Posted on 01/15/2011 2:24:43 PM PST by BigReb555
Hello Neighbor,
I hale from Woodstock VA. The War between the States is very big in that area. My granddad used about 10 acres of pasture every year to stage a reenactment that included period food cooked in traditional ways as well as the battle of Cedar Creek.
We kids rode horses through the camps and felt like we were part of history. My granddad was a bit of a scamp (moonshiner) and a bit of a meanie. But I will always be grateful to him for that civil war experience that he provided. It was one of my best memories.
“...slaves were behind Union lines...would have been freed...by the Emancipation Proclamation...”
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Do I misunderstand what you are saying?
Slaves “behind union lines” were not freed by the emancipation proclamation.
“Robert E. Lee is no hero. Like Jefferson Davis, Lee is a traitor to the United States of America. Period!”
So is everyone who voted for obuma. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are traitors, as is Robert Byrd, Teddy Kennedy and DEMOCRAT Woodrow “KKK” Wilson.
“No thanks. I choose to be a patriot like Reagan, NOT a traitor like Lee.”
You choose to speak ill of one of the greatest of Americans for your own reasons, not to be like Reagan.
Have you ever been to Gettysburg? Have you been to any Civil War battlefield? You really should make the effort to recalibrate your attitude.
The Civil War was fought by Americans - on both sides. To learn about Lee - like soldiers from around the world do to this day - is to learn about the greatness of America and her greatest citizens.
You just do not understand the Civil War or Lee - and hence you can’t understand America. Hardly Reaganesque.
Fine, you can hate Lee if you wish, but it’s not something that you should be unashamed of and so willing to broadcast to the world.
“If George Washington took a similar oath to protect and defend King George, then he was a traitor, too.”
Nope... the difference is, Lee lost.
If one rebels and loses, one is a traitor.
It’s sad there are people so deluded as you who call themselves “conservative.”
BUMP
“That is all a matter of perspective. If we (in the South) can get over the war... and we certainly have... so can you. We are all Americans today... and a subset of Americans called Conservatives. Those are the facts.”
Amen, LLS.
We get Northern liberals on these boards who hate southerners for no reason whatsoever, other than they’re liberals.
I served with southern folk and they fought damn well for America.
For some reason that pisses off the liberals and the various agent provocateurs here on FR.
Semper Fi
Typical yankee girlie man. Your side started the war of Northern Aggression. 100+ years later the South has risen again, stealing your house seats as your population declines..
Indeed. I lived the first six years of my life with my great-grandmother, who was born during the civil war.
You have you Lee’s mixed up. General Charles Lee (no relation to Robert E. Lee) was the American General that conducted the disasterous retreat at Monmouth and was later court-martialed. Harry Lee (Robert’s father) was on special assignment and was not present at the battle.
Actually, it was only slaves behind union lines that were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, but legally it applied to all of
Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth),
By the way,did you used to post under the name StandWatie?
There are a couple of matters that need to be touched on.
1. Robert E. Lee did not betray his oath as an officer. He resigned his commission and returned home. Only when President Lincoln called for 100,000 volunteer and it became obvious that federal troops would invade Virginia did Lee take up the sword, in defense of his state. You need to remember that the feeling of most Southerners (and the original intent of the Constitution) was for strong states and limited federal government.
2. Robert E. Lee, and many other Christian men in the South had no love for slavery. In fact, Lee freed his slaves and Stonewall Jackson was opposed to slavery.
3. The South fought a losing battle against encroaching federal power. I feel far more kinship with those men than Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.
We are soon reaching the point when there will have to be another stand taken again federal power. Let us pray that this one will be peaceful.
A truly EXCELLENT post, Sir! For years, I have been drawn into these exchanges on “the Late Unpleasantness,” and when you really slice through all the North vs. South issues and the issue of slavery that often (and rightfully) convoluted the other principles at stake, it ALL boils down to THIS:
The “Union” desired a STRONG Federal Government, which was in direct defiance of the Original Intent of the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution. The Southern States fought to PRESERVE the rights of the States to protect themselves from the Federal Tyranny. They lost — and what we see TODAY is the RESULT (directly and/or indirectly) of the Confederacy having LOST the “War Between the States.”
Without Abraham Lincoln, without the “Civil War,” NONE of the “Big Government advances that have KILLED our Constitutional Republic would have been possible. Not the terrible repression and unfulfilled promises of “Reconstruction,” nor the rural programs of “Populism,” not the dawn of “Progressivism,” nor FDR’s “New Deal,” not LBJ’s “Great Society” nor this out-of-control “ObamaCare” and the Nationalization of banks and industries. It can ALL be traced back to the destruction of those parts of the Constitution carried out by Lincoln, the “Radical Republicans” and the “Union” in the so-called “Civil War.”
You can CALL yourself a “conservative” if you like, but if you believe the Union was correct in destroying the Confederacy, you undercut your own philosophical and ideological foundation (and slavery had NOTHING to do with the ideological foundation of GOVERNMENT of the Confederacy). If the States exist at the pleasure of the Federal Government, we have an IMPERIAL Government no different than the Crown our Founders fought seeking to gain independence from. The Federal Government exists at the pleasure of the STATES, and THAT Constitutional reality must be RESTORED — or our “one nation under God,” will NEVER survive.
O.k. If you like yankees so much maybe you'll buy the war trophies my ancestors took off of dead northern soldiers.
For what it is worth, the United States War Department and its successor the Department of Defense did not consider Lee a traitor, they named a major US Army installation after him “Fort Lee” (Virginia). Thus the United States government does not consider him a traitor. By way of comparison, you may notice there is no Fort Benedict Arnold anywhere in the United States
“This is all about exposing revisionists like you and holding accountable the actions of one of the the most infamous figures in American history.”
So you’ve never been to Gettysburg? Unsurprising, given the vitriol you display for Lee - you just don’t know. You are exposing no one but yourself and your ignorance of America and great Americans. He was indeed “one of the noblest Americans who ever lived” as Winston Churchill observed.
Maybe you have Robert E Lee confused with Spike Lee?
“The South fought a losing battle against encroaching federal power. I feel far more kinship with those men than Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.”
Indeed, the South fought it then, and since the end of the Civil War the whole country has fought it. The 10th Amendment has been on a path of increasing irrelevance ever since. Federal power will not be given up to the states without something traumatic, maybe even equally traumatic as the Civil War happening - I agree with your sentiment - let it be peaceful this time - and only traumatic enough to wrest the 10th Amendment from the claws of the Federal monster and back into it’s Constitutional place.
...did you used to post under the name StandWatie?...
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No, I just miss him and wonder what happened to him.
“and slavery had NOTHING to do with the ideological foundation of GOVERNMENT of the Confederacy”
I have to disagree with you there since the Confederate Constitution contains the following “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”
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