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!
A well regulated militia does not include traitors.
They discuss various reasons, the failure of the northern states to abide by their LEGAL agreement as well as economic issues.
So it's your assertion that the Confederate states departed a union which promised PERMANENT slavery, in order to continue it?
It's your assertion that slavery was so despicable, that the Union fought a war to continue it?
The southern states had built protections for slavery into their constitution. Since the proposed 13th Amendment was passed out of Congress months after the southern states had seceeded then why should they have cancelled their acts of secession just because of that.
I agree that slavery was at the root of secession and the Civil War, but the immediate cause for the second wave (VA,NC,TN,AR) was President Lincoln's call for volunteers. Lincoln unified the North, but he helped to bring more unity to the South also. If Lincoln could have held the border states, the rebellion might have eventually ended when a bloodless whimper when the seven states realized their interests were best served in the federal union under the US Constitution.
And it is not my assertation, it is the assertation of the states themselves.
Opening paragraph, Mississippi Declaration of Secession: Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
Opening paragraph, Georgia Declaration of Secession:
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
From the Texas Declaration of Secession: - THIS IS THE MOST DAMNING OF THEM ALL.
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union...She was received into the confederacy...as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.
In all the non-slave-holding States...the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party...based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. ...all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations...
From the South Carolina Declaration of Secession:
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
That seems pretty damn clear to me.
Thank you. That is a point of truth which most Neoconfederate apologists refuse to acknowledge. Anyone who DOES acknolwedge this reality, that SLAVERY was the cause of secession, has my ear on any other arguments they wish to make because I then know that they are at least intellectually honest and can trust their views on other matters as being credible.
That is all I ask.
It's always amazing to see some of the people on this forum who actually think they are Conservative.
"And Grant was an uncultured drunk..."
I believe that when Lincoln wanted to put Grant in charge of the army of the north, one of his advisors stated the exact same thing.......
Lincoln's response was something akin to: "find out what kind of whiskey he drinks and give it to the rest of my generals"
"Robert E. Lee betrayed the United States of America and needlessly was responsible for tens of thousands of American casualties. That this nation chose not to charge him with treason was compassionate conservatism."
Twas hundreds of thousands of casualties. As Lee himself stated, it is good that war is so horrible, lest we grow too fond of it.
History doesn't need your permission to honor Lee. He was a great man. His service to his country and Virginia will never be forgotten. You just choose to remember it wrongly.
For your arguement to be valid, it must be a point of no slavery in the union, and slavery ONLY without the existing union.
If you'll take your blinders off, you'll readily see that it was the failure of the states to abide by their Constitutional agreement as the cause of secession. Slavery, whether practiced in northern or southern states, was an ECONOMIC issue, as the bulk of the economy was dependant upon it. It wasn't for MORAL issues that slavery was dying in northern states, it was simply economics, and the yankee desire to live in a land free of blacks. The Southern states simply got tired of subsidizing the Northern ones, and being bitched at in the process. The South simply divested itself of the nagging, sanctimonious yankees whose continual desire was to have their economy protected, unable to flourish against competition unprotected.
Or is WP whispering in your ear??
History doesn't honor Lee any more than it does Hannibal, and Hannibal was the greater general.
His service to his country and Virginia will never be forgotten.
He betrayed his country. He brought war and destruction on Virginia for the sake of holding human beings whose skin was black to be slaves in perpetuity. Fortunately he lost the war.
You just choose to remember it wrongly.
I don't think traitors, felons, or the mentally ill should be allowed to own weapons at all.
You advocate armed violence against the United States of America and you are concerned with who thinks they are conservative. I hope for the sake of law enforcement you are all hat and no cattle.
Hmmm....this NJ-Neocon showed up about the same time Walt was banned. Very suspicious.
You have claimed, repeatedly, that slavery was NOT the cause of secession.
I have offered a mere sample of the various proofs that this is simply a lie.
Banned poster who used to post snips from documents to "prove" that the Confederacy was simply about preserving slavery.
Just a coincidence, I reckon.
"May I ask you, sir, do you fly the American flag on your porch?"
Porch? that would be a veranda, suitable for sipping mint juleps.
Today, you will find no more patriotic an area than the South, and probably more American flags per capita than NJ.
I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States....not to protect and defend un-American gun-grabbing socialists who seek to subvert it. Keep spouting off about your well-regulated militia.......you sound just like those crap-weasels over at DU.
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