I've mentioned before a German 1848er who played a hugely important role in America's political development during the Civil War and how his decision to participate reflected his German Liberalism, a kettle of fish different from contemporary American Liberalism in ways both good and bad. I believe that some day soon is the anniversary of the South's decision to wage war in the defense of slavery.
Oddly enough, other German and other nations' 48ers played equally important and less well known roles in the war for human freedom. These folks came to America in pursuit of a political dream: the right of self governance. And, when push came to shove, they did the correct and right thing by intervening to protect the rights of the least amongst us against the Pharaohs, as it were.
Conservatives and others on the Right, to say nothing of Neoliberals, like to argue that America is all about economic opportunity. But there really are two or three Americas.
Puritans left England and elsewhere to found states in which they could oppress others' for reasons religious and other wise. Lots of folks from England and elsewhere left, temporarily, for the Caribbean or whereever to found sugar or other plantations worked by slaves to get enough wealth to live without have ever working.
But the best of us came because they thought that liberty, understood as the ability to speak and do as you pleased so long as no one got hurt, and equality, understood as the inability of the very wealthy to manipulate a political system so that it protected their own narrow economic interests. Today, alas, alack and etc, those who are motivated by the desires of those who came to oppress and enslave seem to carry the day.
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