Robert E. Lee On Leadership

C-SPAN ^ | July 14, 1999 | H.W. Crocker

[Pelham]

Brian Lamb interviews author H.W. Crocker

H.W. Crocker talks about his book 'Robert E. Lee On Leadership: Executive Lessons in Character, Courage, and Vision', published by Prima Publishing. The book profiles the life and career of the Confederate Army General. The author pays special attention to General Lee’s career as a farmer and president of the school now known as Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He examines the general’s character, vision and spirit and how these principles can be applied in today’s marketplace

[Pelham]

“Washington knew what he was doing was a rebellion. He didn’t pretend it was legal. “

So Washington disagreed with the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence?

Or are you saying that there is no attempt in that document to justify what the Colonials were doing?

[This_Dude]

Grant and Sherman? Both of them did. Look it up.

[DiogenesLamp]

If any community, of any size, can leave any time they are frustrated, then there is no reason to compromise and the country will descend into anarchy.

So said England about the colonies obtaining Independence. I think they were less afraid of anarchy, and more afraid that the Southern states would become the new base for Wealth and Power. I've pointed out many times how Southern independence was a dire threat to the money men of that era. (Later known as "robber barons." )

The Confederacy would have first absorbed all the border states and their markets, and it would have eventually absorbed all the territories too. The map of the Confederacy would have came to look like this for a time.

I would agree that parts of a country should be able to separate when the ability to choose one’s leaders is absent (taxation without representation) or by mutual consent.

How many southern states voted for Lincoln? I believe he was elected entirely on the choice of the Northern coalition. Same group that already had congress locked up.

The Southern states could do nothing to change their circumstance, and their circumstance was to serve as the milk cow for New York and Washington DC, through which all of their production money funneled.

I don't know about you, but most people wouldn't like being a milk cow for the Liberal parts of the nation.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

When a government refuses to allow you your natural "sacred right" to leave, if you do it at all he will call it "rebellion."

It isn't...

Then what is rebellion? Are there magic words like "I am invoking my natural rights" or "I declare that my house is a different country now" that make it improper for government to oppose an armed uprising?

[DiogenesLamp]

If you could assemble a jury of voters who approved that constitution and they wanted to decide cases based on the constitution they approved, I would have to take what they said seriously.

If a Jury told me that "Freedom" means "Abortion", I would tell them they are full of sh*t. Again, if it doesn't say "abortion" , then it doesn't mean abortion. That interpretation is ridiculous. It's like claiming a "transgender" male is a female. No he isn't, and accepting an opinion, no matter how many people make up that opinion, is just wrong.

Why don't you get started on that now, since you don't have anything new to say about this.

As the topic of Judicial overreach is seemingly with us forever, it seems to me it will get discussed whether there is anything new to add or not.

I think the idea of interpreting words to mean something that isn't clearly articulated is incorrect, and I am at a loss to understand how you can see it differently.

Does anyone else on this forum believe we should read things into legal verbiage that isn't clearly articulated to mean what someone is forcing it to mean?

Anybody else okay with getting a right to abortion out of language meant to recognize freedom?

[DoodleDawg]

Grant and Sherman? Both of them did. Look it up.

I have. Sherman never owned a slave in his life. Grant owned one that he freed before the rebellion. Grant's wife had the use of several slaves owned by her father but those were gone by early in 1863,

[Pelham]

Washington was appointed a Major of Provincial Militia in 1753 by Royal Governor Dinwiddie. He was the senior aide to British General Braddock. He was later commissioned a Colonel in the Virginia Regiment, a regular unit, not militia. Washington resigned his commission in 1758 and returned to civilian life.

“Lee on the other hand received a free education at West Point and 40 years of employment in the Army of the United States courtesy of the Federal Government”

Apparently you don’t know any Ring Knockers. The military obligation for a West Point Cadet is something like five years for their “free” education.

[Bull Snipe]

Grant did, no doubt, Cite a reliable source that Sherman owned slaves.

[DoodleDawg]

So Washington disagreed with the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence?

Apparently all of them did. None of the Founding Fathers were under any illusions that their actions were legal. That's why the launched a revolution to win their independence.

Or are you saying that there is no attempt in that document to justify what the Colonials were doing?

And what were they justifying? Their rebellion.

[DiogenesLamp]

So you would have us believe.

I'm telling you what the document says. I am fully aware that you will chose to believe what you wish to believe.

But if they give them all up then how can you call them "effectively a nation by our modern usage of the term"?

I see no difficulty in having a nation that requires the consent of the governed. When they lose that consent, it becomes more the relationship between master and slave.

I would think we are all against that in principle.

Nobody challenges some of your crazier quite public assertions either. Doesn't make them right.

When I become a State, I will consider the lack of challenge to be agreement.

You've got nothing but a busted flush.

I guess this is your way of saying you can't find a single document from around 1787 that supports your claim that the constitution forbids independence. Yeah, Madison said such stuff years later, but I am unaware of anyone who said it while the constitution was being ratified. Would have probably torpedoed the whole effort.

Perhaps you can find some sort of statement forbidding independence in the Federalist papers? You should get to looking. :)

[x]

Not only aren't you saying anything new, you're ignoring what I'm saying. A jury in the 1780s deciding a case based on the constitution that it had just approved at the polls and judges approving their decision is a different story from a high court "finding" new things in constitution drafted centuries before.

What I am trying to communicate to you is that I don't think this discussion is going anywhere so I'm not going to continue, but I guess you really are on the spectrum, because you don't seem to be picking up on that.

[DoodleDawg]

So if a jury found a right to abortion in the Kansas constitution, that makes sense to you?

What do you care? Kansas is effectively a nation by our modern usage of the term. Doesn't that give them the right to do what they want? Or so you would have us believe.

[DiogenesLamp]

Washington knew what he was doing was a rebellion. He didn't pretend it was legal.

It wasn't legal under British law, but once we won our war for independence, we changed the paradigm.

Here is a definition for the word "paradigm" for you.

Lincoln changed it back to King George's theory on government, (perpetual allegiance) and away from "Natural Law". (consent of the governed.)

[Bull Snipe]

“Apparently you don’t know anything about ring knockers. The military obligation for a West Point Cadet is something like five years for free education”
Spent 30 years in our Navy, know about ring knockers. Charles Mason graduated first in his West Point class of 1829. He was the class leader. Lee was number two in that Class. Mason served two years then resigned his commission, never to serve again.
Care to enlighten us with more of your wisdom.

[DoodleDawg]

I'm telling you what the document says. I am fully aware that you will chose to believe what you wish to believe.

Of course you are.

I see no difficulty in having a nation that requires the consent of the governed. When they lose that consent, it becomes more the relationship between master and slave.

We're talking about the states being nations by the modern sense of the term. Nations, as we define them today, can do dozens of things that make them sovereign nations which are denied to the states.

I guess this is your way of saying you can't find a single document from around 1787 that supports your claim that the constitution forbids independence.

I never said the Constitution forbids independence. What I'm saying that just because some states made assumptions in their ratification documents doesn't make those assumptions legal under the Constitution.

[DiogenesLamp]

1 - Pride. The wealthy slave owners resented being told they were evil. If you read Thomas Sowell’s essay on Black Rednecks, it is obvious how being ‘dissed’ was viewed in the South.

People don't like being called "deplorables" by their social elite "betters" in places like Boston and New York? Why I can't imagine why that might have bothered them.

2 - Expansion of slavery. The secession documents show the wealthy slave owners wanted slavery to expand, and felt allowing individual states to outlaw slavery unduly restricted their opportunities.

I believed that theory for most of my life. In fact I believed it up until about two years ago when I found out the facts don't support the claim. Slavery was predominantly cotton. Cotton was the only thing making slavery profitable. In what territory will cotton grow? None. (Maybe a teeny bit in Kansas.)

If cotton won't grow in the territories in 2019, then it wouldn't grow in the territories in 1860 either.

I'm going to skip your regurgitation of the secession documents. Only three, perhaps four say anything about slavery being the reason for secession. Virginia's certainly says nothing about slavery, it says they are leaving because the government is trying to make war on states which are exercising their right to leave.

[DiogenesLamp]

Then what is rebellion?

Active attempt to overthrow a government.

Are there magic words like "I am invoking my natural rights" or "I declare that my house is a different country now" that make it improper for government to oppose an armed uprising?

What armed uprising? Did you not forget that the government sent armies into the seceded states, and not the other way around?

As the black people say, "Don't start no trouble, won't be no trouble."

[Bull Snipe]

“they are leaving because the government is trying to make war on states which are exercising their right to leave.” Exactly what had the Buchanan Administration done to make them think that leaving the Union was the only option available to them?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Slavery was predominantly cotton.

Actually it was just slightly more than half. 1.8 million slaves were involved in cotton production, which leaves 1.4 million who were not.

Cotton was the only thing making slavery profitable.

So all of those other 1.4 million slaves were a money-losing proposition? It makes one wonder why people kept buying them, at higher and higher prices, in the non-cotton producing areas.

[DiogenesLamp]

Not only aren't you saying anything new, you're ignoring what I'm saying. A jury in the 1780s deciding a case based on the constitution...

You keep saying the jury decided the case, and I keep telling you that is a pretense. Once the judge allowed the case to go forward on it's ridiculous premise, the jury decision was already fore ordained. No Jury in the world would resist the emotional arguments that would have been brought to bear.

The decision of law was to allow the Jury to even consider this line of argument, and that was the judge's decision.

... that it had just approved at the polls...

Objection! It is speculation that the public approved this interpretation at the polls. I would think if anyone believed the public would have approved this interpretation, they could have clearly stated it in plain language rather than hiding it in decorative verbiage. That Adams didn't write it out plainly implies he didn't think such plain language would pass muster.

... and judges approving their decision is a different story from a high court "finding" new things in constitution drafted centuries before.

Not that I can see. All I see is that we like one decision, and we dislike the other, even though they were made through the very same creative interpretation of words about freedom for citizens.

What I am trying to communicate to you is that I don't think this discussion is going anywhere so I'm not going to continue, but I guess you really are on the spectrum, because you don't seem to be picking up on that.

I believed that you wouldn't want to even engage on this topic because I can see no possible way that you can reconcile what you want to believe in the one case, with what has happened in the other.

Yes, I "get it" that you don't want to talk about this. I knew you wouldn't want to talk about this before I sent you that first message. If *I* were you, *I* wouldn't want to talk about it either, because I see no possible way to defend your position.

I think though that I have made my point, and so I shall accede to your preference to discontinue discussing this "tale of two articles" with you.

Perhaps someone else will try to defend your position. I would relish that. :)