Posted on 01/18/2005 5:57:53 PM PST by wagglebee
All the South has ever desired was that the Union, as established by our Forefathers, should be preserved, and that the government, as originally organized, should be administered in purity and truth.
--Robert E. Lee
Why do Americans continue to remember their past?
Perhaps it is because it was a time when truth was spoken. Men and women took their stand to give us the freedoms we now enjoy. God bless those in military service, who do their duty around the world for freedom.
The Hall of Fame for great Americans opened in 1900 in New York City. One thousand names were submitted, but only 29 received a majority vote from the electors. General Robert E. Lee, 30 years after his death, was among those honored. A bust of Lee was given to New York University by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
Let America not forget January 19, 2005, the 198th birthday of General Robert E. Lee.
Robert E. Lee was born at Stratford House, Westmoreland County, Virginia, on January 19, 1807. The winter was cold and fireplaces were little help. Robert's mother, Ann Hill (Carter) Lee, was suffering from a severe cold.
Ann Lee named her son Robert Edward after her two brothers.
Robert E. Lee undoubtedly acquired his love of country from those who had lived during the American Revolution. His father, "Light Horse" Harry, was a hero of the revolution and served as governor of Virginia and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Members of his family also signed the Declaration of Independence.
Lee was educated in the schools of Alexandria, Virginia. In 1825, he received an appointment to West Point Military Academy. He graduated in 1829, second in his class and without a single demerit.
Robert E. Lee wed Mary Anna Randolph Custis in June 1831, two years after his graduation from West Point. Robert and Mary had grown up together. Mary was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington and the adopted son of George Washington.
Mary was an only child; therefore, she inherited Arlington House, across the Potomac from Washington, where she and Robert raised seven children.
Army promotions were slow. In 1836, Lee was appointed to first lieutenant. In 1838, with the rank of captain, Lee fought valiantly in the War with Mexico and was wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec.
He was appointed superintendent of West Point in 1852 and is considered one of the best superintendents in that institution's history.
President-to-be Abraham Lincoln offered command of the Union Army to Lee in 1861, but Lee refused. He would not raise arms against his native state.
War was in the air. The country was in turmoil of separation. Lee wrestled with his soul. He had served in the United States Army for over 30 years.
After an all-night battle, much of that time on his knees in prayer, Robert Edward Lee reached his decision. He reluctantly resigned his commission and headed home to Virginia.
Arlington House would be occupied by the Federals, who would turn the estate into a war cemetery. Today it is one of our country's most cherished memorials, Arlington National Cemetery.
President John F. Kennedy visited Arlington shortly before he was assassinated in 1963 and said he wanted to be buried there. And he is, in front of Robert E. Lee's home.
Lee served as adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis and then commanded the legendary Army of Northern Virginia. The exploits of Lee's army fill thousands of books today.
After four terrible years of death and destruction, General Robert E. Lee met General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, and ended their battles. He told his disheartened comrades, "Go home and be good Americans."
Lee was called Marse Robert, Uncle Robert and Marble Man. He was loved by the people of the South and adopted by the folks from the North.
Robert E. Lee was a man of honor, proud of his name and heritage. After the War Between the States, he was offered $50,000 for the use of his name. His reply was "Sirs, my name is the heritage of my parents. It is all I have and it is not for sale."
In the fall of 1865, Lee was offered and accepted the presidency of troubled Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. The school was renamed Washington and Lee in his honor.
Robert E. Lee died of a heart attack at 9:30 on the morning of October 12, 1870, at Washington-Lee College. His last words were "Strike the tent." He was 63 years of age.
He is buried in a chapel on the school grounds with his family and near his favorite horse, Traveller.
A prolific letter writer, Lee wrote his most famous quote to son Custis in 1852: "Duty is the sublimest word in our language."
On this 198th anniversary let us ponder the words he wrote to Annette Carter in 1868: "I grieve for posterity, for American principles and American liberty."
Winston Churchill called Lee "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived." Lee's life was one of service and self-sacrifice. His motto was "Duty, Honor, Country."
God Bless America!
If it seems that I fail to see the logic in your arguements it may be because I often fail to see any facts that back them up. There were no negotiations because there were no negotiators. The Hartford Convention did issue a declaration, which was read into the record of the House and Senate, but there was no delegation making demands of the Administration and there were no threats made to secede. And if you have any evidence to the contrary then by all means bring it out.
You're arguing a straw man, though...because the fact is that it is well known there was serious talk of secession, if not for the efforts of moderates to attempt a two-pronged approach of demands and negotiation first.
And from what I've read of the convention, talk of secession was voted down very early on as premature. No threats of secession are apparent in the declaration itself. Again, if you have any information to the contrary then by all means trot it out.
Read the tenth Amendment, though.
...only the Supreme Court can rule if Lincoln's actions were Constitutional. Not you, not me.
So I suppose that a total ban on speech, private-home quartering of air force personnel (since they aren't explicitly mentioned) or even army personnel, etc., are "Constitutional" to you, since the Supreme Court hasn't made rulings on them?
Fine, define it that way if you want, but you look foolish and/or disingenuous. What term do you want to use for those things that are obviously clear in the Constitution and don't require any SCOTUS decision to understand (e.g., suspension of habeus corpus is a Congressional power)?
I have. Have you?
So I suppose that a total ban on speech, private-home quartering of air force personnel (since they aren't explicitly mentioned) or even army personnel, etc., are "Constitutional" to you, since the Supreme Court hasn't made rulings on them?
On the contrary, the Supreme Court has ruled on free speech cases. I'm not aware of any troop quartering cases, but there may have been. But the Constitution explicitly states that troops cannot be quartered in private dwellings without permission. The Constitution does not explicitly state that the President cannot suspend habeas corpus, and even the current Chief Justice has pointed out that the Court has never ruled definitively that he cannot.
What term do you want to use for those things that are obviously clear in the Constitution and don't require any SCOTUS decision to understand (e.g., suspension of habeus corpus is a Congressional power)?
Clear because you claim that they are? The clause in questions states that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in the case of rebellion or invasion the public safety requires it. Nowhere in that clause does it state that only an act of Congress can suspend it. So the question of whether or not the president can suspend it is unclear. That would make it a question for the Supreme Court to decide, not you. And the court never took the matter up.
Oh...so they DID consider it, huh? Gee...that's just what I was saying...
In other words, the moderates prevailed, and it was decided to issue the declaration first in an attempt to get concessions, but secession was the option if they didn't.
I'm still waiting to see these proceedings of the secret meetings that you've found. From what I have read, there were no records of the proceedings, only the Report and Resolutions, and general descriptions of what had occurred.
...but there was no delegation making demands of the Administration and there were no threats made to secede. And if you have any evidence to the contrary then by all means bring it out.
Another strawman. It has already been pointed out that the threat to secede was pre-empted by the end of the war! However, if you want an account of the Massachusetts commissioners, here's an excerpt from the uncredited Hartford Convention Wikipedia entry:
Hartford Convention delegates were apparently in favor of New England's secession from the United States, and either forming an independent republic, or reuniting with Britain. No such resolution was adopted at the convention; however, Massachusetts actually sent three commissioners to Washington, D.C. to negotiate these terms. When they arrived in February, 1815, news of Andrew Jackson's success at the Battle of New Orleans, and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, preceded them and, consequently, their presence in the capital seemed both ludicrous and subversive. They quickly returned to Massachusetts.
No, Sherman's army did a great deal of damage to industrial targets like factories, storehouses, railroad facilities, cotton gins, and the like. Items that supported the confederate war effort. What seems to have been badly overblown over the years are claims of damage to purely civilian properties.
I was reading some of the accounts from Carlisle, for example, and it seems the Confederates were rather restrained when they were in Pennsylvania....until they were fired upon from within towns.
How about Hunter's troops in the Shenandoah Valley, too? While the burn marks on Virginia Military Institute might be acceptable, as evidence of an attack on a military target, it's the civilian destruction that garnered complaints.
Found here .
"The meeting opened on December 15, 1814, and was held in secret. Though secession was debated, the action was rejected as premature. The convention did, however, issue a declaration, calling on the federal government to protect New England, and offering several amendments to the Constitution for review by Congress. The final report was issued on January 5, 1815. The amendments were read into the journals of both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, but no action was taken..."
Found here
I should also point out that nowhere does anything you posted support you claim that secession was discussed in Washington.
You might want to read some of the more recent books on the Gettysburg campaign. Both Noah Andre Trudeau and Stephen Sears wrote books within the last year or two, and both detail the confederate behavior in the North, usually in the words of the soldiers themselves. Farms looted, property taken, blacks abducted and sent south to slavery. Lee was forced to issue a general order condemning such behavior and ordering a stop to it, though it continued unabated.
I don't see any real substance in your posts to me on this thread. It's the same old "I'm as good as you are," "You can't pull the wool over my eyes," "Everything you say is nonsense," "Stop blowing smoke in mah eyes," "You hate us because we're Southrons," "One Southern boy can whup 10 Yankees" stuff. A real waste of time.
I was just thinking, OOOoohh, a CW thread!! I'm gonna pop some popcorn!!
Where did I claim secession was discussed in Washington?
Put up or . . .
"Of course it doesn't, but that doesn't mean it wasn't discussed. In fact, were not representatives dispatched to Washington to negotiate such, in addition to the declaration/proposed amendments to the Constitution?"
From The Augusta Chronicle [Georgia] as reported in an 1864 issue of the New Orleans Daily Picayune:
In their route they [Sherman's troops] destroyed, as far as possible, all mills, cribs, and carried off all stock, provisions, and negroes, and when their horses gave out they shot them. At Canton they killed over 100. ... All along their route the road was strewn with dead horses, Farmers having devoted a large share of their attention to syrup making, there is a large quantity of cotton ungathered in the field, which was left by Federals, but there is not a horse or ox in the country, hence the saving of corn will be a difficult matter. At Madison, they broke open Oglesby's office and carried off all his medicines. ...
On going to McCradle's place he [a Georgia legislator] found his fine house and ginhouse burned, every horse and mule gone, and in his lot 100 dead horses, that looked like good stock, that were evidently killed to deprive the planters of them.
...No farm on the road to the place, and as far as we hear from toward Atlanta, escaped their brutal ravages. They ravaged the country below there to the Oconee River. The roads were strewn with the debris of their progress. Dead horses, cows, sheep, hogs, chicken, corn, wheat, cotton, books, paper, broken vessels, coffee mills, and fragments of nearly every species of property strewed the wayside.
...They gutted every store, and plundered more or less of everything. ... Many families have not a pound of meat or peck of meal or flour.
Surely you have something better than that? Based on that it appears that Sherman's army foraged liberally, something that has never been denied, and either took livestock with them or disposed of them to keep them from aiding the confederate war effort. All armies of the time lived off the land, Lee did it in Pennsylvania and Sherman did it in Georgia.
I see that you can't tell the difference between wholesale plundering/destruction and living off the land. I'm sure the Federal troops needed those books, coffee mills, pottery, etc., that they took. Certainly they needed to burn down houses to keep warm. </sarcasm>
If Lee had done the equivalent on the way to Gettysburg then where were all the Northern burned farms, ravaged countrysides, and roadsides strewn with dead "horses, cows, sheep, hogs, chicken, corn, wheat, cotton, books, paper, broken vessels, coffee mills, and fragments of nearly every species of property"? We in the South would never heard the end of it if such had happened.
I've quoted to you before a comment by a Union resident of Pennsylvania of the time that "no wanton destruction of private property was made [during Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania]. This is freely admitted."
Yeah, burning houses and demolishing property is "foraging liberally"... nice euphemism, Non-Sequitur.
Never am I as ashamed to be Yankee-born-and-raised as to see these apologists for the invasion of the southern states.
General Hunter in his recent raid to Lynchburg, caused wide-spread ruin wherever he passed. I followed him about sixty miles, and language would fail me to describe the terrible desolation which marked his path. Dwelling-houses and other buildings were almost universally burned; fences, implements of husbandry, and everything available for the sustenance of human life, so far as he could do so, were everywhere destroyed. We found many, very many, families of helpless women and children who had been suddenly turned out of doors, and their houses and contents condemned to the flames; and in some cases where they had rescued some extra clothing, the soldiers had torn the garments into narrow strips, and strewn them upon the ground for us to witness when we arrived in pursuit.
General Hunter has been much censured by the voice of humanity everywhere, and he richly deserves it all; yet he has caused scarcely one-tenth part of the devastation which has been committed immediately in sight of the headquarters of General Meade and General Grant, in Eastern Virginia.
And from a Confederate private in Early's army about the destruction by Hunter:
We had seen a thousand ruined homes in Clark, Jefferson, and Frederick counties - barns and houses burned and private property destroyed
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