Posted on 01/05/2010 3:28:41 PM PST by BigReb555
He's not the only one. I also recall a group of Union Army re-enactors who were singing a song that was written in the 1870's.
The incorrect year was my typo.
Indeed, he was. in the middle of the month, Virginia celebrates Lee-Jackson Day.
His bad decision was taking the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac.
Interesting questions. I'd guess that the experience of the nation of South Africa might have been what a successful Confederate States of America could have become if they could have managed to last for 100 years.
But with their economic system reliant on agriculture as opposed to natural resources like South Africa, they would have not lasted as an independent nation beyond the Boll Weevil epidemic of the late 19th early 20th Century.
That is only if the ever expanding slave population in the Deep South didn't rise in mass and slaughter them in their beds as happened in Haiti a few decades earlier. It was an untenable economic system.
King Cotton was a bad monarch.
I don't even know what your argument is. Washington was a self admitted revolutionary --- and also IMHO, the greatest man in our history by a long shot. Their is nothing wrong in being a revolutionary if you are fighting against intolerable oppression. It is the ultimate honor to stake ones life in such a cause.
Now if you care to worship Robert E. Lee, be my guest. I really don't give a damn one way or another, but the man's entire life didn't amount to enough to even be a footnote compared to Washington's life. If not for the Civil War, you would have never heard of the man.
Lee was not fighting against any 'intolerable oppression' and he in fact even admitted such. He was fighting for a foolish notion of loyalty to "his state", be it right or wrong, and he basically thought and expressed that he believed that secession was wrong, but he fought for it anyway out of that misplaced loyalty for a cause he did not really believe in.
Lee had all the guts (and skill) in the world on the battlefield, but he did not have the courage to stand against the tide pushed by his social class.
Washington, on the other hand, by nature of his wealth, class and standing had every reason to be a Loyalist, yet choose revolution only because he saw it as the right thing to do and he didn't give a damn what his fellow privileged class thought about him. He was courageous, while Lee was a reluctant follower.
Comparing the motivations of the two men is foolish. Washington was a once in a millennium person to be admired. Lee was a good, honest, talented man who was destroyed by his follies and who we should pity for his error. The pages of history are littered with men like Lee. Men like George Washington are a very rare thing.
Interesting.
I’ve wondered on occasion if Lee ever felt like Hector of Troy.
Basically: “My home’s going to be destroyed. My men will be killed. I will probably be killed. I did not start this mess. But, this is what I must do...”
Suit yourself.
When George and Washington resided in Philadelphia, Pa, they kept slaves with them. There was a law in Pennsylvania if a slave resided over 6 months in the sate they could sue for freedom.
In a letter maintained at Mt. Vernon Martha writes to her niece..Frances..
“Austin,(slave) carries this letter to Mount Vernon so he can visit with his wife and friends.”
They sent Austin with the letter to avoid the law in Pennsylvania.
This makes Washington honorable?
The most honorable man in history.
"The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the bondman above his lord.
[It is] sufficient for the disciple that he should become as his teacher, and the bondman as his lord."
Matthew 10:24-25
In your view, the guy who said these words must be an evil traitor and a Slavocrat.
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