Posted on 10/17/2006 5:18:26 PM PDT by bushpilot1
Eisenhower letter regarding Robert E. Lee
President Dwight Eisenhower wrote the following letter in response to one he received dated August 1, 1960, from Leon W. Scott, a dentist in New Rochelle, New York. Scott’s letter reads:
“Dear Mr. President:
“At the Republican Convention I heard you mention that you have the pictures of four (4) great Americans in your office, and that included in these is a picture of Robert E. Lee.
“I do not understand how any American can include Robert E. Lee as a person to be emulated, and why the President of the United States of America should do so is certainly beyond me.
“The most outstanding thing that Robert E. Lee did was to devote his best efforts to the destruction of the United States Government, and I am sure that you do not say that a person who tries to destroy our Government is worthy of being hailed as one of our heroes.
“Will you please tell me just why you hold him in such high esteem?
Sincerely yours,
“Leon W. Scott”
Eisenhower's response, written on White House letterhead on August 9, 1960 reads as follows:
August 9, 1960
Dear Dr. Scott:
Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War Between the States the issue of Secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.
General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his belief in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.
From deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.
Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.
Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Okay...but I still think it you should consider it.
World War II was total war from the Doolittle Raid on...
I agree with dropping the bomb as well.
He earned the spot, I agree, and he certainly outshone several of those who outlived them [Bragg and Hood, just off the top of my head]
But as the commander of Virginia's First Brigade he made it what it was, and as that Brigade's creator and leader, set the textbook example for those tasked with that job. He did indeed go on to greater things, but he may well have been the finest brigade commander who ever lived, and most certainly is near the top of any respectable list of great brigadeers of any time.
Okay, I accept that. But the Army of the Shenandoah was one lethal fighting machine. Just ask the five Union generals that he whipped with regularity.
People who like to twist another's words are usually losing the argument. I never once said anything evidencing a hatred of Lee. He was a man with the moral character of his time, he was a great general, honest in his personal dealings and loyal to the causes he believed in. What I said about him is that he is not worthy of honor. Respect, pity and magnanimity, yes, but not honor or emulation. He fought in the cause of evil. And that you don't recognize that he fought for evil means that you have not fully reconciled yourself with the loss by the south of the Civil War. That is very strange in the year 2006, and usually evidence of either a problem with race relations or of living in a fantasy world of chivalrous southern glory days that were extinguished when the ruthless Yankees exceeded their Constitutional mandate by preventing the free people of the south from leaving the Union.
Regardless of where you come out on states rights, Lee fought for evil. States rights were asserted in 1860 in order to preserve slavery, not for some grand general principle. They were asserted throughout the 1900s in order to preserve Jim Crow. As Barry Goldwater asserted, it is a shame that states' rights have been historically touted by villainous people in dastardly causes, because states' rights in theory are an important part of a federal system. It's when states' rights are used in order to betray the rights of citizens, to perpetuate a system that denies US citizens their rights as Americans, that states' rights come into disrepute. In other words, it's not the concept, but the practice of states' rights as a shield for unlawful treatment of fellow citizens that has been the problem.
The most damage to the federal system came not from the civil war, but from the Roosevelt era, when the commerce clause was expanded to mean anything the Congress wanted it to mean. The Civil War demonstrated that as a practical matter, states could not secede. It did not destroy the federal system, and after the war, states went back to doing the things they do, and the federal government went back to what it did, regulating railroads and shooting Indians. The nature of the relationship between states and the feds did not change substantially until the depression and Roosevelt's radical leftist response.
As I said in a prior post, which you apparently like to twist or ignore, I am understanding of people who were products of their time, including some of my forebears. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the southern gentry in general grew up in a world that had never known anything but slavery. It was accepted in the ancient world, the medieval world, in the renaissance and in the colonial period. It was done in the east, in China, Mongolia, Malaysia and India, and in the west, in Europe, Africa and Arabia. From time immemorial, a conquered people were sold into slavery, if they were not killed outright. It is not unusual or condemnatory that people from the south who prospered or who were born into prosperous families had slaves. But....by 1850 and after, though, once the slavery debate had become well known in educated and relatively modern lands, people in the south needed to start examining their souls and their consciences and thinking a little harder about it.
Part of the glory of the English-speaking peoples is that they were the first to recognize slavery as universally immoral, and to work for its abolition worldwide. That movement was in its infancy in the late 1700s, but became widespread in the 1800s, and it became clear by the middle of that century that slavery was not compatible with a modern, thinking society. Had southerners been willing to phase out slavery over 30 or even 50 years, there probably could have been some kind of compromise that would have prevented war. But they were not--no one was going to tell them to get rid of their slavery! And with the expansion into the west, they were not going to allow new states that were not slaveholding into the Union, because then, in 30 or 50 years, they'd be outvoted, and would lose the institution then!
So they got out while the gittin' was good, while they were still close enough in size to the rest of the Union that they couldn't be outvoted and that they couldn't be conquered--so they thought.
The war was fought entirely to protect slavery, and states' rights were the vehicle to protect slavery, and you apparently regret that slavery was ended. Too bad for you. I am glad that you are among a tiny, tiny percentage of Americans who wish the south had won the civil war, or that the north had let the south secede.
It really bothers you that I think that Lee might have some explaining to do in the hereafter, doesn't it?
Jesus forgave a petty thief who was beside him on the cross. He did not forgive a mass murderer, so it remains unknown and unknowable whether there are crimes that are unforgivable, no matter your view of Jesus as Lord and Messiah. Most denominations believe that faith alone is enough, but not all. I don't profess to know the answer to that one but personally, I hope that child molesters, mass murderers, Islamofascists and the guy who cooked his girlfriend don't get to go to heaven by making a profession of faith. I'll do my best in this life and hope I come out all right. I will try to be as honorable as Lee in my personal dealings, and also try to use whatever talents I have to advance good in this world, instead of slavery or oppression or some other immoral object.
It doesn't change the meaning and import of what the Mercury was saying, though. Nobody doubts that they put things this way: "The issue before the country is the extinction of slavery."
Kobrich's article is pretty good for a college student's. He deals well with the Rawle question, but his article isn't all one-sided.
I'd disagree with his citation of Degler to the effect that US nationalism wasn't a major force in early 19th century America, but his assertion that fostering national feeling in cadets wasn't an important function at West Point is an intriguing one. Maybe the academy promoted an army esprit de corps that outsiders took for strong national feeling.
Please read "Cotton in A Global Economy: Mississippi 1800 - 1860", posted on another thread.
Very Good point
And what country was Washington loyal to, the one he was born in, or the one that did not exist until he helped to form it?
Fine, you win.
The one he helped found, and not the colony/state he resided in. And if founding the second country he was under no illusions that he wasn't committing treason against the first. Something the confederates were blind to.
On the contrary, the south labored under their misconception that they actions were legal and did not consider their actions rebellion at all.
"I would have left that in if I'd had the original text."
You are covering up your intent to publish misleading quotes by acting as if you would have been forthright "if I'd had the original text." The original text is just as readily available as your version, and you are intentionally trying to pass off your quote as valid when it was nothing but propaganda.
Therefore this statement >>> "I do notice that different versions of the quote appear on the Internet" is nothing but a cover up of the fact that you chose a quote that was entirely out of context, and left out the phrase that gave support to my argument.
And here you try again to misrepresent the article: "It doesn't change the meaning and import of what the Mercury was saying"
Of course it does, and you know it.
The Civil War threads usually all disintegrate to the usual suspects using half truths and misrepresentations in an effort to paint one side or the other as entirely evil.
First, I don't what kind of kicks that someone like Non-Sequitur gets from stalking the Civil War threads. It would seem he/she would have something better to do with their lives.
Second, his/her determination to paint the conflict as black and white shows such little understanding for history. It's sad and pathetic.
I pinged him/her here because of Freeper courtesy...but I won't engage him/her because it's an exercise of futility. His/her arguments are just too slippery and are illogical and usually have nothing to do with what we are talking about.
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