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Robert E Lee opposes confederate monuments


OverSword

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I guess I don't really care what he thought about monuments. 

What we should be doing is preserving history in museums, and not embracing divisive ideology in the public square. 

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37 minutes ago, OverSword said:

From the article he appeared to be opposed to all civil war monuments, not just confederate ones.

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Quote

“Lee believed countries that erased visible signs of civil war recovered from conflicts quicker,” Horn said. “He was worried that by keeping these symbols alive, it would keep the divisions alive.”

Quote

“I don’t think that means he would have felt good about the people who fought for the Confederacy being completely forgotten,” Cobb added. “But he didn’t want a cult of personality for the South.”

And yet this is what we've arrived at. Continued divisions and a cult that thrives into the 21st century. Many of these statues were erected at a time when the KKK was seeing a resurgence.

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  • The title was changed to Robert E Lee opposes confederate monuments

“Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of out Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for “perpetual union” so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by a revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession, Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution.     

Robert E. Lee, from a letter written to his son, January 23, 1861

 

And yet, such was his attachment to the State of Virginia, that Lee turned down an appointment to Commander in Chief of all Union forces to don the Gray of the Confederacy. 

Words are one thing, actions are entirely another.

One of those actions stand out in my mind; he and Grant came together one day, and ended that war in such a way as to ensure that the US was not cursed with generations of Guerrilla Warfare (something Jeff Davis wanted) and the kind of terrorism that most other nations emerging from such a Civil war have had to endure. 

Just sayin'... 

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1 hour ago, Nonentity said:

And yet this is what we've arrived at. Continued divisions and a cult that thrives into the 21st century. Many of these statues were erected at a time when the KKK was seeing a resurgence.

It had nothing to do with the KKK. It was the United Daughters of the Confederacy that had most of the memorials erected.

 

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I don't know what you read or where, but that is the fact.

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I know that you are at least somewhat correct Michelle.

I vacationed up and down the lower East coast this year.  Seen several memorials and monuments of/for confederate solders.   Many of them had a plate on them mentioning that this was donated by the Daughters of the Confederacy.  

 

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The same is true for secession and slavery. He opposed both. In a closed thread, someone posted a "gotcha quote" that made it sound like he was fine with the evil institution. Of course, I couldn't reply to it after the zillionth thread was closed.

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6 minutes ago, .ZZ. said:

20800366_1421617824540252_4449635500152253717_n.jpg

You said that already in another thread, I believe, ZZ.

But this was largely anti-racists opposing racists and the statue was an excuse for a confrontation.

It's not Trump's 'fault'. It just that his words following the incident seems to "fan the flames"..

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I can't stand the statues, and it has nothing to do with race.  As a Veteran, I consider them statues of traitors.  I want to see a statue of Confederate Generals just as much as I want to see statues of Nazi Generals, Korean Generals, Vietnamese Generals, and Iraqi Generals.  You don't need a statue to remember history.  

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3 minutes ago, Agent0range said:

I can't stand the statues, and it has nothing to do with race.  As a Veteran, I consider them statues of traitors.  I want to see a statue of Confederate Generals just as much as I want to see statues of Nazi Generals, Korean Generals, Vietnamese Generals, and Iraqi Generals.  You don't need a statue to remember history.  

As has been demonstrated in these threads, someone or something needs to teach history because our schools certainly aren't.

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Just now, Michelle said:

As has been demonstrated in these threads, someone or something needs to teach history because our schools certainly aren't.

Randomly placed statues don't teach anything.  

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Just now, Agent0range said:

Randomly placed statues don't teach anything.  

I beg to differ. I grew up reading the plaques on those statues, vividly imagining the horrible circumstances of the time. It increased my interest into getting the rest of the story.

I suppose we'll have to take down all of the memorials to the loss of lives on the Trail of Tears too. After all, they lost.

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Just now, Michelle said:

I beg to differ. I grew up reading the plaques on those statues, vividly imagining the horrible circumstances of the time. It increased my interest into getting the rest of the story.

I suppose we'll have to take down all of the memorials to the loss of lives on the Trail of Tears too. After all, they lost.

They weren't traitors to their country, and responsible for more than half a million American deaths.

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Just now, Agent0range said:

They weren't traitors to their country, and responsible for more than half a million American deaths.

You aren't a Brexit supporter either, are you? If states want to secede why fight it? California has been threatening to do it for years.

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1 minute ago, Michelle said:

You aren't a Brexit supporter either, are you? If states want to secede why fight it? California has been threatening to do it for years.

You either agree with all of the constitution, or none of it.  Secession has been ruled unconstitutional.  

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46 minutes ago, Likely Guy said:

You said that already in another thread, I believe, ZZ.

But this was largely anti-racists opposing racists and the statue was an excuse for a confrontation.

It's not Trump's 'fault'. It just that his words following the incident seems to "fan the flames"..

Oops, "my bad" as the kids say these days. :huh:

I should have never posted it in the first place, it comes across that I am racist which I'm not.

Edited by .ZZ.
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2 minutes ago, Agent0range said:

You either agree with all of the constitution, or none of it.  Secession has been ruled unconstitutional.  

That has been hotly contested many times over the years.

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I don't think it matters who built them, when the were built, or why. The states/cities could have removed them in a better way. Renovate the area they are in and move the statues to a museum or a park for this purpose. They should have known, after all the trouble about the police shootings, that this would cause problems. Or, maybe they did and just didn't care. It's stupid to fight over something like this.

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57 minutes ago, .ZZ. said:

Oops, "my bad" as the kids say these days. :huh:

I should have never posted it in the first place, it comes across that I am racist which I'm not.

We all know you're not.

Not sure about the President though. :unsure2:

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"Only between 10% to 15% of the soldiers in the various Confederate armies actually owned slaves. And in point of fact, nearly none, all the way up to Robert E. Lee himself, would have told you they were fighting to defend slavery. In fact, there was at least one Confederate general who was an admitted abolitionist.

The reason for secession was slavery, don’t get me wrong, but that was the business of the state governments and the politicians, not the business of the workaday soldier. It also wasn’t about state’s rights to the rank and file; again, that was another issue for the politicans.

No, for the common soldier, it was about standing up to an invader. They were defending what they saw as their homelands. Most southerners were natives of their states, first, and the Federal union second. Hence, to them, it was a matter of defending their homes.

In fact, there was a famous exchange after the battle of Chancelorsville, when Lieutenant Thomas D. Chamberlain (younger brother of Brigadier General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain) asked a young Confederate officer who had been taken prisoner, “Just what in the hell are you people fighting us for, anyway?” to which the Confederate replied, “We’re fighting you because you’re down here!”

The rank-and-file Confederate soldier saw the Union Army as invaders, so they fought back. To them, it was never about the slaves until Lincoln made it about the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation."

- Jack V. Butler Jr., Retired History Professor (2002 to present)

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7 minutes ago, skliss said:

The rank-and-file Confederate soldier saw the Union Army as invaders, so they fought back. To them, it was never about the slaves until Lincoln made it about the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation."

- Jack V. Butler Jr., Retired History Professor (2002 to present)

True that. But the "Unite the Right" campaign has jack **** to do with history, or conservatism.

For them this statue was an excuse to further their racist goals..

Edited by Likely Guy
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