May

28

Isn't what we are seeing in the EMU just an economic version of the US Civil War?

Stefan Jovanovich responds: 

It seems to me a difficult parallel to apply if we are talking about geography. The "northerners" - the Germans and French - has always controlled the EU; but in the United States it was the Southern Democrats were the majority party for the first 5 decades of the country's history. Starting with Marshall, they controlled the Supreme Court. It is difficult for "conservatives" at George Mason and elsewhere to admit it, but most of the precedents for extension of Federal executive authority (the Louisiana Purchase, for example) came from the Democrats whose children and grandchildren would discover the doctrine of states rights. Of the 15 Presidents before Lincoln, only 4 were Whigs. Of those Whigs Harrison and Fillmore were the only ones born north of the Mason-Dixon line; neither was re-elected and between them they only served the equivalent of a single Presidential term. The only other exception to Southern domination was John Adams, who - along with his son (who was not a Federalist but a member of Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party) - had the distinction of being roundly rejected when they ran for re-election. The first 5 Southerners, on the other hand, (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson) were all elected to second terms.

If David's suggestion is that the Germans are the Southerners, then I can see why that might be an apt comparison. The Panic of 1857 certainly led the Southerners to believe that "the north needed the south" - as the wikipedia entry suggests. What is difficult to see, however, is any comparison that has Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy taking the place of Ohio and New York in 1859.

 


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