Posted on 08/27/2017 8:39:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
There’s been a lot of talk about the Civil War lately, given the left’s furor over Confederate statues and whatnot. These statues and monuments have long existed without any such uproar, so we can assume it’s the leftist cause du jour only because there’s little meat left on the “Russia collusion” bone, so the media is sticking to its go-to strategy of fomenting racial division.
But what’s most interesting about all of this is that the people offering the most historically ignorant comments about the Civil War generally preface their statements with “people should learn their history,” or something to that effect.
Take Keith Boykin, for example, who stated what is perhaps the most historically ignorant comment about the American Civil War that I’ve ever heard, and given the deluge of historically ignorant commentary on the subject in recent times, that’s saying something.
On Don Lemon’s CNN panel, Boykin was clearly bothered by the fact that Ben Shapiro suggested that the Confederate statues are a “local issue.” Boykin followed with this splendidly stupid statement:
We can’t celebrate the history of a man named Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis, who took up arms against the United States of America. I don’t know where everybody else draws the line, but I draw the line there. It is very possible to distinguish what Robert E. Lee did, what Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson did, from what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson did. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, though they were slaveholders, never took up arms against the United States of America.
It boggles the mind that it’s necessary to point out something so simple. When George Washington took up arms against the King George III’s army, there was no United States of America to take up arms against.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
We are going to get the zot? You are an embarrassment and have been flying under the radar for years now.
Sorry son, It did no such thing. The matter of secession was not settled and the US Constitutions is still silent on the issue.
I would agree, because Lincoln could not have imposed his will on Lee the way he was able to with McDowell.
In have always wondered what might have happened if Lincoln had met with leaders in Virginia instead of calling for the 75,000 volunteers. Virginia had voted down the session ordinance the first time. Without Virginia only the cotton states could have been counted on. The resulting conundrum would have been excruciating and the outcome uncertain, but different individuals could have emerged who are not part of history.
No, you don’t see statues of Washington in the U.K. But that’s because he was not a regional hero for British subjects of the Isles. A better analogy to Lee would be, perhaps, William Wallace. He took up arms in a failed rebellion against England, and yes, statues of him still exist in Scotland, just as statues of Washington would likely exist in the Americas had the Americans lost their war for independence.
I stand by my point. It’s silly to bring this up as if it signifies a meaningful distinction between Lee and Washington. In fact, Lee, like many Americans at the time, believed secession was legal, precedent defined in the Declaration (though he opposed actual secession in 1861). Washington and Lee, and their efforts toward independence, were more similar than they were different. Ironically, it could easily be argued that Lee’s effort had more support in law.
He is, however, entitled to express this point as pithy stuff, just as I’m free to point out that it’s a ridiculous argument.
Still here. Sorry.
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