Robert E. Lee Boy Scout Council, Richmond, VA, to be Renamed. More PC for the Boy Scouts...

WRVA Radio ^ | 5/13/03 | VMI70

[VMI70]

This past weekend, my son and I went on his troop's annual father-son hike. His troop is one of many in the Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which is headquartered in Richmond, VA.

On Sunday, during the church service at the end of the hike, it was announced that the Council directors had voted to change its name from The Robert E. Lee Council, which has been in use for many decades, to something else.

This morning, the news broke on the local radio station: WRVA 1140 AM, Richmond's Morning News with Jimmy Barrett.

[WhiskeyPapa]

An absolute outrage. Robert E. Lee, while a loyal Virginian, who served the Confederacy with distinction was, for his time at least, no racist, and opposed chatel slavery.

Lee was clearly a supporter of slavery and class distinction. He couldn't even conceive of a beginning of the end of slavery. President Lincoln could.

But who gets attacked on FR?

Walt

[samuel_adams_us]

Why did he burn down our farm when my family, all doctors, were treating his injured men?

[SCDogPapa]

I KNOW you have something there! :)

[samuel_adams_us]

Instead of WhiskeyPapa you should be VodkaPapa as you are most definately of soviet origin.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The heritage CLEARLY was and IS hatred.

There were slaves in the north also.

Blacks could vote in five northern states in 1860. The slave power was determined to get away from any combination that could elect a president publicly opposed to slavery.

Walt

[Gopher Broke]

God Bless General Lee...what a statesman and Virginia Gentleman!

[samuel_adams_us]

Walt, doesn't slavery still exist in the north today? It would seem that cities like Baltimore, New York and many others in the north continue to hold down their black population.

[Grand Old Partisan]

I'm talking about the South of the 1860s. The 1860 Republican ticket got ZERO votes in the solidly Democrat South of the day. And the blacks and the southern Unionists were not Democrats -- they voted GOP as soon as they could. The Confederate rebels were all Democrats.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

>>"barbarously the rebels acted in treating Union POW's and loyal Union men, who were murdered by the hundred and hanged by the dozen respectively, but it is still true."

I admittly don't know a whole lot about the Cival war. I have learned a lot more since I moved to Georgia. Maybe they should rename it to Sherman instead of Lee. It is amazing and a testiment to real leadership that America has become so united since the war ended. There is some animosity but more than most countries have been in the past and present. Somebody the other day told me that Ohioans may not be treated so badly in the South until I told them Grant, Sherman were both born in Ohio.

[ConstitutionalConservative]

"I can only assume that you are a victim of ..... propaganda, or you are willingly pushing an interpretation based on
skewed information."

And I assume the same of you sir!
Actually, I never said that the southern leaders werent bigoted, racist, or whatever one would choose to call them.
I would admit that by today standard most if not all were. My problem with the anti-south pro-north crowd is that they wont admit the same of their own leaders. MOST all white folks during the 1861-65 war(north and south) would be considered racist by todays standards.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Come on Walt, Sherman rode through the South and burnt home after home and killed anyone that remotely looked like a Reb.

That is simply not true. Can you name one?

And as I indicated before, Sherman favored a soft peace:

"To his delight, and probably amazement, [rebel SecWar] Breckinridge saw that Sherman went far bevond Reagan's opening proposal, and instead offered virtually everything that he had been working For in his own reconstruction plan. Indeed, the terms were practically identical to what Campbell had proposed independently to Lincoln, suggesting the common origin of both proposals in the discussions Breckinridge and Campbell held back in February and March, and that the secretary of war had pressed them hard on Sherman now. When it came to recognizing the existing state governments, Sherman did at least have before him the example of what had been started in Virginia, not knowing that Lincoln and Campbell's plan there would soon collapse, but on most of the other concessions there was no precedent. Sherman even omitted any mention of emancipation. Perhaps Breckinridge in fact did seduce Sherman in some degree, and years later Sherman himself recalled how "those fellows hustled me so that day,"

Now the proposal of universal amnesty made no exceptions for Davis and his leaders, which the day before Sherman told ]ohnston was impossible. Undoubtedly Breckinridge and Johnston appealed to Sherman's vanity in their discussions by portraying him as potentially a great peacemaker, for within hours, when he wired his terms to Grant for approval, Sherman almost boasted that his cartel constituted an absohne submission. "The terms are all on our side," he wrote his wife that afternoon: "I can hardly realize it." His work that day would "produce Peace from the Potomac to the Rio Grande."

Once the three stood agreed on the terms, Sherman and Johnston signed it and Sherman called for copies to be made for their two governments. He then he spoke to the two Confederates of Lincoln's assassination. Johnston confided to Sherman his horror at the deed, fearing it would be blamed on the Confederates, and that Lincoln might have been their greatest ally in reconstruction." Stepping outside to their now mingled escorts, they found the news generally known, as Sherman introduced the two of them to his staff, and Breckinridge and Reagan discussed it with some of their followers. The postmaster said he hoped no connection between the murdered and their cause would be found, or it should go hard for them, while Breckinridge said Lincoln's death at this time and in this manner must precipitate great calamity for them. "Gentlemen," he told them, “the South has lost its best friend." At once he wrote a message to be taken by courier to Davis, announcing the assassination and what he called the "dastardly attempt" on Seward. As soon as he got back to Goldsboro and the telegraph, he would send a wire with more details Sherman also took Breckinridge aside privately and advised him that despite the provision for universal amnesty in their agreement, he doubted that the North would allow it to apply o the civil leaders. If they could, they had all better leave the country especially Davis. Noting that there was particular hostility toward Breckinridge since, as one-time vice president, he was the highest ranking living civilian to go over to the rebellion he advised the Kentuckian to be sure to get away. Breckinridge replied that he would give the Yankees no more trouble on his own account, and that he would attempt to get Davis and himself and the rest out of the country as soon as possible.

-"An Honorable Defeat" pp.166-67 by William C. Davis

Walt

[HELLRAISER II]

I bet the people that bitch the most about changing the names because they are offensive to them or their race wouldn't have a minutes trouble naming it Sherman or Lincoln even if that meant it was offensive to us Southernors. The truth of the matter is we Whites especially Southern Whites deserve scourn an punishment for what our Great, great, great Grandfathers did, at least in their own miniscule brains.

[samuel_adams_us]

You are a liar, that scab killed several of my relatives. I am living proof you are a liar.

[Corin Stormhands]

Why do you think that North Carolinian opposed negro equality?

You got a list of anybody in the North that wanted negro equality?

No. No you don't. Not even Lincoln.

Freedom maybe. Equality no.

[WhiskeyPapa]

My problem with the anti-south pro-north crowd is that they wont admit the same of their own leaders.

Who ever says anything else? It's clear that most people of the day in 1860, north or south, had no use at all for blacks.

President Lincoln said as late as December 1862 that he strongly favored colonization.

Is anyone you know denying that?

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

You are a liar, that scab killed several of my relatives. I am living proof you are a liar.

Arguably, some of your relatives survived.

Do you not have handy the names of these murdered relatives?

Walt

[annyokie]

My grandmother always refered to Sherman as the Anti-Christ for what he did to Atlanta. Talk about overkill.

[samuel_adams_us]

Your statement alone proves that you lied, you are asking for my relatives names so you know it's possible. Check out the last name of Truluck, you will see that some of my relatives died at the hands of the butcher you are so proud of.

[robowombat]

This is I fear another example of Political Correctness being used to conduct cultural clensing of those figures and events not in consonance with the Gramsian campaign to produce the appropriate construct that America is the land of the guilty redeemed only by a handful of feminists, civil rights activists, left wing politicians and crusaders for the gay culture.

It is not surprising that R. E. Lee should be at the head of the cultural hit list. A profoundly conservatve man embued with a belief that in the teachings of Christianity lay man's best hope for improvement in this world and salvation in the next Lee's very existence is a rebuke to the cultural marxists and those who truckle to them.

Lee was, first and foremost, a Christian. He understood human imperfections and made allowances for them, and he was genuinely concerned for the well-being of everyone - even the enemies against whom he fought. Lee also believed in rewarding and promoting those who did their work well. Knowing all of this is key to understanding his leadership.

There are two mysteries about Lee, that perhaps have become clouded with the passage of years. The first is the fact that he fought against U.S.A.. Lee opposed secession, but opposed even more the idea of forcing the Southern states to remain in the Union at gunpoint. He considered himself a Virginian first and foremost, and when push came to shove, he could not take up arms against the Old Dominion state, where so many of his relatives and friends lived. At no time was Lee enthusiastic about the war; even in fighting, he sought to bring the war quickly to an end. Lee refused to permit his men to steal from or to harm any civilians, even in Union territory, and even though some Union soldiers had no such qualms about Confederate civilians.

The second mystery is his relationship with slavery. Lee opposed slavery and saw it as a moral evil. Even so, he wanted to abolish slavery gradually, because he was concerned that the former slaves should have the means to provide for themselves before they were set free. In this, he opposed the abolition movement, but he was no defender of slavery. This is no where better stated than in a letter written in late 1856 in response to a message by President Pierce.

Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:
I was much pleased the with President's message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war.

There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist!

While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?

Lee's character, though more complex than that embodied by the "marble man" image, remains about as fine as one can find in a public figure, then or now. The essense of Lee wsas his sacrifice to fulfill what he believed to be his duty. "One should never underestimate what the War Between the States cost Robert E. Lee . . . his home, his career, and virtually all his worldly goods," As Charles Crocker writes.

The South may have succumbed to overwhelming military force, but it triumphed in at least one sense. It produced perhaps the greatest symbol to come out of America's most disastrous conflict, someone who combined combat and moral excellence and who, once defeated, worked to heal the wounds of war. It is a record that deserves to be constantly recognized and commemorated

[Corin Stormhands]

The Confederate rebels were all Democrats.

Democrats of the day perhaps. But you are being disingenous with your implications that they equate with the Democrats of today.