In 1851, 75 years after the US Declaration of Independence, a crowd gathered in the shadow of the US Capitol. They had come to lay a cornerstone for the expansion of the building. An architect had been chosen by president Millard Fillmore. Thomas U. Walter, a Philadelphia architect, was chosen. A cornerstone would be laid to mark the beginning of construction of the new part of the building, at the northeast corner of the House wing.
This would be an extension of the building first begun in 1793. Supposedly, the same trowel that president George Washington had used back in the day, was used in 1851 to mark the occasion.
Several men who had served in the Revolutionary War were in attendance. They must have been only teens in the war. That might not have been so rare; Andrew Jackson had served in the war as a kid. He’d been president in the 1830s and died in 1845. This was only a few years later.
America must have seemed at peace in those days. A year before a crisis in the country had been averted by a major legislative compromise.
California, recently acquired from Mexico by the war of 1846-48, wanted to join the US as a new state. It did not want to have slavery, and this created a dispute among the states that had slavery and those that did not. A compromise enabled California to join and called to abolish the slave trade in Washington, DC. But the deal also strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, which required slaves to be returned from free states to the South. The compromisers were hailed as having averted some kind of civil war. So in 1851, when the Capitol was being extended, all seemed well. But in fact they had only postponed the inevitable; a civil war between the states was coming, and it would arrive by the end of the decade.
Israel’s Justice Minister Yariv Levin holds a press conference at the Knesset, the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem, on January 4, 2023. (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)In Israel the country recently experienced mass protests over the government’s attempt to overhaul the judiciary. There were rumors that the recent protests could lead to a real national crisis and civil conflict. The defense minister warned of the fissures growing in society.
Now it appears that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has climbed down temporarily from the judicial reform. This may lead to a compromise, but as the lessons in the US show, we must be wary of a compromise that only puts off worse to come. On the other hand, we should acknowledge that 75 years after Israel’s founding in 1948, the country is incredibly secure and powerful compared to what has befallen many other countries in their first 75 years.
After 75 years of independence, Western countries rush towards civil war
WHILE THE US careened from independence toward civil war during its first 75 years, expanding rapidly to the West in the process, other countries in the New World saw their fates also consumed by war.
The country that is now Uruguay initially sought independence from Spain in 1811. It was one of several states in South America that sought independence from Spain and were carved out of various Spanish governorates. For instance, the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, founded in 1776, covered a large area that includes parts of Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. The area that became Uruguay was called the Banda Oriental; and when it was freed from Spain, its larger neighbor to the south, Argentina, continued to occupy Montevideo, which would become Uruguay’s capital. When Argentina withdrew, the Portuguese invaded from Brazil, occupying the country until 1828, when the British helped broker a deal that enabled Uruguay to be free.
However, freedom quickly led to civil conflict between the Blanco Party and the more liberal Colorado Party, led by rival politicians Manuel Oribe and Fructuoso Rivera. The population of the small country was less than 100,000 at the time. Civil conflict in Uruguay between the two leading parties eventually led Oribe to flee to Argentina and enlist support there. Argentina invaded Uruguay and laid siege to Montevideo for nine years. The long siege involved its own cast of characters. The Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi served in the conflict. The conflict dragged on from 1839 to 1851. Within 14 years another war would be launched in the region against Paraguay, also involving Uruguayans.
The country experienced mass immigration from Europe, swelling its population and bringing diversity, such that the majority of the country’s population was foreign-born by the 1860s. However, it continued to suffer the same internal political factionalism that had plagued it after 1811. The Colorados basically ruled the country through the 1950s, and there were numerous armed clashes with the rival Blancos. Infighting also led to the military playing a larger role in power, essentially leading to a military coup in 1875 and more intrigues. By this time the country had about a half million residents, and trade links made Montevideo wealthy.
IF THERE is a lesson in contrasting Uruguay with the US and Israel, it is that while the US was sleepwalking toward civil war for its first 75 years, Uruguay was consumed by civil conflict in the same period. Israel, by contrast, did not fall into civil war in the 1950s and did not allow stronger regional powers to invade the country, as befell Uruguay.
Many countries that became independent in the aftermath of the colonial era have suffered dictatorships and coups. In Africa, where many countries received independence in the 1960s, there was a surge in military coups. One estimate says a coup took place every 55 days in the 1960s and 1970s, and another estimate says there were 80 successful coups and 108 unsuccessful attempts. Countries barely got to experience independence before young officers took them over and ran them into the ground.
Other countries, like Vietnam, received independence in 1945 only to spend the next 30 years fighting major wars against Western powers, including France and the US, and even fighting off a Chinese invasion in 1979. Other peoples, like the Kurds, have sought independence and been frustrated in their attempts. In 1946 Kurds in Iran declared the short-lived Republic of Mahabad, and Kurds in northern Iraq voted for independence in 2017.
What Israel’s history teaches us is that while there are major disputes in the country and various groups that do not agree on many issues, the country has actually been surprisingly stable over the last 75 years, especially considering its challenges.
While it has not had the privilege of peace enjoyed by most European countries, since 1949 it has not suffered the invasions that countries like Uruguay suffered after independence, or the coups that Africa suffered, or such hardships as Soviet rule that Eastern Europe was subjected to after 1945.
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