ROBERT E. LEE'S DEFINITION OF A GENTLEMAN

My Archives ^ | 19th Century | General Robert E. Lee in a letter to one of his sons

[Non-Sequitur]

I've studied a great deal, obviously more than you. How about some answers to my questions?

[sarasmom]

"Too much of the History of the Civil War has been written by self-serving historians. For example, the myth of Southern culture. No doubt, up to 1800 the Southern had a great intellectual culture. It is unbelievable had rapidly such disappeared and can be tracked by measures like state funding for universities and in numerous other ways. The principle lesson, today, is how rapidly things can change."

Is it so very hard for you to acknowledge the utter devastation the war caused to the Southern states? The rapes, pillage and horrible destruction was of course unimportant to the Northern states ,where it did not occur.I would guess by your posts you think the South should have just shrugged off the ruthless,wanton destruction.So be it.I was thoroughly enjoying this thread untill I came across your vicious "defense of lincoln" posts.

So to you-and those like you, who pick and choose the parts of history you will believe, here is my favorite NATIVE AMERICAN rebuttal.

"Yall get off my lands and take your slaves with you"

[Aric2000]

And the south did NOT start the war, Lincoln did, or did you think that restocking Ft. Sumter, when a deal had already been made to restock it's foodstuffs locally, was NOT a preemptive start by Lincoln. He chose to start the war, Your hero Lincoln, or did you think that the firing on Ft. Sumpter was all the Souths doing?

[Ulysses]

It may be one of those "true" stories that never really happened, but I read somewhere that General Lee overheard some of his officers telling off-color stories in camp one evening. When he rebuked them for it, one officer groused, "Sir, there are no ladies present!"

To which Lee replied, "Sir, there are gentlemen present!"

Maybe apocryphal, maybe true, but pretty neat, nonetheless!

[sarasmom]

rape & pillage" (not that frequent),

LOL

History revision?A usefull para-phrase of an old saying:To those who remember-no furthor explanation is needed.To those who refuse to remember-no explanation is furthor possible.

[Non-Sequitur]

...or did you think that restocking Ft. Sumter, when a deal had already been made to restock it's foodstuffs locally,

Here is a website on the entire Sumter crisis. You'll notice that at the end of March the decision was made by the confederate government to cut off all communications including food to the fort. Your lack of knowledge about the cause that you defend so loudly is quite remarkable.

[Aric2000]

Again, you have not read letters written by Lincoln congratulationg the fact that they were able to get the south to strike at Ft. Sumter. I have read that letter, as well as the fact that Ft. Sumter had indeed made arrangements to get foodstuffs from the south, but Lincoln could NOT afford for that to happen so he jinxed the deal.

Indeed, the history is written by the victor, and I guess the North was as pure as the driven snow....NOT!!!

[Non-Sequitur]

Ah you must be referring to the letters from Lincoln to Gustavus Fox. Well I have read them and I don't see the same sinister motive that you seem to. In fact you seem to be falling into that sothron crybaby habit of blaming everything on the north. You all want the world to believe that you were tricked into firing on Sumter which, if true, would have been a remarkable stupid thing for the south to fall for and hardly something to brag about. Yet you do. Go figure.

[Aric2000]

I am not a pretender that the south was as lily white as the North has always claimed to be.

But I know for a fact that the North was wrong for going to war with the south over secession, Lincoln ignored the constitution, and agreed to the wholesale slaughter of thousands for federal power. Lincoln is the reason that we have the federal government we have now, IT IS HIS FAULT!!

And if you fail to agree with that, then you are deluding yourself.

[Non-Sequitur]

It's you who is the delusional one, IMHO. As I've pointed out on previous posts much of what you claim is just flat wrong and you have provided nothing to support your claims.

[one2many]

I have in my 2 score and 10 years come to realize that what I had been taught in my younger years about Lincoln and the Civil War may in fact be tainted by victor revisionism. I would VERY much like to find a comprehensive and unbiased account ... (NOT PROPAGANDA) of the events that lead up to Fort Sumner, the war itself, why the north did NOT even try to end the war after a few battles but instead decided to "teach the south a lesson" i.e. Sherman's Georgia/ Atlanta march and the restoration. Is there a good place to look for this ?????

Go here and if you are having trouble determining exactly which book suits your purpose e-mail the owner of the site and he will be glad to point you in the right direction.

BTW, he himself is a converted "Southerner"; originally having been mis-educated in the Pacific Northwest!

Best of Luck in your Journey!

[one2many]

Look you seem to have polluted all of the General Lee threads with your skank.

Just answer this one question for me. Is the below:
1. Categorically true
2. Categorically untrue

"Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

[Non-Sequitur]

Try "The Men of Secession and Civil War 1859-1861" by James L. Abrahamson, "Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War" by David Detzler or "First Blood: The Story of Fort Sumter" by W.A. Swanberg. "First Blood" is the easiest read of the three.

[MK]

General Lee's Letter To Lord Acton Defending the Constitutional Sovereignty of the States

Below is the text of a letter written by former Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Lord Acton, the famous British "classic liberal" statesman. Although General Lee implied he was willing to accept the outcome of the late war, he expressed his earnest hope the states could still retain the rights guaranteed by the original Founders.

Lexington, Virginia 15 December 1866

Sir, -- Although your letter of the 4th ulto. has been before me for some days unanswered, I hope you will not attribute it to a want of interest in the subject, but to my inability to keep pace with my correspondence. As a citizen of the South, I feel deeply indebted to you for the sympathy you have evinced in its cause, and am conscious that I owe your kind consideration of myself to my connection with it. The influence of current opinion in Europe upon the current policies of America must always be salutary; and the importance of the questions now at issue in the United States, involving not only constitutional freedom and constitutional government in this country, but the progress of universal liberty and civilization, invests your proposition with peculiar value, and will add to the obligation which every true American must owe you for your efforts to guide that opinion aright.

Amid the conflicting statements and sentiments in both countries, it will be no easy task to discover the truth, or to relieve it from the mass of prejudice and passion, with which it has been covered by party spirit. I am conscious of the compliment conveyed in your request for my opinion as to the light in which American politics should be viewed, and had I the ability, I have not the time to enter upon a discussion, which was commenced by the Founders of the Constitution and has been continued to the present day.

I can only say that while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional party of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free nation.

I consider it a chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.

I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the Federalist and Democratic-Republican parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism.

The New England States, whose citizens are now the fiercest opponents of the Southern States, did not always avow the opinions they now advocate. Upon the purchase of Louisiana by Mr. Jefferson, they virtually asserted the right of secession through their prominent men; and in the convention which assembled at Hartford, Connecticut in 1814, they threatened the disruption of the Union unless war should be discontinued.

The assertion of this right has been repeatedly made by their politicians when their party was weak, and Massachusetts, the leading state in hostility to the South, declares in the preamble to her constitution, that the people of that commonwealth "have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free sovereign and independent state, and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, or may hereafter be by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in Congress Assembled." Such has been in substance the language of other State governments, and such the doctrine advocated by the leading men of the country for the last seventy years.

Mr. Chase, the present Chief Justice of the U.S., as late as 1850, is reported to have stated in the Senate, of which he was then a member, that he "knew of no remedy in case of the refusal of a state to perform its stipulations," thereby acknowledging the sovereignty and independence of state action. But I will not weary you with this unprofitable discussion. Unprofitable because the judgement of reason has been displaced by the arbitrarment of war, waged for the purpose as avowed of maintaining the Union of the States.

If, therefore, the result of the war is to be considered as having decided that the Union of the States is inviolable and perpetual under the Constitution, it naturally follows that it is as incompetent for the General Government to impair its integrity by the exclusion of a State, as for the States to do so by secession; and that the existence and rights of a State by the Constitution are as indestructible as the Union itself.

The legitimate consequence then must be the perfect equality of rights of all the States; the exclusive right of each to regulate its internal affairs under rules established by the Constitution, and the right of each State to prescribe for itself the qualifications of suffrage. The South has contended only for the supremacy of the Constitution, and the just administration of the laws made in pursuance to it.

Virginia to the last made great efforts to save the Union, and urged harmony and compromise. Senator Douglas, in his remarks upon the compromise bill recommended by the Committee of Thirteen in 1861, stated that every member from the South, including Messrs. Toombs and Davis, expressed their willingness to accept the proposition of Senator Crittenden of Kentucky as a final settlement of the controversy, if sustained by the Republican party, and that the only difficulty in the way of an amiable adjustment was with the Republican party.

Who then, is responsible for the war? Although the South would have preferred any honourable compromise to the fratricidal war which has taken place, she now accepts in good faith its constitutional results, and receives without reserve the amendment which has already been made to the Constitution for the extinction of slavery.

That is an event that has been long sought, though in a different way, and by none has it been more earnestly desired than by citizens of Virginia. In other respects, I trust that the Constitution may undergo no change, but that it may be handed down to succeeding generations in the form we have received it from our forefathers. The desire I feel that the Southern States should possess the good opinion of one whom I esteem as high as yourself, has caused me to extend my remarks farther than I intended, and I fear it has led me to exhaust your patience.

If what I have said should serve to give any information as regards American politics, and enable you to enlighten public opinion as to the true interests of this distracted country, I hope you will pardon its prolixity.

In regard to your inquiry as to my being engaged in preparing a narrative of the campaigns in Virginia, I regret to state that I progress slowly in the collection of the necessary documents for its completion. I particularly feel the loss of the official returns showing the small numbers with which the battles were fought. I have not seen the work by the Prussian officer you mention and therefore cannot speak of his accuracy in this respect.

With sentiments of great respect, I remain your obdt. servant,

R.E. Lee

From "Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee," Capt. Robert E. Lee, Jr., Editor (1904)