In most places on earth, a "Yankee" is an American. In the American south, it's a person from the "north," by which they mean the north east. In the north east, it's a person from New England. In New England, it's a person of English descent. You can call me a Yankee if you want. I won't hold it against you. Don't hold it against me. I grew up spitting distance north of the Mason-Dixon line. It has undoubtedly effected my thinking about American history.

For example, consider the following, mostly excerpted from a discussion of alternatives to the American Civil War(s), held many years ago on the WELL:

Look, I'm not talking about mass race war here. I'm talking about a guerrilla campaign of very selective terror against particular slave owners. Start with the worst ones and work your way down. Certain politicians and influential neo-feudal para-politicians would make good targets, as well. Harm no non slave owners, except in self defense. Actively propagandize and recruit poor whites. Use both propaganda of the word and propaganda of the deed.

White folks in general have gotten a bad rap, one that only a select minority actually deserve. Remember that most whites didn't own slaves. Poor white life was fairly grim. Most whites were poor. Many lived worse than slaves. Some slaves at least had a retirement plan of sorts. Poor whites eked till they died. Everyone profited from the cotton trade, at least indirectly, but the profits came out of the slaves' share. It just as easily have come out of the planters' share instead, with plenty left over for all to share. Just kill the planters. Abolish their class by killing one individual at a time by select, surgical force, and thereby stampeding the rest. This would have cost a fraction of the blood and treasure the was eventually squandered on the War. The little bit of blood it would have cost would have been well worth it. The little treasure it would have cost would have come back many fold. Loot the planters. That's how they got the money in the first place. They looted two continents, one for its soil and one for its blood. Divvy up the money evenly among everyone else. Both black and white would have benefited, both financially and psychologically. The only people besides the planters themselves who wouldn't have benefited were the Natives Americans. They got the royal shaft from everybody, black and white, north, south, east, west and elsewhere. But everybody else would have gained. Even the people of the rest of the earth would have gained. They'd have gained an example. Examples are contagious. You just have to kill off a few planters, that's all. No problem. It wouldn't have taken a lot of them, the rich are cowards. It sure as hell wouldn't have taken four years wholesale slaughter of working folks. Like Sun Tsu said, "Kill ten, scare a hundred."

Remember that the Abolitionists had an incredibly sophisticated organizational infrastructure. It is exemplary that such disparate, people could co-operate so well. Far from being an impediment, decentralization gave the movement the military edge of invulnerability to decapitating strikes. They raised and maintained in the field a para-military armed force. You probably know about one Abolitionist guerrilla, because John Brown got caught, so he got written up in your school books. There were thousands of these guys. The Abolitionist partisan army saw action years before Sumpter. There was war in Kansas and Missouri. The para-military Abolitionists were getting good at it. Experience and attrition hone armies. They were trained, blooded, and at their peak when Brown blundered. Had the government(s) not stepped in, they could have regrouped and counter attacked with ten, maybe a hundred fold strength, especially with Brown as a martyr. Martyrs make very potent recruitment tools. The Abolitionists already had the momentum. That's why the government(s) stepped in. Had they not, the most important issue of the day would have been settled by the people themselves. Scant chance they'd have much use for government after pulling that one off. The government(s) had to step in or lose all respect and power.

The Abolitionists had an incredibly sophisticated underground logistics network that regularly supplied their forces with money, horses and weapons. As well, it conveyed fugitives of both races in the other direction. Since the government wasn't about to free the slaves, and since the slaves needed help, the Abolitionists did the right thing and helped in every way possible from begging donations to spontaneously raising a partisan army and shooting it out with pro-slavery activists in Missouri and Kansas. There was also skirmishing in what later became the border states as well. Virginia split. There was never the charnel house of pitched battle that the War brought when it finally came. It was guerrilla war, partisan war. It was ten guys against five guys on one night and twenty guys against ten guys the next night, a hundred miles away. Low intensity warfare, it's called. Once, in Kansas, a whole town fought on the same day. Once. Low intensity warfare is not a new invention.

Had Brown's raid succeeded, the plan had been to distribute the captured weapons. Imagine if you will these guys fanning out through out the South, infiltrating in by two's and three's, arming slaves, not en masse, but particular slaves. The Underground Railroad was thoroughly integrated and had what was probably, at it's time, the premier intelligence network of the continent, if not of the planet. The Abolitionists knew, or could find out, which slaves best to arm. Slaves networked too, y'know. Abolition was no one sided effort. They had a most excellent grapevine. While the Abolitionist plans were not always for an integrated society after Abolition, it was always for integrated resistance to slavery. This was their practice as well as their theory. However they envisioned the post slavery era (and opinions did vary widely among them) they themselves were functionally integrated. This is particularly exemplary in light of their own wide spread racism. Yes, the Abolitionists were largely racist. They worked around, and sometimes worked past it.

Arming slaves, even particular slaves, would not have been enough. They need to be trained and formed into units. The units would have to communicate. At first, most officers would need to be white because, fresh from Bleeding Kansas, these white boys knew how to do it. You have to know how to do it, or you shouldn't oughta try. There is no doubt that ex-slaves would quickly prove themselves and rise in the ranks. History has proven conclusively that ex-slaves of any race make excellent soldiers in any rank. Then they could have gone into limited action as terror raiders, forming up just before a strike and dispersing immediately after. Hit and run, propaganda of the deed.

Hamming up the terror would have been helpful. There's a reason that Klan robes are scary, and it aint superstition. It's that you don't know who they are; they might be your neighbor. Imagine if you will, fifty or a hundred horsemen assembling on a moon lit night. They are wearing hoods and robes. For a mindfuck, lets make the robes gray. But let's make them sleeveless and everyone rolls up their shirt sleeves so you can see what race they are. Half are black. Half are white. Speak in code so it is never clear to observers the individual identity, let alone the race, of whoever was in command of a particular operation. Rotate command so everyone knows how to do it in case the commander gets killed. Surround the plantation. Seal off all access roads. A hand full of guys at each road would do. Plantations were isolated from one another. Capture the Big House. Kill all who resist, what ever their race. Count on having to snuff a couple loyal butlers and mammies. It's probably better they die at black hands. Hang the planter from a tree in his yard while all observe. Everybody haul on the rope together. Sing a couple hymns; say a little prayer, perhaps all holding hands. Atheists among you play along. Better still, put the massa's fate to a secret vote by the slaves. If they said he was a decent chap; spare him and apologize, return the loot. If he wasn't, and most weren't, proceed.

Take everything of value from the Big House and divide it in half. Give half to the slaves to divide among themselves in what ever manner they see fit. Bring extra horses for any slaves who wished to join the anti-slavery partisans. Burn the Big House. Withdraw. Disperse. Send the new recruits off with an escort to secure redoubts deep in the swamps and mountains where they can be trained in the partisan ethos. Send any slaves who didn't want to fight, but wanted to head north instead, off on the Underground Railroad. Distribute, along with printed propaganda, the other half of the captured material to poor whites. Recruit as many poor whites as possible. They too have much to gain. Hide. Rest. Go do it somewhere else. As each band reaches sufficient strength, it should split in half and each half go in a different direction, recruiting all the while. Twenty is a fairly good number for a partisan band.

The Mahknovists used these tactics with great success in the Ukraine in 1919-20. Closer to home, Zapata too, did similar things on occasion. It works.

In Washington, PA, where I went to high school, there was a tunnel under the street that connected what was then the Greyhound Bus depot with what was then a diner. It had been built in the last century by the Underground Railroad. There was another smaller tunnel near by that dead ended. It had been a storage and sleeping area. They were legendary. The whole effect was rather like the IRA circa 1919-21 or the Viet Cong at any point.

The Greyhound Bus depot had a dining area and pinball machines. It was open all night. I spent more time there than home. That's where the pin ball was. A lot of it I spent standing directly over the big tunnel, banging those flippers a mile a minute.

Out back of the bus station was an alley that T'ed into the main street of town. Directly across from the T was two very important buildings, side by side. One was the state government monopoly liqueur store. Next to it was a state government maintained museum, the house in which the Whisky Rebellion had been planned. They taught about the Whiskey Rebellion in my school, I guess because it happened in our town. They were a little vague on some points, like why I was supposed to be glad I lived in a town named after a man who had once sent the army to kill people who lived there. I didn't get that part.

One thing led to another. Eventually Kennedy got shot. America was going to close down for the next four days. I wanted to stock up on booze. I was too young to buy it, so I had developed a pet wino. I'd front him the money and hide in that alley and watch him to make sure he didn't try to run out on me. I was standing at the end of the alley, half way between the Whiskey Rebel House and the Underground Railroad tunnel.

Winos shuffle maddeningly slow. I killed time by thinking. This is a hella good way to kill time. I recommend it highly. I was thinking about what had happened that day. I started thinking about where I was. Damn he was slow. My hands were deep in my coat pockets. My collar was turned up. A chill wind blew up the alley at my back. I shivered to the bone. Suddenly my eyes grew very wide. It had hit me all at once. Everything fell into place.

I had just turned fifteen. I read the books later. I figured out politics that night in that alley. The books just confirmed it. I knew exactly what America was and where I was in it.

Do you?