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Nekokami,
Are we talking about the same New England that pitched the tea in the Boston harbor in 1773 and took part in the first shooting of the Revolutionary War?
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A brief precis on early American history. Active rebellion (shooting at British soldiers) start in 1775 in New England. It quickly spread to all the other colonies. The purpose was to get rid of the British Government from their backs (and wallets). The British first tried to reclaim New England, gave it up as a bad job, and then took New York City as a base of operations for the rest of the war (hi Harry!), They had indifferent success retaking the "foundry" section, even with the help of a high placed traitor and a back door attack from Canada. Then they tried to take the "Dixie" area for two years, and ending up bottled up by the French fleet and surrendering...
The regions were different culturally even then. But they banded together, as Ben Franklin put it - "We must all hang together, for assuredly we will all hang separately."
The victors tried to put together a combined government, that would be a small starved thing, just big enough to do minimal functions. When that proved too weak to function, they make a new one somewhat stronger but still limited, because they feared an all-controlling government, no matter who controlled it. (Sort of "an accident that can't happen, won't happen.")
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This ethos, along with "Manifest Destiny" drove the US until the American Civil War, which totally changed the dynamic. Now the US government was dominant , and the seeds of modern power politics were sown (but it took until FDR to become actualized).
To me, to deny this history and it's formativeness on the American culture, is the same as saying the French Revolution and Napolean, had no effect on French culture or the Magna Carta and the beheading of Charles I had no effect on forming British culture, no matter how far American culture has drifted from it's formative state.
It's just not politically correct to say so nowadays...
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