Trump: 'Robert E. Lee was a great general'

The Hill ^ | 10/12/18 | CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO

[yesthatjallen]

President Trump praised Confederate Geader Robert E. Lee as "a great general" on Friday during a campaign rally in Lebanon, Ohio.

"So Robert E. Lee was a great general. And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee," Trump said before launching into a monologue about Lee, Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

"He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story. But Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, 'I can’t beat Robert E. Lee,'" Trump said.

"And he had all of his generals, they looked great, they were the top of their class at West Point. They were the greatest people. There’s only one problem — they didn’t know how the hell to win. They didn’t know how to fight. They didn’t know how," he continued.

Trump went on to say, multiple times, that Grant had a drinking problem, saying that the former president "knocked the hell out of everyone" as a Union general.

"Man was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognized as a great general," Trump added.

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 13, 2018 Trump has drawn criticism for his defense of Confederate statues, including those of Robert E. Lee.

He drew widespread condemnation last year following a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., saying that white nationalist protesters were there to oppose the removal of a "very, very important" statue.

"They were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said at the time. “This week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”

Trump, speaking at another rally in Ohio last year, said that he can be one of the “most presidential” presidents to hold office. "…With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” he said to a crowd in Youngstown.

[central_va]

Um. I take it you were never in the Military or an officer ?

Lee is the guy they all study for examples of basic infantry tactics.

[central_va]

We are at the point were the Federal is so corrupt and the bureaucracy is too powerful to fight and beat politically. All the "checks and balances" are just about gone, thwarted. The second and in my opinion the most powerful line of the defense is states assuming autonomy which is the ultimate a "check and balance". Secession is the answer but sadly most haven't realized it yet. The clock is ticking.

[jmacusa]

Big deal. The guy was still a loser.

[DiogenesLamp]

What is ridiculous about a constitutional requirement? I didn’t write it. I didn’t ratify it. I’m just pointing out what all parties agreed to.

[DiogenesLamp]

What has law got to do with any of this? The law is what people in control of the army says it is. Don’t you agree?

[Bull Snipe]

Not to mention a long line of veterans now in the local communities on 1 leg or missing an arm, or wounded is some other horrible manner. The effects were the same North or South, enlistments tapered off after the cold hard brutality of the war became apparent. But throughout the war, volunteers still made up the vast majority of the soldiers. Figures I saw some years back indicated that between 8-10% of the Union Army and maybe 10-12% of the Confederate army strengths came from drafted men.

[DoodleDawg]

What is ridiculous about a constitutional requirement? I didn’t write it. I didn’t ratify it. I’m just pointing out what all parties agreed to.

Didn't read either apparently.

Look, we've had this discussion before. You claim Lincoln's actions were unconstitutional; and then I point out that he was acting under the authority granted the government by the Confiscation Acts, the constitutionality of which were upheld by the Supreme Court in The Prize Cases (67 US 635) in 1862; to which you will reply something about a biased Supreme Court, blah, blah, blah; and nothing will be accomplished. I'm just short-circuiting your plans by not playing.

[DoodleDawg]

Both men also admired Ulysses Grant as well. Eisenhower called him the greatest general of the war.

[Bull Snipe]

twenty five years in the U.S. Navy, retired as a Lieutenant Commander. Yep, Malvern Hill and Pickets Charge are textbook examples of basic infantry tactics at it’s finest.

[BroJoeK]

wardaddy: "Notice how they simply come over en masses and take over a thread."

But not until after you cr*pp*d all over the thread with your insane post #95.

wardaddy: "According to the half dozen south bashers here now holding each other’s Johnson."

I'm definitely a Dwayne fan, but I leave holding him to others.

wardaddy: "Is Trump a Lost Causer?
Or worse a Nazi sympathizer
In the past nearly all these folks have gone down that road."

Rubbish on "Nazi sympathizer", but "lost causer" & "pro-Confederate" are accurate descriptions of you (not Trump!) and nobody I've seen has objected to them.
Do you?

Another term often used was "neo-Confederate" but you folks raised such a big fuss about it you don't see it on FR CW threads anymore.

And what idiot names do you people call us?
"South haters" -- a lie.
"Yankeefa" -- another lie.
"Lincoln worshipers" -- ridiculous.
"Northern leftists" -- nonsense.

[BroJoeK]

wardaddy: "Ewell made a huge mistake
Lee should have been emphatic
Napoleon would not have let that happen"

What's this??
A word of criticism against RE Lee?
How does that happen, especially after you stank the thread up with your posts #95, 113, 117, 198, etc. condemning others for daring to mildly criticize Lee?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "All the Founders were traitors."

And would have been hanged as such had they lost the Revolutionary War.
So how many Confederate leaders got hanged?

[BroJoeK]

jmacusa: "And I’m glad they lost!
Look what they were fighting to preserve.
An economic system based on the use of slave labor."

DiogenesLamp: They didn't have to fight to preserve that.
That was the law in the Union.
Staying in the Union would have preserved it."

Not according to Fire Eaters' "Reasons for Secession" documents which make clear that protecting slavery's future against "Black Republicans" was their number one concern.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The rule seems to be [from DOI]:

"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

The key word here being "destructive" which along with "necessary" is fully defined in the DOI's listing of some two dozen specifics.
Not even one of those specific conditions existed in 1860 to justify Fire Eaters' declarations of secession at pleasure.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Lincoln opened fire on them first by sending a war fleet with orders to use it’s entire force to put men and weapons into fort Sumter."

A lie which DiogenesLamp well knows but repeats endlessly anyway.

In fact, Lincoln's order to his commanders was the same as he directly told SC Governor Pickens: no first use of force.

Confederates fired first to seize Fort Sumter, resulting in six Union casualties (7%), two of whom died.

The Union seven percent casualty rate is equivalent, for example, to British losses at the Battle of Yorktown, 1781.

[BroJoeK]

jmacusa: "So the North ‘’invaded’’ the south.
So why was Lee in Maryland and the Pennsylvanian?"

DiogenesLamp: "Two years after the Northern Armies invaded the South?
Why do you suppose they would want to give anyone a taste of their own medicine?"

DiogenesLamp well knows that Confederates first assaulted the Union in Union states long before any Union army "invaded the South".

1. Those attacks began with illegal seizures of Federal properties in Southern states before they declared secession.
   
2. They continued with attacks on & killing of Union troops in Union Maryland and Missouri.
   
3. In all of 1861 by two-to-one there were more battles in Union states & territories than Confederate, and more Confederates died invading the Union than defending the Confederacy!

All of which DiogenesLamp well knows but can't acknowledge because it contradicts his "poor Confederate victims" narrative.

Typical Democrat.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You keep trying to make it about slavery, and you keep ignoring the fact that slavery was legal in the Union, and it remained legal in the North longer than it did in the South."

No, it was Fire Eaters' "Reasons for Secession" documents which first focused on slavery to justify secession.
And protecting slavery was the reason Confederates never did (until far too late) what both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln did: enlist African-Americans as fighting soldiers in the United States army.
Why?
Because Confederates well knew that enlisting blacks meant promises of freedom after the war, promises which would negate the very reason for a Confederacy in the first place.

Republicans, by stark contrast, were the party of abolition and used whatever opportunities presented to advance that cause -- the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation, for example.

DiogenesLamp: "You want to make it about slavery, because you have no other argument to justify the Northern armies invading the South."

Rubbish, the US went to war in 1861 for the same reasons as many other wars -- because we were attacked, period.
Slavery was part of the mix from the beginning, but didn't become primary until well into the Civil War.

[BroJoeK]

ontap: "You do realize there were slave states in the north don’t you!!
You do realize Lincoln did nothing to free those slaves."

Except pass the 13th amendment -- I'd call that a lot more than "nothing".

ontap: "You do realize Grant owned a slave and did not free him till after the war!!!"

Grant was given one slave in 1857.
He freed that slave in early 1858.

ontap: "You do realize Lincolns first choice was Lee!!"

The commanding general of the US Army, Gen. Winfield Scott's first choice was his fellow Virginian, Lee.

Fellow Virginians:


ontap: " So his first choice was a slaveholder and his final choice was a slaveholder!!!"

Some people claim that Lee himself didn't own slaves, they were his wife's.
Grant's wife also owned slaves, though she said not after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and her husband's appointment as Union Army commander.

[wardaddy]

You’re a silly man

[BroJoeK]

ontap: "Since when are facts considered moral relativism."

If you had any facts to back up your claims here, that might be a factor.
But sadly, you don't.

ontap: "Sorry pal but northern slave owners are the same as southern slave owners."

Except the Union slaveholders never declared secession & war on the United States.
That's why they kept their constitutional protections of slavery until overturned by the 13th amendment.

ontap: "And freeing slaves you have no jurisdiction over while you pass on the ones you could actually free smacks of political chicanery!!!"

The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in Confederate states at war against the United States, then the 13th amendment freed all US slaves.
No "chicanery", political or otherwise, involved.