My question:
Were these statues in place over the 8 years while obama was in office?
So they only became an issue since Trump has been in office? Hummmmmm.......
Washington and Jefferson were slave owners too. Does that mean they didn’t oppose slavery?
General Lee spoke out against the “peculiar institution.”
I believe Lincoln, too, was critical of the abolitionists. At lest the more aggressive ones.
Don’t care, I’m not concerned with slavery.
Are people 200 years from now going to deconstruct the country over who supported abortion?
The whole goal of the crap is to unfound America.
It has to stop now, or we’re headed for war.
I don't see any attempt to denigrate him nor his statues.
Today it is Gen. Lee, tomorrow President Lincoln.
The Doughboys, a segregated army! Oh, my.
WWII still segregated and they interned Millions of Asians! Can’t have that.
And on and on...
Without a history, you do not exist.
>>While Lee disagreed with slavery in an abstract sense, he held views similar to his pro-slavery contemporaries and criticized abolitionists of his day.
File this away for the people who are “personally” opposed to abortion (in an abstract can’t really fathom it sense) but criticize those are against aborting kids. “I’m pro-choice, really, although I wouldn’t have one myself, y’see...”
Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:
I was much pleased the with President’s message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war.
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.
The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things.
How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy.
This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist!
While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day.
Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. ...
Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?
Lee got rid of his wife’s slaves before the war started. Grant on the other hand had slaves and didn’t release them till after the war. When asked why he kept them so long he said “good help us hard to find.”
R.E. Lee did not own slaves in 1860-61. He was the executor of his father-in-law’s estate. His father-in-law left about a half-a-dozen slaves to Lee’s wife, with instructions in the will that they were to be manumitted 5 years after his death (but not before). Lee leased them out, to provide money for his wife, and manumitted them at the expiration of the 5 years, right in the middle of the War. By law, he could do nothing else.
General Lee fought honorably. By this, I do not mean there were no individuals or small units that violated the rules of war. I could say the same about General Grant. We, as a country, have a good tract record of not judging soldiers, but respecting their honorable service.
The radical left, on the other hand, disrespected our soldiers during the Viet Nam era. It should not be a surprise they disrespect the Johnny Rebs.
In their lifetimes, Americans honored Chief Sitting Bull and Chief Geronimo. We did not judge them harshly. Eventually, we came around with Tecumseh as well.
As part of bringing a lasting peace to Europe and to Asia, we honored General Rommel and the Emperor Hirohito, and distinguished the war criminals among the Germans and Japanese from the German and Japanese people.
I could say the same thing about distinguishing the Italian people from the Mafia, and the Hispanic people from the drug cartels.
We are not the racists. It is the Nazis and the Commies who are racists. They are rivals, not opposites. They both covet the ring of power and worship at the altar of the prince of this world.
TRUE
Now, if D'Souza had also maintained that Lee advocated the immediate end of slavery in the South, then that would be false. However that is not what D'Souza said. The fact checkers got it wrong.
.....is an idea that's widespread among LEFTIST elitists today, exemplified by their "tyranny of low expectations" attitude.
BFL
Two comments to this “fact” check: 1) the continuing degradation of current African self-rule, which has devolved into horrific primitive tribal violence and mass murder, is indicative and living proof of the projected outcome of the “unschooled” native Africans vs. the generations of freed American slaves who have risen.
2.) the Left’s constant harping that the only slavery in the Colonies were blacks is a monstrous lie. The fact is, that before the Civil War slaves and indentured servants were considered personal property, and they and/or their descendants could be sold or inherited like any other personal property. Human chattel, indentured or otherwise was governed largely by laws of individual states. And it is very important to note that because of that, the terms of indenture could and were nearly always extended into more than 20 years from the initial contract, and that the owners had total arbitrary and judicial control over the term and its extensions.
This is a point neatly avoided by the great perpetual claimants of victimhood of “slavery”. Indentured servants, who were literally worked to death on plantations (white indentured European servants). Fully one-half to two-thirds of the immigrants who came to the American colonies arrived as indentured servants, and most did not ever claw their way out of permanent poverty and virtual slavery. The Constitution, which is castigated by the “blacks are the only slaves” upheld the indentured servant system which was instigated by the Crown (UK) to clear the streets of England of its “scum”. One was sentenced to “gallows” or “transportation to the Colonies” which included little children/street urchins of London.
This is the truth, and was ongoing for more than 20 years before the first 20 black indentured servants (claimed by historians to be slaves) were landed and their contracts sold in Jamestown,VA.
So, the hated “whitey” in America- if their ancestry is Colonial America, were in fact largely servants/chattel slaves, first appearing in Jamestown in 1607 long before, and then contemporaneous with the actual slave trade begun in Massachussetts in 1640, and legalized in 1664 in New Jersey and New York.
The first “slaves” in the Americas where whites, and you will never hear anything about them in the PC world of fake history. No white privilege among these living permanent servants.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0907_smithgenlee.html
Opinion: U.S. Racists Dishonor Robert E. Lee by Association
Edward C. Smith
September 7, 2001
Historian Edward C. Smith contends that General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate forces in the Civil War, is being dishonored by racists who claim to revere him while also harboring racist sentiments towards blacks. Lee, says Smith, “would not want them, of all people, serving as the self-annointed guardians of his memory.”
The American Civil War—the single most significant event in all of U.S. history—began on April 12, 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor.
The war ended exactly four years later to the day on April 12, 1865 with the formal “stacking of arms” by the defeated confederate soldiers at Appomattox Courthouse.
Three days earlier General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his army to General Ulysses S. Grant on Palm Sunday April 9.
Appomattox Courthouse is a simple little village in central Virginia nearly a hundred miles (160 kilometers) west of Richmond. Visiting the site is a very moving experience. One can almost see the ghosts of the men who were present at the surrender ceremony, knowing that never again in their lives would they witness such a momentous event.
For the South, the central figure in the great conflict was none other than Robert E. Lee.
Two of Lee’s ancestors signed the declaration of Independence. His father, Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, was George Washington’s Chief of Staff during the Revolutionary War. And his wife, Mary Custis, was George Washington’s foster great-granddaughter.
Suffice it to say there was no American family for whom The Union meant more to than the Lees. Nonetheless, like so many others throughout the country (especially in the South), Lee’s loyalty went first and foremost to his state. Consequently, when Virginia left the Union he felt compelled to resign his commission in the United States army—where he had served for more than 30 years—and offered his services to the new army of the Confederate States of America.
Abraham Lincoln was elected on November 4, 1860 and was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. Between his election and inauguration 117 days had elapsed, and during that time in the South a whole new nation had come into existence. The Constitution was entirely silent on the subject of secession. The seceding states earnestly believed that since each one had voluntarily entered into the Union, they reserved for themselves their right—as sovereign political entities—to voluntarily exit from the Union.
Lest we forget, South Carolina left alone and could only hope that other states would follow her lead—and of course ten additional states eventually did, most notably among them was Virginia.
General Lee only fought twice outside of Virginia (where 60 percent of all Civil War battles were waged) and those battles were at Antietam in Maryland (the single bloodiest day in American history) on September 17, 1862, and at the three-day battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, July 1 through July 3, which produced more than 50,000 casualties.
While the North gloriously celebrated July 4, 1863, the South deeply mourned. Not only had it been decisively defeated at Gettysburg, but after a siege of several months, General Grant finally captured—on that same day—the vital town of Vicksburg. The capitulation of Vicksburg literally cut the Confederacy in half. Thus, Union forces controlled the Mississippi River from Minnesota to Louisiana.
Robert E. Lee was a deeply religious man, believing that the hand of God was present in all human affairs. He and General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson had achieved a splendid victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863. Chancellorsville is approximately 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Richmond.
Unfortunately, General Jackson was mortally wounded at night after the battle, mistakenly by his own men. When Lee learned of this he was understandably crushed. They were both West Point graduates, veterans of the Mexican War, and proud Virginians who had evolved into intimate soul mates.
As an aside, I remember reading many years ago that when General George S. Patton (whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy) was reinstated as commander of the American Third Army in Europe, he wrote a letter of gratitude to General Eisenhower in which he said, “Ike, from now on over here you are Lee and I am your Jackson.”
Lee Pleaded with God to spare Jackson’s life and when he died on May 10, Lee was devastated. Could it possibly be that Jackson’s death, only weeks before the Gettysburg campaign, was a divine message to him that he was fighting for the wrong cause?
Interestingly, on May 11, 1864, the day after the first anniversary of Jackson’s death, General Jeb Stuart, who in Lee’s hierarchy was second only to Jackson, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern and died the following day. For Lee these terrible losses were hardly coincidental. He believed that the Almighty had spoken, and clearly not in his favor.
Thus, General Lee entered into the final months of the war without his two most important subordinate commanders. Most of the soldiers continued to bravely fight on, no longer for “country,” however, but for Lee. For so many of them he was “the country.”
Nonetheless, the Army of Northern Virginia was becoming unglued through desertion because so many in the ranks were losing a soldier’s greatest weapon, the will to win, and so many began to sense the inevitability of imminent defeat.
Lee, the epitome of the image of the noble, chivalric cavalier, accepted the loss of the quest for Southern independence with extraordinary grace. With so much of the South wantonly destroyed, he, more so than the vast majority of embittered and vengeful Southerners, knew that the war ended with much more than Northern victory and reunification.
Through victory an entirely new social order was to be established that would alter the relationship between the races forever. Unlike so many other Southerners, Lee embraced the new order. After peace had been achieved through unconditional surrender, the South became a vast, heavily occupied military zone with black Union soldiers seemingly everywhere.
One Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, a well-dressed, lone black man, whom no one in the community—white or black—had ever seen before, had attended the service, sitting unnoticed in the last pew.
Just before communion was to be distributed, he rose and proudly walked down the center aisle through the middle of the church where all could see him and approached the communion rail, where he knelt. The priest and the congregation were completely aghast and in total shock.
No one knew what to do…except General Lee. He went to the communion rail and knelt beside the black man and they received communion together—and then a steady flow of other church members followed the example he had set.
After the service was over, the black man was never to be seen in Richmond again. It was as if he had been sent down from a higher place purposefully for that particular occasion.
Today, and deservingly so, Lee is honored throughout the country. Only Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln exceed him in monuments and memorials.
Unfortunately there are many Southerners who claim to cherish Lee and revere the flag for which he so nobly fought but still harbor rabidly racist sentiments towards blacks and their long delayed social progress. Such people do not honor Lee, instead they disgrace him.
Lee absolutely never felt what these modern Southerners continue to feel—and certainly he would not want them, of all people, serving as the self-annointed guardians of his memory. His lasting legacy, in his own words, is, “Before and during the War Between the States I was a Virginian. After the war I became an American.”
To be an American, at least for Lee, meant to embrace the new social order that the war had established and that the Constitution had codified through the addition of three new amendments which abolished slavery (13th) in 1865, made blacks citizens (14th) in 1868, and awarded black males the right to vote (15th) in 1870.
The last five years of Lee’s life were happily spent as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. He died on October 12, 1870, having witnessed before his death the passing of the past and the birth of a whole new and more equitable America. For the first time Jefferson’s soaring rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence, written nearly a century before, had finally become reality.
Professor Edward C. Smith is the director of American Studies at American University, Washington, D.C., and co-director of The Civil War Institute. He is a regular columnist for National Geographic News and speaker in the National Geographic Society lecture program. He also leads interpretative tours of Civil War sites and other historic locations.
O.K. - so did Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson also did not hold out for the banishment of slavery in the Constitution and Jefferson was a slave owner and an alleged adulterer with a slave of his.
So, Trump is right, should we be calling for tearing down the Jefferson memorial.
Or how about Lincoln, who did “emancipate” slaves but did not change his beliefs that “the Negro” was not the “White Man’s equal” in many ways (not in citizenship, suffrage or socially), though not deserving of slavery. So, lets tear down the Lincoln memorial as well; because “emancipator” or not, he WAS “racist”.
http://www.nytimes.com/1860/12/28/news/mr-lincoln-and-negro-equality.html?pagewanted=all
If they were fighting to stop slavery, they could have started in Maryland. Their supply lines would have been a lot shorter.
The Founding Fathers rebelled. The Confederates simply wanted to leave the Union.
I don't see how you would get "pro slavery" out of this.
My paraphrase would be, "I know that the slaves suffer, but I worry more for the slave owners."
The existing slaves at the time would have seamlessly became citizens, and technology or higher wages would have enabled the South to maintain their cotton industry.
Of course, we probably wouldn't have icons like Michael Jordan or Muhammed Ali either...