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Robert E. Lee: Remembering an American Legend
Huntington News ^ | January 4, 2012 | Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.

Posted on 01/04/2012 4:35:41 PM PST by BigReb555

Thursday, January 19, 2012, is the 205th birthday of General Robert E. Lee, whose memory is still dear in the hearts of people everywhere.

(Excerpt) Read more at huntingtonnews.net ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: american; confederate; dixie; union
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To: BigReb555
The question arises in threads like this one. Who in our day has the stature of a man like this?

There is a long list of truly great men in American history. Lee is at the top of that list. As are men like Washington, Jackson (Stonewall), Jefferson, both Adams, Patrick Henry, Forrest, - hey wait a minute, aren't there any from the north? Ok, Adams - John, uh . . . Jonathan Edwards (?), uh . . . ok I'm open to suggestions.

On the other hand, Lincoln, though great in so many ways, somehow doesn't reach those heights. Don't get me wrong, Lincoln is great, but he just played havoc with our Constitution.

Oh well, for what it's worth: just another conflicted opinion.

21 posted on 01/04/2012 5:46:45 PM PST by hfr (Liberalism is a moral disorder that leads to mental disorder (actually it's sin))
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To: hfr

I think we’d be hard pressed to think of anyone in today’s world who could wear Gen. R.E. Lee’s boots. He was truly one of a kind.

The might be said of Stonewall, Forrest, Watie and many more who fought to uphold the Constitution.


22 posted on 01/04/2012 6:01:32 PM PST by varina davis (We grow too soon old and too late smart -- Pennsylvania Dutch adage)
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Did You Know?

The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?

Now That You Do, Donate And Keep FR Running


23 posted on 01/04/2012 6:02:08 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are here! What will you do?)
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To: BigReb555

Ah, I see that it’s zombie sockpuppet time again...


24 posted on 01/04/2012 6:40:47 PM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: varina davis
The might be said of Stonewall, Forrest, Watie and many more who fought to uphold the Constitution.

This is a myth. Those men fought for their States whose rights under the Constitution of 1787 were abrogated by Lincoln and the other radical Republicans. The same goes for Robert Lee.

Dispelling this myth is important as the Constitution will no more protect your liberties today than it protected the rights of the citizenry 150 years ago.

25 posted on 01/04/2012 6:45:20 PM PST by trek
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To: BigReb555

I like to think of Lee as the “Last Founding Father”, he would have been magnificent in 1776, but when his time came, America as he understood it had passed. He did what he saw as his duty (believe it right or wrong) with dignity and grace.


26 posted on 01/04/2012 6:53:18 PM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: izzatzo

Great General wrong cause.


27 posted on 01/04/2012 6:59:54 PM PST by fish hawk
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To: BigReb555

Wondering if any Freepers here know that there are two living grandsons of President John Tyler? Famous for the “accidency” of his presidency, when newly elected President Harrison died in office and the first test of constitutional succession was made, and the VP Tyler became President. A placeholder in history, the annexation of Texas happened during his 4 years. But for the sheer span of real time with real people— the fact his son by a second late marriage had two sons who survive today— really remarkable. Both are in their 80’s, one still living on the ancestral Tyler home, Sherwood Forest Charles Co. VA

April ‘11 article from Richmond:

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/apr/14/tdmet03-descendant-marks-jeffersons-268th-birthday-ar-971027/


28 posted on 01/04/2012 7:05:32 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: 2banana

TOTALLY AGREE.
I admire the man so much because of his background but of course when I mention this I always meet some ignorant snotty nosed stuck up idiot who has no clue who Forest really was.


29 posted on 01/04/2012 7:18:26 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: John S Mosby

thank you for that info


30 posted on 01/04/2012 7:20:22 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: gorush

agree with all of that, I have thought of that day thousands of times in my head about the if’s.

When it comes down to it Lee should not have stayed and had a fight but those days it were different, men wanted a fight not like many pansy men today we see a colleges etc plus it was hard when his forward regiments had engages and Stewart had not been reporting back.

In the end it was a series of blunders sadly.

Ever thought if that battle had not took place and he had got to deliver the letter?


31 posted on 01/04/2012 7:24:32 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: gorush

another thing , sorry but to add.

The bravery of those men was astounding and on the 150th anniversary I will hopefully be going across that field .


32 posted on 01/04/2012 7:26:27 PM PST by manc (Marriage is between one man and one woman.Trolls get a life, I HATE OUR BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA.)
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To: trek
It is quite well understood by varina that the Constitution was abrogated-- and that is the point. We are still trying to uphold the right of our States and de-numerating the powers of the federal government. As opposed to jacksnipes like our presentdent who thinks the Constitution is a document of negative rights, and something to be got around. As for Stonewall, Forrest and Watie--all expressed their reasons as being for their State as described in the Constitution. Watie's situation was doubly so, in that he had already experienced Jacksonian democracy resulting in internecine bloodshed in the political split of the Cherokee Nation, with his uncle murdered by National Party Cherokees.

Like many Cherokee, Watie learned not to trust the federal government- to the point of taking sides within the Cherokee nation on the question. In the end the abrogation extended to every facet of public life and the march of progressivism began. It is a sad story. And a greatly re-written one, with little caution for the facts, which are not remembered as myth.

33 posted on 01/04/2012 7:26:40 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: varina davis
Agreed. He is a fascinating man, a tragic story of lost gentility and subject to the applied standards and judgments of the current day by puritan revisionists. Something always sticks in my memory of Lee. In the last year of his life with his heart condition worsening (it having evidenced itself dramatically during Gettysburg- forensic history has explored this), Lee went to Cumberland Island, GA to visit the grave of his father.

Light Horse Harry Lee- Revolutionary War hero,gambler, debtor who bankrupted the family but who also was a man of great learning who taught his son well. Robert made his peace with his father who died shipboard returning from -Barbados from the horrible wounds he got defending a publisher friend against an anti-federalist, pro-war of 1812 mob in Baltimore. It is quite poignant that Robert spent his last years re-writing his father's memoirs and not his own. Deo Vindice.

34 posted on 01/04/2012 7:48:02 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: trek

How could Lincoln “abrogate” anyone’s rights when he hadn’t even taken office?


35 posted on 01/04/2012 7:51:59 PM PST by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: manc

Blunders brought on by lack of intel, absence of JEB Stuart, and having Ewell instead of Stonewall on the first day. If the heights in town had been gained the tables would have been very different, because the road to Washington would then have been wide open.

The size of the operation, of moving men and materiel in such a wide area ,the need of timing & precision all served to a bad end. The tactics really didn’t change right up through WWI and II (at Normandy, a line of men charging machine guns?- poor air support and no close air support).
But all giving their lives for freedom to be free men.


36 posted on 01/04/2012 7:59:54 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: rockrr

As opposed to living sock puppets, the result of generations of academic sock puppets of progressivism.


37 posted on 01/04/2012 8:10:09 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: rockrr

The Radical Republicans in Congress and their actions pre-dated and presaged Lincoln’s executive role.

The matter was settled by force of arms, when it could have been much earlier settled with money for property that could have been widely manumitted. But that was never the plan, not for the South or for the Western expansion. The tables have certainly turned since then for the proper Bostonian slave traders and opium runners that continue to try to tell us all what to do.


38 posted on 01/04/2012 8:30:52 PM PST by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: izzatzo

a Great man—he freed his own slaves before the war. Had the south won the civil war—my bet is he would have been her second president.


39 posted on 01/04/2012 8:56:56 PM PST by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: gorush
...Pickett’s charge wouldn’t have been necessary...more’s the pity.

If the Southern political class hadn't taken the selfish and stupid decision to lie, cheat and rabble rouse their states into secessions which were generally fraudulent expressions of the people's will, the whole war would not have been necessary in the first place and many thousands of good and brave men on both sides would not have been killed and injured.

40 posted on 01/04/2012 9:59:03 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
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