any change, both lost all.

The Native American experience shows one must somehow radically adapt to radical change. How we handle massive, unplanned, fundamental, and shocking change can make all the difference in our lives. Unintended consequences, like millions of deaths from disease, can alter the ability to cope; however, one cannot simply cling to the old ways while losing everything. In addition, we must acknowledge, as shown by the Native Americans, some problems have no solution. If radical change invades your life recall how important allies are and rally your support group to help. If defeat is inevitable face it stoically. We all suffer ultimate defeat in the final analysis.

Native Americans effectively unifying against white rule could have altered history. If all the Native tribes in Mexico had aggressively opposed Cortez he could not have won. The Aztecs mistreated their vassal states; thus, these states joined the Conquistadores in crushing the Aztecs. Loyal vassal states fighting beside the Aztecs may have handed the Spaniards defeat. If Native Americans in North America had united against the newcomer’s first landings, numerous defeats for the settlers would have followed, probably prohibiting settlement until European armies arrived to destroy the heathen opposition. Of course, the real defeat came from European diseases killing the populace, and as a result defeat for the Natives seems inevitable once contact occurred. We must learn that some problems are beyond solution. Whether individuals or entire populations some problems will vex us. Those types of problems exist everywhere; as all Native Americans well know.

Books and Resources:

Great
Rivals
in
History,
When
Politics
Gets
Personal
, Cummins, J, 2008, Metro Books.

1776
, David McCullough, 2006, Simon and Schuster

Common
Sense,
The
Rights
of
Man
and
Other
Essential
Writings
of
Thomas
Paine
,
Sidney Hook
, 2003, Signet Classics

The
Essential
Federalist
and
Anti-Federalist
Papers
, Wootton, 2003, Hackett Publishing

Revolution
1776,
Preston, 1933, Harcourt, Brace and Company (great book if you can find a copy).

Miracle
at
Philadelphia,
The
Story
of
the
Constitutional
Convention
May
to
September
1787
, Bowen, C., 1986, Little Brown Publishers (in paperback: ISBN: 0316103985) The classic on the Constitutional Convention.

 
Chapter 10

Europe from the Renaissance to 1900

Nation
States,
Religion,
War,
and
The
Armada

From about 1480 onward, the concept of “
nation
states
” began to arise. The sentiment was new, in that ancient empires such as Persia and Babylonia were normally a collage of peoples, languages, and customs reaching over a vast area with the veneer of the empire’s rulers settling over the indigenous peoples. The Spanish Empire, the British Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Austria-Hungarian Empire from the 1700s on, fit the same mold; however, the nation states’ roots go much deeper. It was a large area such as France, inhabited by generally similar peoples speaking the same language and all answering to a powerful central government. The key is all the people in the nation state considered everyone in the nation as one united entity—that is, one people. Like the people of the ancient city state, everyone was in the same boat and would advance or decline together. Similar religions, customs, languages, and history all combined to convince these rather large groups to people to think of themselves as one unit. Nearly all modern Western European nations and their progeny fit this category. Here was a momentous change in human thought, and these new inclinations would lead to both good and evil consequences.

The new nations would dramatically improve the national infrastructure of roads, banks, general staffs for the army, and bureaucracies for the monarch. Parliament would dramatically improve its position in England. In 1688, as part of the Glorious Revolution restoring the English monarchy, the
incoming
king
accepted
the
English
Bill
of
Rights
.
[101]
This bill of rights gave Parliament the edge in the political relationship, and in due time Parliament became the controlling government body.

The discovery of the “New World” excited all of Europe. Part of the excitement involved exchanges of new foods. Corn (maize) and potatoes came to Europe, and wheat, barley, horses, and other herd animals went to the Americas. These new foods, along with an agricultural revolution in the 1700s, allowed an increase in the food production in Europe, helped ease some of the starvation prevalent in previous years, and contributed to a worldwide population upsurge from 1400 to 1700 (
world
population
increased
from
about
350
million
in
1400
to
610
million
by
1700
). These new foods also had some drawbacks, as the Irish found out in the potato famine of 1845 to 1852, where 30 percent of Ireland’s population died because of an over dependency on potatoes. A fungus hit the potatoes destroying copious amounts of the crop. In spite of a tremendous death toll, England’s Parliament acted slowly and ineptly. Nevertheless, the new foods helped the agricultural economies of Europe and the New World quite a bit.

As the explorers set out to find new worlds, inside Europe new religious rivalries were coming to the surface. From outside Europe Islam was hammering at the Balkans, while inside Europe the Roman Catholic Church suffered from increasing corruption. Several movements were trying to reform the Church, such as the monastic movement,
[102]
and humanist influences from philosophers like Sir Thomas Moore (1478 to1535), and Erasmus (1466 to1536) talked against corruption; however, no endeavor brought real change within the Church. A Church led by wealthy popes leading depraved lives was not going to change through its leadership. Some reformers paid with their lives for challenging Church doctrines, so many who desired restructuring stayed quiet.

All this changed with the advent of
Martin
Luther
(1483 to 1546), an Augustinian monk who, in
1517,
nailed his ninety-five theses to a church door at Wittenberg, Germany, demanding the Catholic Church end corrupt practices, change its doctrines, and recognize
salvation
by
faith
alone
. Luther took a big chance with his life, and he might have lost both his life and his spiritual battle if not for the protection of German princes who wanted to break from the pope and his long tradition of extracting money from them. With this protection, he survived several attempts on his life by the supporters of the pope, wrote a Bible that a common person could read,
[103]
and
printed
several tracts defending his position on the Bible. Marrying a defrocked nun only confirmed to all Catholics Luther was in league with Satan. Eventually, the
Protestant
Reformation
spread across northern Germany, Scandinavia, and England (kinda sorta). From the city of Geneva, Switzerland, which became a religious state, John
Calvin
(1509 to 1564) spread his form of the Protestant faith (a belief in predestination, hard work, and thrift) to France and Holland. Calvin’s Protestant sect had an outsized worldwide influence that lingers until this day. The Protestant Reformation generated many sects of Christianity, and many wars, causing millions of deaths across Europe. Like all religious wars, they were brutal.

The Catholic leaders of Europe had numerous problems. Under escalating attacks from the Muslim east they needed the German princes to help repel the threat; accordingly, they could not destroy them to get to Martin Luther. The problem of defending Catholic empires (like Spain) from upstart nations (like England) took men and money, adding to their woes and wreaking their ability to crush the Protestants. As the Protestant religion spread, the Catholic response became more violent as France and other nations began killing their own. In Spain, Phillip wanted to end the Protestant rebellion in the Netherlands that England was supporting. This small fact would lead to a famous sea battle and then the demise of a great Catholic worldwide empire, followed by the foundation of a new and even greater Protestant worldwide empire.

Henry
VIII
of England really threw a wrench into the religious works when he decided to replace his queen with a much younger woman. In times past the monarch could just buy the pope off, but this time the pope refused, thereby turning King Henry VIII into a fat vat of smoldering anger.
[104]
He decided the King of England could darn well head his own church, so he decided to go Protestant and reject the Catholic Church in
1533
.
[105]
Soon he had put his old queen away and married a much younger one—and then decided to marry another, and another, and, well, the whole thing just went nuts. King Henry ended up with six (6) wives, most going to their deaths to make way for the next woman in the king’s bed. After King Henry’s death,
Elizabeth
I
of England, the daughter of Ann Boleyn (the second wife), eventually became queen; and she was a Protestant.