You’re just kidding aren’t you? You know that R. E. Lee was a patriotic son of Virginia and needed to fight to push the juggernaut that was then the central government back to the tiny District of Columbia.
This had nothing to do with being a traitor and everything to do with what’s happening in this pathetic nation today. That central government of 1861 is now an octopus. It’s tentacles reach into every facet of our everyday lives. It is now the Central Communist Government!
The war had only an iota to do with slavery, but everything to do with the rights of the states and the Constitution.
Be concerned about the miasma created by statists that today literally chokes the life out of a once great nation.
Was he still not an American when he was a general for the Confederacy?
August 9, 1960
Dear Dr. Scott:
Respecting your August 1 inquiry calling attention to my often expressed admiration for General Robert E. Lee, I would say, first, that we need to understand that at the time of the War Between the States the issue of Secession had remained unresolved for more than 70 years. Men of probity, character, public standing and unquestioned loyalty, both North and South, had disagreed over this issue as a matter of principle from the day our Constitution was adopted.
General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the Constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was thoughtful yet demanding of his officers and men, forbearing with captured enemies but ingenious, unrelenting and personally courageous in battle, and never disheartened by a reverse or obstacle. Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his belief in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history.
From deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee’s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul. Indeed, to the degree that present-day American youth will strive to emulate his rare qualities, including his devotion to this land as revealed in his painstaking efforts to help heal the nation’s wounds once the bitter struggle was over, we, in our own time of danger in a divided world, will be strengthened and our love of freedom sustained.
Such are the reasons that I proudly display the picture of this great American on my office wall.
Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower
He was loyal to Virginia
Lest we forget, there were many black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/blackcs.htm
this was a war of differing visions
it split families
most who fought fought on principle
Your brief profile indicates you served our country, YOU are an American Patriot.
In light of the current political landscape, I often lament for what our country would look like if the yankees had lost the war.
Robert E. Lee is indeed a hero and a patriot to the South. Perhaps not to the North, but certainly to the South.
Comparing the likes of Pelosi, McCain, Graham, Ried, Obozo, Clinton, Jimmy Carter to General Lee would be an absolute insult to the very notion of courage, integrity, honor, chivalry, patriotism, loyalty.
The whole notion that the war of Northern aggression was about slavery is in of itself sophomoric and a shallow understanding of the war.
Because of the outcome of the war, we live under a mammoth federal social state where liberty, freedom and a government of the people...are no more.
Considering how the all powerful national government thing worked out, it seems to me that Lee fought on the correct side.
From a noted writer and historian (ask if you any curiosity at all):
” I desire to make known to the reader not only the renowned
soldier, whom I believe to have been the greatest of his age, but to give some insight into the character of one whom I have always considered the most perfect man I ever met.
”He was opposed to secession, and to prevent it he would
willingly sacrifice everything except honor and duty, which
forbid him to desert his State... Nothing would induce him
to have any part in the invasion of his own State, much as
he abhorred the war into which he felt she was rushing. His
love of country (Virginia), his unselfish patriotism, caused
him to relinquish home, fortune, a certain future, in fact
everything for her sake.”
0n Lee turning down the offer of command of the Union army to side with Virginia and the Confederacy
” He spoke bitterly of none - a remarkable fact, as at that
time men on both sides were wont to heap the most
violent terms of abuse upon their respective enemies.”
On the character and Christian nature of Lee
” Where else in history is a great man to be found whose
whole life was one such blameless record of duty nobly
done? ... The most perfect gentleman of a State long
celebrated for its chivalry, he was just, gentle, and
generous, and child-like in the simplicity of his
character.”
On the character of Lee
” I have met many of the great men of my time, but Lee
alone impressed me with the feeling that I was in the
presence of a man who was cast in a grander mould,
and made of different and of finer metal than all other
men. He is stamped upon my memory as a being apart
and superior to all others in every way: a man with whom
none I ever knew, and very few of whom I have read, are
worthy to be classed.”
On the greatness of Lee
” When all the angry feelings roused by Secession are
buried with those which existed when the Declaration of
Independence was written, when Americans can review
the history of their last great rebellion with calm impartiality, I believe that all will admit that General Lee towered far above all men on either side of that struggle: I believe he will be regarded not only as the most prominent figure of the Confederacy, but as the great American of the
nineteenth century, whose statue is well worthy to stand
on an equal pedestal with that of Washington, and whose
memory is worthy to be enshrined in the hearts of all his
countrymen.”
Because he was fighting against a northern aggression that wanted central control from D.C. The north won and voila, here we have our current situation.
The text below is by President Rutherford B Hayes [source: President Rutherford Birchard Hayes, my bold below]
May 2 [1891]. Saturday.-At the G. A. R. [State Encampment] there was a little demagoguery in the way of keeping alive the bitterness of the war. A motion was made and carried against the purchase of Chickamauga battlefield, against Rebel monuments, etc., etc. The truth is, the men of the South believed in their theory of the Constitution. There was plausibility, perhaps more than plausibility, in the States' rights doctrine under the terms and in the history of the Constitution. Lee and Jackson are not in the moral character of their deeds to be classed with Benedict Arnold. They fought for their convictions, for their country as they had been educated to regard it. Let them be mistaken, and treated accordingly. Their military genius and heroism make the glory of the Union triumph.
If memory serves, the federal government has declared all Confederate soldiers to be Americans.