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.

[DiogenesLamp]

your point? Other than habeas corpus, what court cases were bought before the Supreme court during the War, that challenged Lincoln’s authority to conduct the war.

I am not talking about Lincoln's authority to conduct the war, i'm talking about how his authority went beyond it's constitutionally legal limits.

The assertion that everyone in the Confederacy who owned slaves was "guilty" of "rebellion" and therefore could be deprived of their rights is an affront to due process. I also point out that Article IV makes no reference to being conditional. Putting conditions on it that do not exist in the verbiage is an effort to amend the constitution without actually going through the process of amending it.

[Teacher317]

i'm talking about how his authority went beyond it's constitutionally legal limits. The assertion that everyone in the Confederacy who owned slaves was "guilty" of "rebellion" and therefore could be deprived of their rights is an affront to due process.

So in a war, all involved need individual hearings before hostilities can begin? LOL

[Bull Snipe]

The very existence of slavery in the Confederacy was absolutely necessary to support the Confederate Government and it’s war effort against the United States.
It doesn’t matter whether the slave owner supported the Confederacy or not. His slaves were subject to conscription by the Confederate Government and Confederate Army to support the war effort. These slaves built the Warwick line in 1862. The built the extensive fortifications around Richmond and Petersburg. Even if not impressed into Confederate service, slaves grew the food that fed the Confederate armies. Slaves repaired the railroads that moved Confederate soldiers and supplies to the battlefields.
Slaves help build over 50% of all Confederate Army artillery.
Interfering with slavery in any manner is a legitimate exercise of war powers afforded the President.

[DiogenesLamp]

We are discussing the aftermath of the war on this particular point.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "So I wonder if it works both ways.
So when a territory was admitted to the Union, the Union as it existed prior to that territory becoming a state would have died.
Right?"

Very little death involved in adding a new state.
Roughly 700,000 soldiers died trying to extract 11 Confederate states.
Had that proved successful Confederates would immediately claim six more -- Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona & West Virginia -- and for good measure the remaining slave states of Maryland & Delaware giving Confederates 19 states with 12 million population (40% of the total), to the Union's 17 states with 19 million (60%).

Is that the end?
Hardly, as DiogenesLamp points out, a successful Confederacy next closes off Mississippi shipping to all but Confederate states and now there are strong movements in another five populous midwestern states to join the Confederacy -- Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas & Nebraska.
Those could bring up the Confederate population to 16 million, versus 15 million in the Union.

And those Midwest states would cut off the Union from its Western states & territories, especially California, which could soon wonder why it's part of an alleged "United" States which has no serious interest in self-preservation.

So now the "Union" is reduced to a dozen or so states of the Northeast and Upper Midwest, at which point even someone as, ahem, thickheaded as central_va might be embarrassed to claim that Confederates had not "conquered the Union".

Here is yet another vision of what a successful Confederacy might look like:

[DiogenesLamp]

His slaves were subject to conscription by the Confederate Government and Confederate Army to support the war effort.

Sort of like the allies announcing they were going to bomb civilians in WWII? Because civilians support the war effort?

So whether a guy wanted to contribute or not, because we are going to follow Confederate law that declared him a contributor, the Union is going to ignore the part of the Constitution that requires due process?

Interfering with slavery in any manner is a legitimate exercise of war powers afforded the President.

Sounds like the way the Supreme court interpreted the commerce clause in Wickard v Fillburn.

For being a part of the society that voted to leave US Constitutional law, we are not only going to force it back on you, we are going to deprive you of it while we are forcing it back on you! :)

[Bull Snipe]

Yes. There is no second place in war. Lincoln did not confiscate the slaves of the Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware planters. They were not used against the United States. He confiscated the slaves in those states in rebellion and at war against the United States. The United States Government had absolutely no qualms in shooting a Confederate soldier with a rifle in his hand. Even though execution requires due process. Why should they have qualms about taking slaves from their owner. Those slaves were much more valuable to the continued existence of the Confederacy that that Confederate soldier.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The difference between “at pleasure” and “necessity” is completely in the eye of the beholder."

Not at all, it's well defined in the 1776 Declaration of Independence.

You should read it sometime.
Nothing remotely resembling those conditions existed in 1860 when Fire Eaters began declaring secession at pleasure.

[NFHale]

“..Read more into Rommel. ...”

I have. I’ve studied these men most of my life. Including Rommel. With inferior numbers, Rommel defeated three British generals (Wavell, Auchinleck, and Alexander) before Montgomery came along, and Monty ONLY overcame him with massive numerical superiority.

And yes, he served “an evil regime”, but so did Von Mantueffel, von Rundstedt, and other Wermacht (Not Nazi) officers. But that does not negate how they performed on the battlefield, which, again, is what this discussion was about.

Helmuth von Moltke and Otto Bismark were great generals; they destroyed a French army at Sedan in 1870 and took the humiliated French Emperor back to Paris as a captive. How did they do it? They looked at a map, studied the terrain and the French deployment, and used envelopment, which they’d studied from Hannibal at Cannae in school. They were great generals as well. They also killed one hell of a lot of people in doing so.

One could say Friedrich Von Paulus was a lousy general (Field Marshal, by then) for letting himself get surrounded and cut off in Stalingrad and then surrendering the Sixth Army; most of them never returned home from the gulags, ultimately. He followed ridiculous orders from a stupid man, and did not even try to break out when they could have.

“.. I look more at what men do then what they say or is said about them....

And I look at what is studied in the war colleges and schools where officers are taught about warfare and the people who fought those wars throughout history.

Hannibal was a great general. So was George S. Patton, George Washington, William Tecumseh Sherman, Vercingetrix, Sulla, Julius Caesar, Heinz Guderian, John J. Pershing, Arminius, Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Georgi Zhukov, Konstantin Rokossovsky, Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, etc.

Every single one of those men gave orders that were responsible for massive deaths; it’s what happens in war. That fact does not diminish the other facts about their leadership skills, tactics, and strategic thought processes, etc., and why men followed them.

Their actions are taught in schools to teach present and future leaders - in OUR schools of war as well as elsewhere. I can GUARANTEE you that General Norman Schwarzkopf - another great general - studied Guderian and Rommel in the war college and put some of the blitzkrieg tactics to use in the 100 hour ground war in the Desert Storm campaign. I can also guarantee you he also studied Hannibal and the double envelopment and utter destruction of the Romans at Cannae.

It’s easy to sit here, years hence, and second-guess, because we weren’t there, and it wasn’t OUR asses getting shot off. But the people who WERE there thought differently at the time, and followed those men because they respected them and their judgement. Right or wrong, it’s just facts.

You and I probably agree on about 99% of other issues, so I’ll not argue with you further, we’ll agree to disagree.

Have a wonderful evening.

[jmacusa]

My wifes maiden name is Rommel.

[Reily]

Where’s Alexander the Great on your list?

[NFHale]

He’s in Murphy’s Dew Drop Inn down at Fifth and Venango, having a cold beer right now...

:^)

[NFHale]

Any relation? Distant?

[Bull Snipe]

Dozens are the equal of those men named. Any list of “great generals” is a hot topic. Maybe a different thread on a different day.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "No, i’m just tired of trying to debate with a talking parrot which simply repeats the same stuff that’s already been shot down numerous times before."

But you've shot down nothing, not a word, because you're firing only blanks -- all sound & fury but no real "bullets".
By "bullets" I mean: you have no real facts, no logical reasons, no truth-based explanations, only wild historical fantasies you pretend actually happened.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Skip"

Post #410 is especially important in "shooting down" your ridiculous historical fantasies.

That's why you refuse to acknowledge it.

[NFHale]

“...Any list of “great generals” is a hot topic. ...”

True that, brother.

Raises hackles sometimes, for sure!

:^)

[NFHale]

I still chuckle when I remember Schwarzkopf’s briefing, when that reporter asked him about Saddam Hussein being a “great military mind”...

[Bull Snipe]

Remember it very well.

[NFHale]

It was a fine moment... :^)

And Schwarzkopf wasn’t belittling the reporter, either... he just enjoyed the moment.