Posted on 05/10/2010 3:17:06 PM PDT by Davy Buck
"If Lee was a traitor (and I don't believe he was), he would be the only traitor for which a ship in the United States Navy was ever named. He would be the only traitor in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. He would be the only traitor whose image was used in a positive way to recruit military personnel to fight and win WWII. Quite an accomplishment for a "traitor", wouldn't you say. . ."
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
Who said he was ?
I think I’ll get me some sweet tea and popcorn and watch this thread re-enact the War Between The States (aka “The War of Northern Aggression” aka “The Civil War”).
Don’t mind me, I’ll try not to get underfoot...
Watch out for the miniballs. Slandering Marse Robert on Confederate Memorial Day will result in a bitter battle.
Okay! I'm going in!!!
Most academics and revisionists.
Most liberal yankee academics and revisionists.
There. Fixed it.
Technically, yes, of course he was. But part of the price of binding this country’s wounds was the necessity of treating this as a lover’s quarrel, an awful and tragic quarrel among brothers.
It is not often that traitors are admired and respected as deeply as he was by his enemies. That respect and admiration again is in part what allowed the country to bind itself back together as one country.
To have chosen to try Lee for treason might have been satisfying to some and might even have been justified at a certain level but the price would have been a permanent wound. The better answer is the answer they chose which was to work toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Just as he led his men in rebellion he led them back into reconciliation. It wasn’t perfect and it took a long time but the alternative would have been yet another war a few years down the road.
Your blogger doesn't know what he's talking about, though. "Presentism" indeed.
If you'd asked around in the 1860s, you'd find a lot of people telling you Lee was a traitor, a renegade, or a seditionist, more people than would argue that today.
The revisionism wasn't in attacking Lee but in turning him into a national saint years after the war.
Fortunately, all this happened so long ago that we really don't need to hash it out over and over again every day.
At the risk of reigniting the War of Yankee Agression, the real traitors were those who trampled the Constitution underfoot in order to “preserve, protect and defend”. The ends never justify the means.
That said, is there really much difference between Lee’s stand and the patriots of today? States rights, government intrusion in our lives and the social issues. Would we not stand with a state that seceeded over abortion? I could not, in good conscience, take arms against such a state.
The issue of secession is as valid today as it washas been throughout our history, SCOTUS notwithstanding. The Constitution means nothing if it is a “contract with the devil” - once in, there is no out. There must be options for a redress of grievances. When all else fails, secession must be left open. Else, we are mere slaves to the bureaucrats.
We could ask the same about George Washington and the other US presidents that fought the Red Coats.
He’s one of my Heros to this day....
Stay safe !
Can’t quote a source off the top of my head, but I remember reading a long time ago that secession, per se, is allowed, but, just as the states formed a union by common consent, dissolving the union requires common consent. Had the south taken the route of a legal separation, we might have two nations today; however, they chose armed revolt with tragic consequences.
Lee was not a traitor. He was a General for a Confederation apart from the Union.
Though they were wrong about slavery, the Southern states were within their rights to resist the overreaching of the Federal Govt.
Let’s go for broke: ROBERT E. LEE BELIEVED IN DARWINISM AND WOULD HAVE LOVED THE F-35!
Good luck and keep your head down in the foxholes...
>>Can’t quote a source off the top of my head, but I remember reading a long time ago that secession, per se, is allowed, but, just as the states formed a union by common consent, dissolving the union requires common consent. <<
The Constitution allows for the calling of a Constitutional Convention which could re-form, revise or dissolve the Union. I strongly suspect old TJ was behind that one...
Funny. Am reading Grants memoirs during the civil war. Grant never considered Lee a traitor but an enemy of the “nationals” as he called the union army. Grant admired Lee greatly.
Lee, admired Grant and said that up to that time (just after the Civil War) he found no equal to Grant as a general in history.
Grants problem was his estimation of character of the people under him-as was his problem in his terms as president. Grant would have shortened that war if left alone to do what he wanted just after Shilo.
Halleck/Lincoln were the culprits in making that war long and bloody.
South Carolina tried in good faith to purchase Federal forts and lands. Lincoln refused.
The Union Army began massing large forces at Sumter. Quite provacative.
Robert E. Lee, along with Jefferson Davis, were directly responsible for the deaths of more Americans, over 600,000, then Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, COMBINED!Or how about this gem:
What I find unbelievable and a bit troubling is there are still people pushing the Dixiecrat-Slavocrat agenda on a conservative forum like FR. Otherwise, my post was on the money, again. Lee and his treasonous actions against America is part of the record that most everyone, aside from the hardcore confederate revisionists, understands and accepts for the reality of history it speaks of.I respectfully disagree. I happen to admire Marse Robert, and I don't believe he was worse than Hitler, Saddam Hussein, or Osama Bin Laden.
“Can’t quote a source off the top of my head, but I remember reading a long time ago that secession, per se, is allowed, but, just as the states formed a union by common consent, dissolving the union requires common consent. Had the south taken the route of a legal separation, we might have two nations today; however, they chose armed revolt with tragic consequences.”
The Articles of Confederation did not permit secession without unanimous consent. The Constitution did not have such a requirement. The ironic thing is that the states that signed on to the Constitution were effectively seceding illegally from the Confederation.
The war may be a century and a half in the past, but among Civil War buffs, the smoke never clears, so duck your head, lest you be hit by a Minié ball!
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