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You're taking this way too personally. First off the entire country was founded on slavery. The slave trade was based out of New England. The families who made the most wealth from the slave trade were based out of Newport Rhode Island. It was their wealth that funded the first United States Navy to fight the British. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport,_Rhode_Island
The powerful export economy the South's slavery based cash crops provided to the early United States brought in badly needed foreign currency that allowed the wealth of the United States to grow. Without slave based exports, the US wouldn't be what it is today. If you're ancestors were the slaves that made this happen, then thanks because the US is an awesome country today and its made both our lives better than if I were still in Europe and you were still in Africa.
As for Robert E Lee, you really should read up...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert...#After_the_war
For the cliff notes...
" In his public statements and private correspondence, Lee argued that a tone of reconciliation and patience would further the interests of white Southerners better than hotheaded antagonism to federal authority or the use of violence. Lee repeatedly expelled white students from Washington College for violent attacks on local black men, and publicly urged obedience to the authorities and respect for law and order.[131] In 1869–70 he was a leader in successful efforts to establish state-funded schools for blacks.[132] He privately chastised fellow ex-Confederates such as Jefferson Davis and Jubal Early for their frequent, angry responses to perceived Northern insults, writing in private to them as he had written to a magazine editor in 1865, that "It should be the object of all to avoid controversy, to allay passion, give full scope to reason and to every kindly feeling. By doing this and encouraging our citizens to engage in the duties of life with all their heart and mind, with a determination not to be turned aside by thoughts of the past and fears of the future, our country will not only be restored in material prosperity, but will be advanced in science, in virtue and in religion."
Lee was not only a proponent of reconciliation, but for advancing free education for blacks in general, long before it was popular to do so. It was Lee's popularity among Southerners that enabled reconciliation to take place at all, otherwise the South could have easily descended into perpetual guerilla war on the North. That was Plan B for most organized Southern armies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerri...ican_Civil_War
So what if I'm taking it personally? I have every cause for taking it personally. Most of my ancestors were slaves in the Deep South, particularly Mississippi and Louisiana. Why would I support a cause that is diametrically against me?
Lee might have done what he could to get some reconciliation. However, he would have done even better to stay the course, pick the USA first. He did good things after the Civil War. However, when it came to the Civil War, he went for the wrong side.
No. You're trying to make this a dried out argument over what the war was fought over. I'm telling you it doesn't matter. If all you get out of the war is it was about slavery or good vs evil or whatever narrative you want to create to match your high school history test, then you learned nothing at all. Plenty of civil wars have nothing to do with slaves. I personally don't care one way or the other. Slavery wasn't the worse thing our ancestors have done.
Yes it does matter what the war was about. Fighting for the freedom to keep slavery is a stupid cause. Period. I care what it is over because
1) Everyone should be free, not enslaved.
2) It is a personal matter for me, as my ancestors were slaves.
3) It is hypocritical to say you want freedom, and then enslave someone else.
One more thing. Saying you don't care tells me this: You can't refute anything anyone is saying, but you still want those Confederate statues to stay. It matter why because if you support that cause, you support why it started, and by default, support what comes with it.
Last edited by green_mariner; 03-11-2017 at 03:07 PM..
Yes it does matter what the war was about. Fighting for the freedom to keep slavery is a stupid cause. Period. I care what it is over because
1) Everyone should be free, not enslaved.
2) It is a personal matter for me, as my ancestors were slaves.
3) It is hypocritical to say you want freedom, and then enslave someone else.
One more thing. Saying you don't care tells me this: You can't refute anything anyone is saying, but you still want those Confederate statues to stay. It matter why because if you support that cause, you support why it started, and by default, support what comes with it.
I think your mistaken. I don't support slavery at all, nor any racism for that matter. I'd prefer that George Washington owned no slaves, Native Americans joined the US government in their own free will, and that the South became an agricultural powerhouse by inventing the tractor in the 1700's. However none of that happened. We don't get to pick and chose our history. As it turns out, regardless if I agree with it now or not, the country I live in today (good and bad) is a direct result of all those events. Pretending they didn't exist does me no good. Taking it personally does you no good.
So what if I'm taking it personally? I have every cause for taking it personally. Most of my ancestors were slaves in the Deep South, particularly Mississippi and Louisiana. Why would I support a cause that is diametrically against me?
Lee might have done what he could to get some reconciliation. However, he would have done even better to stay the course, pick the USA first. He did good things after the Civil War. However, when it came to the Civil War, he went for the wrong side.
There were likely more than two types of thoughtviews re: Robert E Lee, both then & now, here are two voices, one is Frederick Douglas, the other is 'Lost Causer' Jubal Early:
Quote:
...After Lee’s death in 1870, Frederick Douglass, the former fugitive slave who had become the nation’s most prominent African-American, wrote, “We can scarcely take up a newspaper . . . that is not filled with nauseating flatteries” of Lee, from which “it would seem . . . that the soldier who kills the most men in battle, even in a bad cause, is the greatest Christian, and entitled to the highest place in heaven.”
Two years later one of Lee’s ex-generals, Jubal A. Early, apotheosized his late commander as follows: “Our beloved Chief stands, like some lofty column which rears its head among the highest, in grandeur, simple, pure and sublime.” ...
I've met both kinds in my travels, I'm sure you have as well.
A letter written by Mr. Lee to his wife in 1856:
Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:
Quote:
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?
While Sherman's march to the sea is typically reviled by Southerners and today would be widely considered a terror campaign, I do think it's a philosophy that would help us win future wars. Most of the wars we've gotten bogged down in lately are because we don't throw everything at it at one time. We credit Shermans march as winning the Civil War, yet haven't seemed to take that lessons learned to apply it elsewhere.
I agree with you here. Sherman's March was a "total war" tactic that I believe needs to be on the table if we are willing to go to war at all. Diplomacy first, but if we're going to fight, fight to win.
To get back on topic, I did not vote because I don't like the options. The fact of the matter is that they intend on moving the monuments, not destroying them. If the majority of residents of New Orleans want to move them to either a museum or a park, I fully support that. Hell, if they want to ship them to a different city altogether, that's their prerogative.
I lived in New Orleans for several years and I can say from my experience racism (from blacks and whites), and income inequality is very stark there. I never paid much attention to either of those monuments, but then again, I felt like a guest in somebody else's house being from the North. If it were my city, I probably would have a stronger opinion on it.
I think it says something that there are threats and insults being made over their removal. Clearly these statues mean a lot to more than just the "leftists".
Yes it does matter what the war was about. Fighting for the freedom to keep slavery is a stupid cause. Period. I care what it is over because
1) Everyone should be free, not enslaved.
2) It is a personal matter for me, as my ancestors were slaves.
3) It is hypocritical to say you want freedom, and then enslave someone else.
One more thing. Saying you don't care tells me this: You can't refute anything anyone is saying, but you still want those Confederate statues to stay. It matter why because if you support that cause, you support why it started, and by default, support what comes with it.
Keep in mind if that's the case, you should theoretically have issue with the United States as a whole. If the US didn't rebel against Great Britain then slavery would have ceased to exist here by 1833. If you're ok with the Washington Monument, you should have no problems with a statue of Robert E Lee.
I agree with you here. Sherman's March was a "total war" tactic that I believe needs to be on the table if we are willing to go to war at all. Diplomacy first, but if we're going to fight, fight to win.
To get back on topic, I did not vote because I don't like the options. The fact of the matter is that they intend on moving the monuments, not destroying them. If the majority of residents of New Orleans want to move them to either a museum or a park, I fully support that. Hell, if they want to ship them to a different city altogether, that's their prerogative.
I lived in New Orleans for several years and I can say from my experience racism (from blacks and whites), and income inequality is very stark there. I never paid much attention to either of those monuments, but then again, I felt like a guest in somebody else's house being from the North. If it were my city, I probably would have a stronger opinion on it.
I think it says something that there are threats and insults being made over their removal. Clearly these statues mean a lot to more than just the "leftists".
For history nuts like me, I don't like the idea of statue removal at all regardless of who they are. The way I see it, it pagan statues in Greece can survive Greek Orthodox Christianity, Ottoman Turk and Nazi occupation, surely we can be cultured enough to accept our own ancestors regardless of how we view them today.
Pfffft...whatever. Dump the damn things in a Louisiana swamp for all I care.
Yeah, chain them to the legs of Pelosi, Obama and Soros.
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