Happy Birthday-Robert E Lee

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[reagandemo]

I find it interesting that all the thread is about is celebrating a man that had more moral character than just a few in the last 200 years of American history and we get people that make disparaging remarks about the man and finally from you about the people that revere his memory. You know, forget about the war, you are right it was over a long time ago Just think about this man's accomplishments and celebrate them. I would be one proud father if my boys were one half the man that he was.

[Non-Sequitur]

Robert E. Lee wasn't a racist

By the standards of today he most certainly was. But then again, so was virtually every other person, North and South, alive at the time. Including Lincoln.

[Valin]

The problem many of us "uneducated Yankees" have is those who support the Confederacy seem to pretend that slavery was not even an issue.

[LTCJ]

Well said, sir.

[add925]

If I didn't know better, this posting might be an attempt to drive a wedge with the South.....now who would want to alienate the South?

Not us Northern FReepers......how about Liberal Coasters?

The Civil War is over, the Cultural War is still raging.

....but we can see the Lib's weakening right before our eyes! Right, Teddy boy?

[hedgetrimmer]

Lee represented the state of Viriginia. He did not get involved until Virginia was INVADED by the federals.

[DixieOklahoma]

Lincoln represented a racist north, because maryland and deleware allowed slavery during the civil war and they were union states.

Lee fought to have blacks that fought for the south freed, you are an ignorant, uneducated slob.

[DixieOklahoma]

What about maryland and deleware, I am sure it is difficult for your pea-brain to comprehend, but those were union states that allowed slavery.

Must mean that they were likewise fighting for slavery.

okay now don't get a headache, but here's another one:

During the revolutionary war, EVERY SINGLE US STATE allowed slavery. Brittian did not, infact brittian even offered FREEDOM to ANY slave that would rise up and support the crown.

Therefore by your pea-brained logic, during the revolutionary war, we, the united states were fighting to preserve slavery and every single founder was a racist.

[fr_freak]

This war was not about slavery, even though your communist schools taught you so.

On the contrary, the anti-American socialists and communists who dominate our educational establishment these days would love for you to believe that slavery had no bearing on the civil war, and that no meaningful abolitionist movement existed, because one of the most prominent tactics employed by the anti-American Left is to tear down the moral stature and reputation of the United States so that impressionable young minds can be made to hate their own country. To admit that the moral forces within the US, based largely on Christian belief, were so powerful as to draw an entire nation of men to war against their brothers would be to undermine the Left's position that the US is evil.

It may be true that the issue of slavery was not the sole cause of the Civil War, but only a fool would believe that the Civil War would ever have occurred had slavery not existed.

[Valin]

There are NO ulterior motives in my posting this, other than to make people aware that today is Robert E Lees birthday.

[DixieOklahoma]

Will somebody answer why slavery was allowed in maryland and deleware, two union states... and don't give me the crap about "but there were riots, they ALMOST succeeded",

Their regiments did just as much raping, pillaging, and murdering as any of the other massive hordes that invaded the south.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

Everything I've read about Lee has said the he was opposed to slavery. Since it is impossible for me to know first hand, I've had to rely on what I've read. You found a letter that shows something else and I will acknowledge it and do more research.

I think it's important to remember that Lee, like everyone else at the time, were products of their environment. Yes, there were some that could clearly see the evil of slavery, but sadly, not that many. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Should we deny his significance to our country because he did something that we now find abhorrent?

[Non-Sequitur]

I'm not trying to disparage Lee. But I don't want him made into something he wasn't. There is enough of that going around as it is. On both sides.

[uncitizen]

Try listening to the original version of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by The Band. Not at all lame. It's very authentic feeling. As tho it were written in 1865.

[fr_freak]

Will somebody answer why slavery was allowed in maryland and deleware, two union states... and don't give me the crap about "but there were riots, they ALMOST succeeded",

Their regiments did just as much raping, pillaging, and murdering as any of the other massive hordes that invaded the south.

I'm not sure why you're asking me this.

My take on the Civil War is that the South was not necessarily fighting to keep slavery, but that slavery was the most prominent issue that brought the rift between regions to a head. The intense pressure from the North to abolish slavery led to Southern states seeing their sovereignty threatened.

It is quite clear that there were supporters of slavery in the North (or at least, many who were apathetic to it) and there were many who were against slavery in the South. However, once the States were set at odds over that and other issues, regional and cultural loyalties far outweighed views on slavery.

[IrishCatholic]

Close but strike one. The commentary was a warning to someone who doesn't understand the Dixie Ping list. I didn't refer to Robert E. Lee at all.
As far as Southern culture is concerned you might just have to specify the time. Current? Forty years ago with fire hoses and bombing of churches? Eighty years ago with lynching of blacks with the town gathered for the photo's? How about 160 years ago when you could own another human being simply by the amount of pigment in their skin?
The South of today is no better nor worse than any other part of the country from the Northwest to well, ok, not the Northeast, but any other segment. But do not regale me with fond tales of a bygone era. They exist only as fantasy for those descended from the owners, not the property.

[cajungirl]

I liked your post. Those who blame the south for slavery forget that the very framers of the constitution didn't deal with the issue among them Washington and Jefferson. Adams wanted to but knew the Virginians and the other states wouldn't ratify without slavery being left alone. If the south had slaves, the framers of the constituion are to blame.

[Lee Heggy]

I didn't refer to R.E. Lee either in my post to you. As a reenactor who doesn't want to relive the war and is often on both sides in performing living history I just want to get it right and not revise what happened to satisfy those who think it was all about one issue. On one side I am a descendant of slave owners who freed their slaves in the 1830s. I am also descendant of native Americans on the other side. Theres plenty of injustice to go around. My point to you was in regard to the disparaging tone of your remarks. I didn't say the South was any better than any other part of our country. What I referenced was about the society that I grew up in and to this day understand to be not a fantasy but composed of real flesh and blood people. I'm hardly regaling you of anything and if my sympathies for the culture reflect something of a bygone era so be it. I am at least a gentleman by birth and not a self-made bastard by choice.

[CGVet58]

Robert E. Lee was a tragic figure in the full Classical sense; but I must disagree with your summation of him as offered through the prism of our modern day. It is one thing to dismiss a Lee when judged by 21st century standards - but it would do well for us to remember a simple truth about that time: that before the Civil War, the United States "were" (... referred to as a collection of states, hence a multiple confederation), and after the war, the United States "was" (... now a single entity). When you think about this, you can better understand that Lee saw himself as first a Virginian, and an American second - he was defending his homeland.

True, Slavery was the scourge upon our Country, the Single Most Important Question in the first century of our Republic. Good men - Americans - fell on both sides of the issue. The issue was greater than any single man, yet not so permanent that it could for long conquer the principles upon which our Nation was founded. In such a grave reckoning, it was unavoidable that good men would be lost whatever their side.

To condemn R.E. Lee for defending a lost cause - lost because ultimately the antebellum South laid their moral foundation stone upon slavery - is to me the same as condemning the United States of America for having been born a nation which at the time still practiced/accepted slavery.

Not to be flippant, but I can look at this complex issue one of two ways: (a) fully condemn my country and heroes like Lee for being imperfect (as America's birth was, and Lee for supporting a morally doomed cause); or (b) give thanks that our Country & Constitution contained seeds of sufficient strength to ultimately remove this stain, even at such a bloody cost in human treasure.

I choose the latter, and give thanks to God that we survived as a nation... and I give prayers and a unique admiration for those men like Robert E. Lee who chose the wrong side, yet fought with honor and valor.

Robert E. Lee was a great American, and the certain shadow cast upon him for having fought to defend a confederacy that placed the hopes of its birth upon the right to treat men as property - though a lengthy shadow, to be sure - is not enough to cover the light within him.

After all is said and done, if another American of that day who lived through the horror of our Civil War could forgive his southern brothers "with malice towards none and charity for all" (Lincoln), then I can do no less.

CGVet58

[stainlessbanner]

The commentary was a warning to someone who doesn't understand the Dixie Ping list.

Jealous cause you're not on the Dixie Ping list.