Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech references President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had happened 100 years before. At that point, the United States had allowed slavery for 80 years (plus many years before that under English rule).

But here’s something to consider.

In 1807, Great Britain banned trafficking in slaves, and in 1833 banned slavery in most of the British Empire (there was a business exemption for the East India Company; corporate lobbying is nothing new).

Imagine the human misery that would have been spared if the American colonies had not revolted. Over 50 years of slavery wouldn’t have happened. Tens of thousands of African families would not have been ripped apart, their members shackled and transported across the ocean and thrown into slavery. And the Civil War would not have been fought; 620,000 people wouldn’t have died. The suppression of blacks which followed the Civil War, replete with lynchings and other atrocities up into the 1960s, would not have occurred.

So you have to wonder: was it truly God’s will that America revolt against Britain? I’m just asking.

Romans 13:1-2 states, “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

Did God violate his own Word with America by backing the American Revolution? Was rebellion okay in our case? Is that an example of divine American exceptionalism? Because if God violates his own Word…then that fundamentally changes my faith.

Let me continue musing. In addition to an early abolition of slavery, lots of other things would be different if the American Revolution hadn’t happened. No Louisiana Purchase. No Mexican War land-grab (Texas would probably still be part of Mexico). Most likely, the atrocities of the Indian Wars would still have happened (as did similar suppression in Australia). America would still have been the Land of Opportunity to millions of immigrants from all parts of the world; it would have just been a smaller America. Though maybe we would have merged with Canada. The United States would have gained independence sometime during the 1900s. We would have gotten into World War 2 much quicker.

Really, that alternate what-if history would not be bad at all. Vastly different, but nothing to complain about.

Just musing.