How many people did ol' Jeff Davis slam in jail? How many civil rights did that tyrant abuse? Oh, we get to forget about him because he was "doin' it for ol' Dixie." Hogwash. If Lincoln had done what he should have done in 1861, the war probably wouldn't have gone on as long as it did. Instead, he tried to "be nice," encourage the South to return, rather than immediately going after the heart of the rebellion, slavery.
I wonder just how much Washington and his cohort of traitors to the duly-constituted government of King George of 1776 would appreciate the comparison. Perhaps they would just smile at the irony and recall Ben Franklin's remark at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention: "A republic, if you can keep it." Lasted about three generations...the rest has been just a prolonged denouement.
Why wasn’t Bobby Lee and Jeff Davis tried for treason? Because that would put the legality of secession on trial, and the US would have lost that trial making the entire war illegal.
Good post.
How many people did ol' Jeff Davis slam in jail? How many civil rights did that tyrant abuse? Oh, we get to forget about him because he was "doin' it for ol' Dixie."
It's all supposed to be excused and swept under the rug because it was all us "good ol' boys" who don't really mean any harm.
And everything was going to turn out all right if only Lincoln had caved in completely to what we Southerners wanted, because we were the good guys -- just a bunch of guys who sat around in the garage talking about guns until Lincoln sent the army down to break things up.
If it hadn't been for evil Abe history would have stopped and we'd be living in some 19th century libertarian paradise, except that the pesky slavery thing would have disappeared on its own.
Or so the story goes. It's not really history. It doesn't have the irony and tragedy of history. It's just group self-esteem in action.