Last week I did a video on conspiracies.
I only picked a few, because it was already a 20-minute video, but I left out a rather
big one that was a key plot point in National Treasure 2.
Borglum commissioned to destroy landmarks in sacred Black Hills Mountains.
Borglum?
Mount Rushmore?
Mount Rushmore was a coverup.
Who would have thought…
Mount Rushmore was a conspiracy to cover up landmarks that led to the lost City of Gold
by literally blowing up the Black Hills.
Okay maybe not.
But let’s talk about what this monument to American Empire really does stand for.
Mount Rushmore was originally going to be sculpted in the Needles, a different area
of the Black Hills, and be a monument to the Louisiana Purchase, with figures like Louis
and Clark.
But it was switched to its current location and to the four presidents who are most credited
with massive territorial gains, preserving the union, and founding the American Empire.
Construction began in 1927 and ended in 1941.
Many people know this already, but the sculpture was originally intended to show everyone down
to the waist, but a lack of funding simply ended the project.
Its location was also quite controversial, because the site demolished parts of the sacred
Black Hills… in somewhat of a final middle finger to the native peoples whose land the
American Empire was founded on.
So why these four?
Well I’m glad you asked that, rhetorical version of me.
Let’s start with the obvious first one.
George Washington.
The guy who is on the one dollar bill and the quarter… for some reason.
The first President of the United States.
I can’t believe I even have to explain this.
And before you could say “I cannot tell a lie” George Washington is elected the
first president of the United States.
Everyone knows that, right?
He was the first President of the United States.
This is one of those things that somewhat smart people like to say in order to sound
smart.
When you’re in elementary school, you’re taught that he was the first president.
Then you go to college and take an intro to American History class and you find out that
before the Constitution, we had the Articles of Confederation, which had a leader named
“president.”
So you go around telling everyone how wrong they are about George Washington being the
first president.
But if you ever bothered to actually finish college, you’d realize what a moron you
sound actually like.
The Articles of Confederation established a Congress with equal voting power from each
of the thirteen states – much like the Senate today.
They appointed a leader to serve a one-year term who was called the President of the Congress.
That person had no executive power and was not in charge of anything more than calling
the Congress to order and keeping the debate civil.
Much like the leader of today’s senate, who is also called the President (of the Senate).
These people were not Presidents of the United States.
George Washington was the first and became President in 1789.
The war for independence ended six years earlier, when he was just the Commander in Chief of
the Continental Army.
He didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence, but he is considered to be a founding father
because of he was a war hero who helped the US gain its first real independent territory,
and because he was the first president.
He was elected unanimously.
Which I’ve always found a little suspicious.
Not only did he win the electoral college, but 100% of the popular vote.
You mean to tell me that not even the person running against him voted for himself?
While I have absolutely no proof of this, this seems a little too perfect to be true
and like one of those things they just washed over in order to inspire people.
But anyway.
Funny enough, George Washington did not meet one of the major requirements to be elected
President.
In order to be president you must: 1.
Be at least thirty-five years old.
2.
Be a resident of the United States for fourteen years.
3.
Be a natural-born citizen.
George Washington was not a natural-born citizen, because the United States obviously didn’t
exist when he was born.
Because of that obvious weirdness, they had to add a provision to the Constitution that
anyone residing within the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution
was to be considered naturally born.
The first actual natural-born citizen to become President was Martin Van Buren, the eighth
president, elected in 1837.
So what does it mean to be a naturally born citizen?
Oh god, you’re gonna talk about o- Yeah.
In order to be a natural-born citizen you must be born in one of two conditions – not
both, just one: 1.
Be born in the United States or one of its outlying possessions.
2.
Be born to at least one United States citizen parent.
So let’s get the obvious out of the way.
If Obama was born in Kenya – he wasn’t, he was born in Hawaii, which was part of the
United States – but if… it doesn’t matter.
Because his mother was indisputably American.
So that alone makes him a natural-born citizen.
Several other presidential candidates have had questionable citizenship.
Like John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which I’ll get to later, but
that’s an outlying possession so it’s okay.
Or Ted Cruz, who was born in Alberta, Canada… his father was Cuban, but his mother was American.
I wonder why nobody questioned these two guys’ citizenships, but they denied Obama’s for
years… hmm, weird.
Anyway, moving on.
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States, and is on the two dollar
bill and the nickel.
Just a side note, the two dollar bill is real currency, but it’s also not some special
collector’s item, they make new ones just about every year.
Jefferson is on the monument for the Louisiana Purchase, which nearly doubled the territory
of the United States.
Under the French, Louisiana existed solely to provide food for Haiti.
Haiti was a French territory which grew almost exclusively sugar, and nothing else.
So food was brought in from New Orleans.
Haiti went through a slave revolt in the 1790s and when it became apparent to Napoleon that
they were going lose control of it, Louisiana was of no further value.
So he offered to sell it to the US.
This caused somewhat of a constitutional crisis in America however.
Jefferson was a strong believer in a strict interpretation of the Constitution, which
did not give the government or the president power to purchase land.
But it would have been absolutely stupid to refuse this deal.
For 15 million dollars (250 million in current dollars) the price for the 828,000 square
miles was far too good to pass up ($301 per square mile).
So they said the acquisition was not a “purchase” but a treaty, which the government was totally
allowed to do.
Another major issue with the purchase was what to do with the 60,000 French inhabitants
of the land, half of which were freed African slaves.
Do we make them citizens?
What would that do to the democracy of the United States – to allow so many non-Americans
automatic citizenship.
This argument should remind you of a current situation facing a similar issue.
Napoleon made it part of the “treaty” that everyone currently residing in the territory
must be granted citizenship, so, that issue was put to bed rather quickly.
Mount Rushmore lies in the middle of the Louisiana Territory, and as I said in the beginning,
it was originally meant to be a monument to that purchase.
The same year of the purchase, Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery Expedition, or more
commonly known as the Louis and Clark Expedition, whose purpose was threefold:
1.
Explore and map the territory.
2.
Find a practical route to the Pacific Ocean.
3.
Establish an American presence in the territory.
They established several forts on their way westward, burying supplies along the way,
and reached the Pacific coast of Oregon in November 1805, and then walked all the way
back in Spring 1806.
The entire expedition took 17 months, making 140 maps, establishing diplomatic relations
with 70 Native American tribes, and discovering over 200 new species of plants and animals.
Next is Lincoln, the sixteenth president, also on the five dollar bill and the penny.
The penny, a coin so worthless, if you melted it down and sold the metals, you’d make
a 250% profit.
But that’s a different story for a different time.
Lincoln is on the monument for two reasons, but they’re probably not the two you’re
thinking of.
Well okay one of them is probably right.
First of all, let’s go ahead and talk about your two guesses…
1.
Preserving the Union.
2.
Freeing the Slaves.
Okay, first of all, he obviously preserved the Union by being President during the Civil
War.
While I could probably make a dozen videos on the Civil War, just really quick, this
is another dumb thing smart people say in order to sound smart: “At the beginning
of the war, if you were a betting man, you would have put your money on the South winning.”
Yeah, if you were a betting man who hates winning maybe.
While at the beginning, yes, the South had a larger army and they were fighting in home
territory, the North had a much larger population, a much more robust manufacturing industry,
and most importantly, far more railroad infrastructure.
Which meant that they could mobilize a much larger army much more quickly.
The war did not start over slavery per se. Lincoln never ran on the platform of ending
slavery.
But the south was afraid that they were going to eventually lose their slaves because of
western expansion.
According to the Missouri Compromise, states were admitted into the union in twos, one
free, one slave.
But the west was running out of slave states to admit, so they knew the end was near, so
pre-emptively seceded when Lincoln was elected.
The war was simply to stop the rebellion and bring the south back into the union.
But it became about slavery when the tide began to turn against the south, two years
into the war.
At that point, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation – which only freed the slaves
in any territory in active rebellion against the United States.
So in the four loyal slave states (Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri) and the occupied
areas of Tennessee and Louisiana, slavery was still legal until the 13th Amendment was
passed, two years after that.
Lincoln was alive when the amendment was proposed, but died before it passed.
So did he free the slaves?
Pretty much yeah, but not entirely.
As I discussed in my railroad video, originally, the first transcontinental railroad was supposed
to connect Texas and Louisiana to Southern California.
But since Texas had joined the South in seceding, Lincoln approved the central route, from Omaha
to San Francisco.
It was completed in 1869, thus joining the West with the rest of the country.
Before the railroad, you either had to take a several months long journey along the Oregon
or Overland trails or set sail around the very southern tip of South America.
So why was Lincoln included on the monument?
1.
For bringing the South back into the fold.
2.
For bringing the West into the fold.
And finally, Teddy Roosevelt.
Who actually hated being called Teddy, but it did well with voters so they ran with it.
He’s not on any money… but at least he has a stuffed animal I guess?
Like Lincoln, Roosevelt is also on the monument for two reason.
Firstly, like Washington, he was a war hero.
He was a colonel of a cavalry unit, named the Rough Riders, during the Spanish-American
war.
This is the war that really cemented the idea of American Empire.
Geez, it took you almost ten minutes to finally talk about the thing this video is about.
The Spanish-American war was when we acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba.
We liberated Cuba in exchange for being able to lease a naval base there – if you can
name that naval base, ten points to Gryffindor – which we still pay rent for by the way.
We also gave the Philippines their independence… after a few rebellions and occupation by Japan
during World War 2.
But before that, it was granted commonwealth status.
Which is what Puerto Rico has today.
Every year, we are setting a new record in how long the United States has gone without
adding a new state.
This is the longest we have ever gone….
Now this is…
N- Puerto Rico is obviously next in line, and while some people there want to become
a state, it is often blocked by Congress.
Why?
Because about a hundred years ago, Congress locked themselves in at 435 seats, if they
didn’t they’d currently have over 10,000 seats.
This means if Puerto Rico were to become a state, it would take away seats – and electoral
votes – from current states.
Puerto Rico would get five seats and votes, all of which would be democratic party seats
(Taking away from: CA, TX, FL, WA, and MN).
So it’s kind of easy to see why Puerto Rico is still just a commonwealth.
Not like Guam, which is an unorganized territory… along with American Samoa, the Northern Mariana
Islands, and the US Virgin Islands… and so many Pacific islands that it would take
forever to name to name all of them, and nobody lives there anyway so I won’t offend anyone
if I leave them out.
But Roosevelt is also on there for building the Panama Canal.
Where John McCain was born.
In order to cross the isthmus, ships enter locks that raise the ships 85 feet above sea
level and then back down.
Another fun fact, the Atlantic entrance to the canal is more west than the Pacific entrance.
In exchange for construction, the United States and Panama jointly controlled the canal until
1999, and the Panama Canal Zone, which extended 5 miles out from each side of the canal, was
treated much like an overseas military base in terms of sovereignty.
But this is where the idea of American Empire really took shape, which is why Roosevelt
is the playable American character in Civilization 6.
Welcome to the United States of America!
Now, not only did we control a good chunk of the North American continent, but trade
across our hemisphere, and island territories around the globe.
Which set us up to become a super power after the world wars.
So the next time someone asks you why those four people are on Mount- Wait, what about
the Mexican-American war or…
Hawaii and Alaska?
Sigh, am I really going to have to make another one of these?
Okay fine… at least for now, you know better.
Hey guys I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be live streaming and commenting on
the State of the Union address Tuesday night, much like I did with the final debate.
But if you liked this video or you learned something, make sure to give that like button
a click.
If you’d like to see more from me, I put out new videos every weekend, so make sure
to imperialize that subscribe button.
But in the meantime if you’d like to watch one of my older videos, how about the one
that’s been floating around for the last few seconds?