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Fighting against taking those statues down shows an inability to understand that some causes don't deserve honor. The Confederate cause should be remembered, not honored.
what was their cause? that they wanted to be independent......this wasn't really a civil war.....a civil war was China, 2 sides fighting for control of the whole country. The South just wanted to leave the Union and be independent and be left alone.......isn't that what Washington and a few rich white colonists who were slave owners did?
Fighting against taking those statues down shows an inability to understand that some causes don't deserve honor. The Confederate cause should be remembered, not honored.
Bingo.
For everyone who falsely believes that Confederate states were not seceding in order to maintain slavery, read these excerpts from some of the Confederate states Declarations of Secession:
Quote:
Georgia - The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
Mississippi - In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
South Carolina - We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
Texas - Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association.
Virginia - The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.
Alabama - And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as a permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,
Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled , That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the fourth day of February, A. D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security.
Governor of Tennessee - This decision of the highest judicial tribunal, known to our Government, settles the question, beyond the possibility of doubt, that slave property rests upon the same basis, and is entitled to the same protection, as every other description of property; that the General Government has no power to circumscribe or confine it within any given boundary; to determine where it shall, or shall not exist, or in any manner to impair its value. And certainly it will not be contended, in this enlightened age, that any member of the Confederacy can exercise higher powers, in this respect, beyond the limits of its own boundary, than those delegated to the General Government.
Louisiana - As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of an¬nexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.
Can't get much clearer than that.
I think it's ironic that the very people who cry "They're trying to erase history!" have been guilty of not addressing REAL history like this.
Folks - the Confederacy was not an honorable cause to kill Americans over.
That is the thing. "Worshiping" a guy like Lee isn't healthy. He was worshiped by anyone who wasn't a slave or former slave. He might have commanded his men to stop fighting. However, this is the question. Does it change his decision to fight for the enemy? Does it change that the Confederate cause was a cause rooted in keeping slavery? I can only look at this from the bottom line.
I tried to explain to you WHY he wasn't punished AT.THE.TIME.
Quote:
Originally Posted by green_mariner
Fighting against taking those statues down shows an inability to understand that some causes don't deserve honor. The Confederate cause should be remembered, not honored.
If you are talking about confederate cause, then you get no arguments from me. However, this thread is about Gen. Robert E Lee. (an individual)
Like I posted earlier
The true Act of Greatness that supports all the other notions of Lee’s positive place in our history is his Surrender, and General Order #9, in which he essential prevented a guerrilla continuation of the war, one that might have gone on for years and destroyed America.
Also, a General can be great, and admired as a military tactition even if he fought for the “wrong” side or even the losing side. Examples could be Erich von Manstein and Erwin Rommel.
Just because the mindless racists use Gen Lee as a racist icon (for lack of a better description here), doesn't mean he should be viewed as one. It certainly doesn't mean he should be demonized.
AMERICA (is a continent) used to belong to Britain....Britain was the rightful government of the 13 colonies and Washington took an oath and committed treason not because he wanted to free people and make a democracy like the fake history they teach in public schools but because of taxes and him and a group of rich colonists who were slave owners wanted to run things and control the resources and the land they were about to steal from the Natives.
We don't know how the British would have treated Washington and Jefferson decades after the war and after their deaths. If the Queen pardoned them and they help the crown under reconstruction of the 13 colonies and they help both sides reconcile after the war then odds are the British would have let Virginia honor them decades after their deaths as part of the history of Virginia.
They didn't put statues of Robert E. Lee when he was alive or right after the war, we are talking about decades later after his death.
The Natives took arms and fought the federal government, they were considered enemies of the U.S. at the time.....should we also take out their statues and monuments decades later and ignore their history in this country.
Actually, NORTH AMERICA and SOUTH AMERICA are continents. AMERICA is short hand for the United States of America. And the whole continent of North America wasn't ruled by Britain. Many parts were ruled by the French and Spanish.
I know about George Washington fighting for the freedom of those living in the 13 colonies. I've been taught that in school going back to the early 1990s. And as an American, Washington would not be a traitor to me.
What happened with the Native Americans is not the same thing. What happened with the indigenous as technically them being invaded, and then them fighting back. The Confederates, however, different story. They were never invaded. They did what they did as a breakaway state.
Back to Washington, yes, the Queen did pardon him. She didn't have to. The USA became its own nation. It became independent. At that point, George Washington was no longer under British jurisdiction. The Queen or King couldn't do anything else.
Something else. There is a big difference between being a colony and being a state. A state has full representation is essentially the nation. A colony is ruled by another nation without full representation. Colonies rebelling vs states rebelling, different cases. A colony is like being a step child. A state is like being a blood-related child.
You cannot compare the Founding Fathers to Robert E. Lee. You cannot compare either of them to the Native Americans. Quit bringing false equivalencies into this.
For everyone who falsely believes that Confederate states were not seceding in order to maintain slavery, read these excerpts from some of the Confederate states Declarations of Secession:
Can't get much clearer than that.
I think it's ironic that the very people who cry "They're trying to erase history!" have been guilty of not addressing REAL history like this.
Folks - the Confederacy was not an honorable cause to kill Americans over.
funny, you should read the Corwin Amendment passed by the North and supported by Lincoln in 1861. It made slavery a constitutional state right and the feds could NEVER interfere......the North passed it by a majority so the South would return to the Union, the South didn't and Lincoln and the North decided to kill many people in the South and destroy the South to force them back in the Union......I guess that was honorable....
It had to do more about taxes, tarrifs and control of the revenues of the south. Lincoln and the North could care less about slavery and the slaves.....the Corwin Amendment proved that and it gets ignored over and over.
Actually, NORTH AMERICA and SOUTH AMERICA are continents. AMERICA is short hand for the United States of America. And the whole continent of North America wasn't ruled by Britain. Many parts were ruled by the French and Spanish.
I know about George Washington fighting for the freedom of those living in the 13 colonies. I've been taught that in school going back to the early 1990s. And as an American, Washington would not be a traitor to me.
What happened with the Native Americans is not the same thing. What happened with the indigenous as technically them being invaded, and then them fighting back. The Confederates, however, different story. They were never invaded. They did what they did as a breakaway state.
Back to Washington, yes, the Queen did pardon him. She didn't have to. The USA became its own nation. It became independent. At that point, George Washington was no longer under British jurisdiction. The Queen or King couldn't do anything else.
You cannot compare the Founding Fathers to Robert E. Lee. You cannot compare either of them to the Native Americans. Quit bringing false equivalencies into this.
you are splitting hairs my friend because of your bias against the South......the North and Lincoln don't have clean hands and they didn't send troops down South to kill and destroy for the slaves.
In all fairness your argument is lousy. Resigning your commission is not the same thing as taking up arms against the U.S. government. They are 2 different things.
What you are essentially saying is that a U.S. military member who resigns from the military after meeting his commitment and becomes a corporate executive (or a teacher or a minister) is the same thing as a U.S. military member who resigns from the military after meeting his commitment and then joins ISIS in the war against American forces in the Middle East.
Those 2 scenarios are radically different - and that should be apparent to anyone. Lee didn't just resign his commission - he took up arms against the U.S. government.
As I've said, I respect and admire Lee and understand that the times were different then and that back then Americans' loyalty (not just in the South but in the North as well) often lay with their state first and the U.S.A. second. That's a very different argument than the one you are trying to make however.
Your argument just won't fly.
Ken
What I said was... when he resigned his commission he was under no obligation to serve any longer. He had fulfilled his obligation and was now free to go home and do whatever the hell he wanted to do. Dispute that.
Yes, I understand the point the poster was making.
One of the reasons why Lee wasn't punished is that he did not really commit any war CRIME, also, you cannot say that he wasn't an honorable military man while he was serving in the military.
Lee and all or virtually all other U.S. Army officers who joined the Confederacy did in fact resign in proper fashion before becoming Confederate officers or officials.
at the time, southern enlisted men, bound by their terms of service to a certain number of years in the Army, could not resign at will.
They either had to wait for their discharges in due course or desert if they wished to join the Confederates. Many stayed in and, if I understand this correctly, ( feel free to correct me if I am wrong) most were shifted to frontier duties so as to avoid putting them into battle against their friends and neighbors.
For everyone who falsely believes that Confederate states were not seceding in order to maintain slavery, read these excerpts from some of the Confederate states Declarations of Secession:
Can't get much clearer than that.
I think it's ironic that the very people who cry "They're trying to erase history!" have been guilty of not addressing REAL history like this.
Folks - the Confederacy was not an honorable cause to kill Americans over.
I've posted alot of these things myself. Oddly enough, when I was in school, I rarely heard of these documents. I know that I was taught that slavery was a big factor in the Civil War. I just didn't know to what extent.
In addition to what you posted, the Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens.
Quote:
Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
This was a war where Americans fired on other Americans. The war tore this nation apart. And with addressing things like this, the more evidence such as what you've posted it put up, the more it's ignored, or in some cases downplayed.
Fighting against taking those statues down shows an inability to understand that some causes don't deserve honor. The Confederate cause should be remembered, not honored.
Find it very fascinating the Democrats created chaos when the statue went up and they're the same ones tearing it down, again causing chaos. The party of dysfunction and always going against their own said values. Robert E. Lee would never have wanted the statue in the first place. Just another way for Dems to discredit military men, to start with a General and not Robert Bryd. I have taken this to all be fake outrage to keep the party alive and hateful.
This below is a uneducated response, a quote I saw...........
"In a public place, if it is offensive and people are taking issue with it, let's move it. Let's put it somewhere where historically it fits with the area around it so you can have people come to see it, who want to understand that history and that individual,"
It would be more accepted if it were, that a discussion had taken place and it would be better fitted to complete history, that these statues should be in a museum. Instead, we have snowflakes......"some people may be offended", this is NOT how decisions or policies should take place.
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