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The pro-Republican conservative Washington Times tries to whitewash the legacy of the pro-slavery confederate Robert E. Lee.
I can’t imagine why more blacks don’t vote Republican.
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I’m pretty sure Lee wasn’t a slaveholder, although when he married Mrs. Lee, she had slaves - I believe he freed them.
Not saying he was an abolitionist, but he wasn’t Nathan Bedford Forrest, either.
THAT being said, your “I can’t imagine why more blacks don’t vote Republican” still rings quite true.
I don’t think Lee is the problem - his leadership ability and gentility are models to be studied and honored today. Some of the comments cited in your link by the pro-Confederacy whackadoos, that’s the problem.
The only thing I would suggest that is less than enviable about Lee is his decision to place his loyalty more in his state (Virginia) than his nation. Lee himself didn’t own slaves, but felt that it wouldn’t be honorable to fight against his “home” by becoming commander of the Union army (as he was offered at the start of the war by Lincoln). This perverse notion of state before country (best exemplified these days by Texas, IMO) has caused a lot of problems later on (particularly in the refrain of “states rights” being code for “keep the darkies in chains”).
The only thing I would suggest that is less than enviable about Lee is his decision to place his loyalty more in his state (Virginia) than his nation.
Those were different times.
Recall that at the founding of the nation, the states were separate and autonomous. They banded together only by mutual agreement. The recognition of states as members in a federation was far stronger in Lee’s day.
Not saying it was right. Just saying that a “state first” loyalty represented mainstream thinking in those days.
Lee on slavery in 1856 -
“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former.”
Lee on the coming Civil War in 1861 -
” Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for “perpetual union” so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution.”
It is true that Lee saw slavery as an evil that we would have to live with for the forseeable future and took no anti-slavery actions even though he was troubled by it. Of course the same describes Washington, Jefferson, and all the best southern leaders from 1776 to 1865. And since the second Lee quote shows he was opposed to the establishment of the Confederacy, he is a very strange choice to be given as the poster child for Southern Confederacy slavery and racism.
Yes, he did fight with the people of his state against the federal government, which given the circumstances was the wrong choice, but hardly marks him as Mr. Symbol of Evil. And I wonder, if Pres. Bush did something like suspend the 1st amendment and some liberal controlled states states responded by denying the athority of the Bush government over them (i.e. succession), would liberals in those states really fight to re-establish the authority of the Bush tyranny in those states? Might they even fight against the federal government in that circumstance?
P.S. To answer an earlier question, Lee did own slaves.
I always thought it rather ironic that Lee’s excellence as a general ultimately hurt the South more because by prolonging the war. The South ended up suffering much physical destruction in the last months of the war.
In May of 1862, the Confederate army under Joe Johnston had been pushed almost to the outskirts of Richmond. Johnston was wounded by a shot fired by an unknown Union soldier, and that is what brought Lee to command of the Confederate army.
Cazart, et al… I think alot of you miss the point - intentionally or unconciously… Lee was a major leader and contributor to a cause who’s ROOTS were the subjugation and exploitation of others to support their beliefs/way of life/status quo… whatever.
Check it out… I can still admire his tactical/political skills while overwhelmingly condemning the cause/value system he fought for.
G’head, right more books and movies… but to tell the “truth” of his tory then you must also acknowledge and admit the bad… like most folks in retrospect.
There are alot of people who I think are a**holes, but it can’t be denied that they accomplished “great things” capice?
Lets see…
Lee betrayed his oath and took up arms against the government he had been educated by and had sworn to defend.
But he was an Honorable man
Lee used his abilities to defend and ateempt to perpetuate a system of genocide that was, and is, indefensible.
But Lee was not evil.
Lee issued orders stating that any Black northern soldiers would be shot as spies even if captured while in uniform.
But Lee was a admirable soldier.
So to recap lee was in the end a losing treasonous murderer a piece of immoral scum defending an inhuman system.
But don’t let facts get in the way of fantasy’s and myths.
What a frakin MORON you are ollie.You and al and the rev jesse are a disgrace to all people, not just blacks.
Here’s how it works: From time to time, The Washington Times writes articles that are not favorable to Democrats — that makes it a “Republican” newspaper. A “Republican” newspaper is, ipso facto, a conservative newspaper.
Someone, not anyone associated with The Washington Times, is sponsoring a symposium to ask a question:
And, “Presto!” “Chango!” “Hocus Pocus!”
The Conservative Bond With Racism
This way to the Egress
Ken - Does your list of men who took up arms against the rightful/legal government and used their abilities to protect a society based on slavery include Washington, Jefferson, etc. since that pretty much sums up what they did? The list of “treasonous murderers and pieces of immoral scum defending an inhuman system” becomes quite large once you add all the southerners of 1776.
Yes, the political/social basis of the Confederacy was rotten, but that is more to be laid at the feet of the political leaders and average voters of the time, not the soldiers, especially a soldier who made clear at the time he thought the political leaders were making a big mistake. And if Lee still went with what he considered his primary loyalty to Virginia, well, I think liberals today should be able to muster some sympathy for military men caught in the position of fighting a war they may not believe should have been started, but still fighting it to the best of their abilities.
Counterlogic by your logic the SS were hero’s because they “just followed” thier political leaders. The Chinese soldiers at Tianemmen Square were “just obeying orders” not to mention the torturers of Pinochet, the Serbian butchers in Bosnia who massacred women and children a proud group of people that scum such a lee can stand with.
Remember that it was lee who issued orders to slaughter African American prisoners and choose to betray his country to defend slavery.
In 1776 the war was not to defend slavery. That was the price that the morally defiecent south asked for so as not to sell out the rest of the country.
Military can, and should, be held responsible for thier crimes. Trying to lay all the blaim on others is assuming that soldiers are mindless brainless robotrons who because of thier profession are rendered blaimless of any crimes and atroicities. What a deal to be able to murder and hold oneself blaimless. To be able to fight for genocide and remain innocent. To actually run concentration camps and remain morally pure.
That logic is tripe.
Robert E Lee inherited slaves from his father-in-law.
He would train them in a job and manumit them to Ohio or someplace where they could start over.
He didn’t believe in slavery but he also didn’t want to just cut them adrift unless they could care for themselves.
Robert E. Lee was a traitor to the United States. Confederate apologists are racist scumbags. Nothing vicious little conservatives can say alters that reality.
Ken - Of course military people are responsible for their crimes. The German military people who ran concentration camps or actually committed crimes were rightfully tried for it after the war. However, we did not try, nor consider guilty, German generals who did not commit crimes and we saw as just fighting for their country (Rommel, etc.). If you show me that Lee’s army acted like the Serbians in Kosovo by his orders, or at least to his approval, I will join you in condemnation of him. Otherwise associating him with them looks like just an attempt to imply guilt by false association that could be used against almost any general.
And since you admit the southerners of 1776 were fighting, at least partly, to defend their slave-based society, and that was my point, I don’t have any argument with you on that; other than to add that the southern soldiers who fought to protect that “morally deficient” society from England were not, IMHO, automatically war criminals just because of fighting for a morally deficient side. They were most undeniably traitors, however (as the King of England would have been delighted to tell you).
A friend of mine was on the St. Charles leg of a streetcar route here in N.O. When it got to Lee Circle, a small child asked his dad (pointing to the statue), “Dad, who’s that?” The father replied, “A loser.”
Confederates were nothing more than traitors who were more concerned with upholding slavery than upholding the Constitution. As such, I’m glad they lost and all the wannabes alive today can fuck straight off.
Please don’t tell me this is why blacks vote for Democrats.
counterfactual
Besides the fact he betrayed his country to defend genocide.
He issued orders that African American Union Soldiers be executed as spies. That qualifies with the scum of the earth.
Lee led the last army to shoot U.S. soldiers in the face on U.S. soil. Instead of burning the traitor alive, we named parks, roads, buildings, schools after him. Quaint.
We also name parks after the traitors Washington, Jefferson, Hancock etc. Have Ken and Bruce forgotten that this country was created by traitors to the legal goverment in England. Should they have been burned alive also?
I would love to get a reference from Ken on his charge of Lee’s army shooting African American USA soldiers as spies. I did a quick google on it and couldn’t find anything.
Counterfactual: Although Gen. Lee was not directly involved, he might be talking about the Massacre at Fort Pillow.
How quaint to defend a treasonous loser like lee the right would rty to compare him with Washington and Jefferson.
Some differences
1) lee was a loser.
2) all lee was fighting to defend was genocide.
3) Washington et.al only started to fight after the king had repealed the rights of the citizenry in appointing Governors, suspending legislative bodies, refusing to allow Militias ( not individuals) to be armed to defend themselves ( French War) boarding foriegn troops in civilian homes and other offensives whereas the lee betrayed his country because of the result of an election. But don’t let facts get in your way.
By the the massacre at Fort Pillow was an exampleof southern “honor” but it was repeated in the battle of the crater and orders issued by Lee in 1865 that any African American captured would be executed as a spy even if they were in uniform. No single event such as the Fort Pillow atroicity occured because of this just a number of individual murders justified by orders.