> moralizers" like Hamilton, Washington, and Ben Franklin, who were so obstinate and short sighted they refused to simply pay the British Crown instead of fighting such a destructive war
You think the Colonies could have paid the British Crown to become independent? Where are you getting that from? What makes you think the British would have accepted it?
But if you are just asking as a pure hypothetical--should the Colonies have paid for independence, if the British would have accepted that resolution--then my answer would be yes, of course. Independence was the goal; if we could have gotten there without having to fight a war, so much the better.
There was no option to pay the south either, but you believe we should have. So why not engage in revisionist fantasies.
But no, I don't believe we should have paid the British either. Of course not. Pay off every world power hard up for money that comes along? No way. You start off that way, you've set yourself up for extreme and painful failure. Best to have one war at the outset so that all the other global powers get the message loud and clear.
You can try paying off bullies if you like in your own life, but I can guarantee you that it won't work. The only thing it will create is more opportunists.
> Pay off every world power hard up for money that comes along?
I have not proposed any such thing. Being willing to pay money for a specific valuable objective--independence for the American Colonies, freedom for the slaves of the American South--is not at all the same as being willing to pay money to anyone who comes along and asks for it.
> You can try paying off bullies
So you think the British were bullying the American Colonies? You think the South was bullying the North before the Civil War? On what basis?
If you look at the historical record, you will see that, if anything, it was the Colonies bullying the British until the British got fed up, and the Northern abolitionists bullying the South until the South got fed up.
> You're being a bit naive man.
No, I'm simply taking to its logical conclusion a premise that seems obvious to me: that paying for something with money, if you can, is better than paying for it with human lives.
You think the Colonies could have paid the British Crown to become independent? Where are you getting that from? What makes you think the British would have accepted it?
But if you are just asking as a pure hypothetical--should the Colonies have paid for independence, if the British would have accepted that resolution--then my answer would be yes, of course. Independence was the goal; if we could have gotten there without having to fight a war, so much the better.