Posted on 01/17/2015 2:31:16 PM PST by BigReb555
During Robert E. Lee's 100th birthday in 1907, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., a former Union Commander and grandson of US President John Quincy Adams, spoke in tribute to Robert E. Lee at Washington and Lee College's Lee Chapel in Lexington, Virginia. His speech was printed in both Northern and Southern newspapers and is said to had lifted Lee to a renewed respect among the American people.
(Excerpt) Read more at huntingtonnews.net ...
To the South’s way of thinking, the garrison was the arm of a hostile power with whom a state of war already existed.
I don’t believe anyone in the garrison was killed and they all were allowed to leave peacefully the next day.
A far cry from the fire-bombing of Dresden that incinerated an estimated 27,000 civilians.
Of course in war the victor claims the moral high ground and gets to define what’s legit.
Sumter AND Dresden were legitimate acts of war, at least as far as I’m concerned.
Indeed, what hostile act had the people of Dresden performed prior to the bombardment?
What I admit to is being a veteran of these threads, while you're just the latest in a long string of posters who come on like they're God's gift to the southern cause, throw out lots of insults and very little substance, can't really defend their positions, and then, inevitably, fade away. Until then, you're just entertainment.
You seem capable of doing it. Why don't you?
Well, because I'm not the one who asked the question "So in what year exactly was it that it was no longer considered proper to beat your political opponent on the floor of the House of Representatives?"
You might just learn that Scumner was beaten on the floor of the Senate.
LOL! :)
More admissions of trolling.
BTW - you're a legend in your own mind. For being a self-proclaimed "veteran" of these threads, you've made a very small impression on me over the last 17 years.
I remember "former freepers" like Non-Sequitur on these threads quite clearly.
So it's actually you who is one of the latest in a long line of Southern-baiting trolls on Free Republic - at least in my long experience.
Incidentally, here's what Wikipedia's entry about Brooks says
Long afterward Charles Sumner said that "It was slavery, not he, that struck the blow." In 1872, Sumner visited the Congressional Cemetery; when a friend pointed out a cenotaph of Brooks and asked Sumner how he felt about Brooks. Sumner said "Only as to a brick that should fall upon my head from a chimney. He was the unconscious agent of a malign power.
Say - is the “on the floor of the House of Representatives” somewhere on that picture in Braille, or something? ;-)
And you have made no impression on me at all. You’ve been on these threads before?
Feel free to report me to the mods. Shutting down any dissenting opinion is a long-standing southern tradition.
Yes, I've viewed many a Civil War history thread on Free Republic.
I just don't troll them, unlike you. That's why you've never noticed me.
You should print that picture out and post it next to the one of shirtless “man’s man” Putin.
The bombardment of Dresden did not initiate World War II. It occurred six years into it.
Oh, BTW - you do realize that question sounds like a Federal agent fishing for Sovereign Citizens, don't you?
Given that you've asked it many times before, by your own admission, it makes me wonder if one of us is going after the question "like it's our job".
And I know it's not my job... LOL! :)
Despite your attempted obfuscation (quelle Surprise!), Bomber Harris' attack on Dresden is actually a good analogy.
The people of Dresden were just about as guilty as the garrison at Fort Sumter.
But on a philosophical level the sovereign citizen question is connected, and it goes to basic theories of government, Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, the social contract, the state of nature and so on. So does an individual have a natural right to simply "opt out" of government and declare it has no more power to compel them?
here's a little Charles Francis Adams to cheer you up:
Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (May 27, 1835 – May 20, 1915) was a member of the prominent Adams family, and son of Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (son of President John Quincy Adams and grandson of President John Adams). He served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
http://leearchive.wlu.edu/reference/misc/centennial/adams.html
...
Five years of life and active usefulness yet remained to General Lee—years in my judgment most creditable to himself, the most useful to his country of his whole life; for, during them, he set to Virginia and his own people a high example,—an example of lofty character and simple bearing. Uttering no complaints, entering into no controversies, he was as one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing. His blood and judgment were well commingled; and so it fell out that he accepted for tune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks. His record and appearance during those final years are pleasant to dwell upon, for they reflect honor on our American manhood. Turning his face courageously to the future, he uttered no word of repining over the past. Yet, like the noble Moor, his occupation also was gone—
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!
But with Lee this did not imply
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Far from it; for as the gates closed on the old occupation, they opened on a new. And it was an occupation through which he gave to his country, North and South, a priceless gift.
Speaking advisedly and on full reflection, I say that of all the great characters of the Civil War, and it was productive of many whose names and deeds posterity will long bear in recollection, there was not one who passed away in the serene atmosphere and with the gracious bearing of Lee. From beginning to end those parting years of his will bear closest scrutiny. There was about them nothing venal, nothing querulous, nothing in any way sordid or disappointing. In his case there was no anti-climax; for those closing years were dignified, patient, useful; sweet in domesticity, they in all things commanded respect. It is pleasant to catch glimpses of the erstwhile commander in that quiet Virginia life. There is in the picture something altogether human—intensely sympathetic. “Traveller,” he would write, “is my only companion; I may also say my pleasure. He and I, whenever practicable, wander out in the mountains and enjoy sweet confidence.” Or again we see him, always with Traveller, the famous old charger this time “stepping very proudly,” as his rider showed those two little sunbonneted daughters of a professor, astride of a plodding old horse, over a pleasant road, quite unknown to them. Once more in imagination we may ride, his companions, through those mountain roads of his dearly loved Virginia, or seek shelter with him and his daughter from a thunder-shower in the log cabin, the inmates of which are stunned when too late they realize that the courtly, gracious intruder was no other than the idolized General Lee. Indifferent to wealth, he was scrupulous as respects those money dealings a carelessness in regard to which has embittered the lives of so many of our public men, as not infrequently it has tarnished their fame. Lee's career will be scrutinized in vain for a suggestion even of the sordid, or of an obligation he failed to meet. He was nothing if not self-respecting. He once wrote to a member of his family “‘vile dross’ has never been a drug with me,” yet his generosity as a giver from his narrow means was limited only by his resources. Restricting his own wants to necessities, he contributed, to an extent which excites surprise, to both public calls and private needs. But the most priceless of those contributions were contained in the precepts he inculcated and in the unconscious example he set during those closing years.
Lee was at the head of Washington College from October, 1865, to October, 1870; a very insufficient time in which to accomplish any considerable work. A man of fast advancing years, he also then had sufficient cause to feel a sense of lassitude. He showed no signs of it. On the contrary, closely studied, those years, and Lee's bearing in them, were in certain respects the most remarkable as well as the most creditable of his life; they impressed unmistakably upon it the stamp of true greatness. Unable to pass them wholly over, I shall deal very briefly with them. His own means of subsistence having been swept away by war,—the property of his wife as well as his own having been sequestered and confiscated in utter disregard not only of law, but—I add it regretfully—of decency,—a mere pittance, designated in courtesy “salary,” under his prudent management was made to suffice for the needs of an establishment the quiet dignity of which even exceeded its severe simplicity. Within five months of the downfall of the Confederacy, he addressed himself to his new vocation. Coming to it from crushing defeat, about him there was nothing suggestive of disappointment; and thereafter through public trials and private misfortunes—for it pleased Heaven to try him with afflictions—he bore himself with serene patience, and a mingled firmness and sweetness of temper to which mere words fail to do justice. More than that, becoming interested in his new work, he evinced, it would seem, as the head of a college a grasp of educational problems not less clear and intelligent than he had previously shown of strategic conditions. It was indeed extraordinary that a man educated in a military school, first an engineer, then an officer of cavalry, and finally a general in charge of large field operations, should, when approaching his sixtieth year, have given proof of such mental activity and freshness. Fully realizing the needs and requirements of the present age, the former commandant of West Point was the ardent advocate of complete classical and literary culture. Utterly out of sympathy with the modern advocates of materialistic education, he yet recognized the fact that material well-being is, for a people, the condition of all high civilization; and, accordingly, sought to provide, in the institution of which he was the head, all means for the development of science, and its practical application. With a large and correct conception he planned, therefore, to connect all the departments of literary, scientific, and professional education, and to consolidate them under a common organization. He thus outlined a true university. So, at an early day he called into existence, as adjuncts of the college he found prostrate and well-nigh moribund, schools of Applied Mathematics, of Engineering and of Law; while later he submitted to its Board of Trustees a matured scheme for the complete development of the scientific and professional departments. His death, just before he had yet reached the grand climacteric, prevented the full development of his great conception. None the less, he had shown himself fully equal to the new demand upon him.
The most marked feature of his educational career was, however, the moral influence he exerted on the student body,—what has most fitly been described by one associated with him as “the mighty influence of his personal character.” Here, as in the Army of Northern Virginia, this was all-powerful. It was sorely needed, too; for the young men of the South were wild, and resented efforts at restraint. Grown up in an environment of warfare and consequent violence, they were somewhat disposed to take matters into their own hands,—to be, in a word, a law unto themselves; but, under Lee's presidency, the elevation of tone in this respect, and the consequent improvement in student conduct were, we are on good evidence assured, marked and rapid. Acts of disorder became infrequent; and in the latter years of Lee's brief administration it is said that “hardly a single case of serious discipline occurred.” A Boston student of Washington College in those years—sent there because of the feelings of profound respect for Lee entertained by his Northern father—has since borne witness to me of the personal interest taken by Washington's president in the individual students. In close sympathy with the modern university spirit, the youth in question was, I have reason to suppose, far more addicted to athletics than to his text-books. “This lack of proficiency in my studies,” he has recently written me, “was, of course, a matter for which I was frequently called into the presence of General Lee; and I fully appreciate now, though I did not then, the difficulties under which he labored; for, if he had expelled me, as under similar circumstances he undoubtedly would have expelled any Southern student, it would have been considered a factional matter. He would plead most earnestly with me always that I should attend more to my studies and less to athletics, and never a harsh word during the entire period.”
It remains to assign due weight and value to these precepts and this great example at just that juncture and from just that man. And here, bearing in mind the common country,—the community to which I belong as well as that I now address,—I feel I tread on dangerous ground. What I must necessarily say will be very susceptible of misconstruction. Speaking, however, in the true historical spirit, as throughout I have sought to do, I must deal with this topic also as best I can.
Because no blood flowed on the scaffold, and no confiscations of houses or lands marked the close of our war of Secession, it has always been assumed by us of the victorious party that extreme, indeed unprecedented, clemency was shown to the vanquished, and that subsequently they had no good ground of complaint or sufficient cause for restiveness. That history will accord assent to this somewhat self-complacent conviction is open to question. On the contrary, it may not unfairly be doubted whether a people prostrate after civil strife has often received severer measure than was inflicted on the so-called reconstructed Confederate States during the years immediately succeeding the close of strife. Adam Smith somewhere defined Rebels and Heretics as “those unlucky persons who, when things have come to a certain degree of violence, have the misfortune to be of the weaker party.” Spoliation and physical suffering have immemorially been their lot. The Confederate, it is true, when he ceased to resist, escaped this visitation in its usual and time-approved form. Nevertheless, he was by no means exempt from it. In the matter of confiscation, it has been computed that the freeing of the slaves by act of war swept out of existence property valued at some two thousand millions; while, over and above this, a system of simultaneous reconstruction subjected the disfranchised master to the rule of the enfranchised bondsman. For a community conspicuously masterful, and notoriously quick to resent affront, to be thus placed by alien force under the civil rule of those of a different and distinctly inferior race, only lately their property, is not physical torment, it is true, but that it is mild or considerate treatment can hardly be contended. Yet this—slave confiscation, and reconstruction under African rule—was the war penalty imposed on the States of the Confederacy. That the policy inspired at the time a feeling of bitter resentment in the South was no cause for wonder. Upon it time has already recorded a verdict. Following the high precedent set at Appomattox it was distinctly unworthy. Conceived in passion, it ignored both science and the philosophy of statesmanship; worse yet, it was ungenerous. Lee, for instance, again setting the example, applied formally for amnesty and a restoration of civil rights within two months of his surrender. His application was silently ignored; while he died “a prisoner on parole,” the suffrage denied him was conferred on his manumitted slaves. Verily, it was not alone the base Indian of the olden time who #8220;threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe!”
But on such a rejection and choice of material as this was the so-called reconstruction edifice based; nor is it matter for wonder that it speedily crumbled away. It was under these conditions that Lee's bearing and example were of special national importance. The one political result the States of the Confederacy should ever have kept steadily in view after strife closed was the restoration of local self-government; and that, under the traditions and political instincts of the American community, was sure to come. It was only a question of time; and patience and self-restraint were the two qualities most sure to hasten the steps of time. “We shall have to be patient,” Lee in March, 1866, wrote to old companions in arms, “and suffer for a while at least; . . . I hope, in time, peace will be restored to the country, and that the South may enjoy some measure of prosperity. I fear, however, much suffering is still in store for her, and that her people must be prepared to exercise fortitude and forbearance.” To those to whom it was addressed, no wiser or more tactful counsel could at that juncture (March, 1866) have been imparted; for, while Lee himself possessed those virtues to a well-nigh unexampled degree, patience and self-restraint have not been generally accepted as most conspicuous among the many manly and ennobling qualities of the race to which Lee belonged.
In the passage with which I began, it was observed by Emerson that “Character denotes habitual self-possession, habitual regard to interior and constitutional motives, a balance not to be overset or easily disturbed by outward events and opinion.” To my knowledge I never saw General Lee; I certainly never stood in his presence, nor exchanged a word with him. On the few occasions when I was a guest in his house, he chanced to be absent. Even that was long ago; while he and his family still lived at Arlington. Thus I know him only by report, and through his letters. But, if the report of those who did know him well, and the evidence of what he wrote, may be relied on, “habitual self-possession, habitual regard to interior and constitutional motives, a balance not to be overset or easily disturbed by outward events and opinion,” were his to an eminent degree,—a degree which his harshest and most prejudiced critic could not ignore. That, himself a devout man and by conviction sincerely religious, he was neither ashamed nor afraid so publicly to profess himself, may be read in his repeated army orders; or, to such as prefer there to look for it, in his family letters. What more expressive of a profound religious faith could be imagined than these words written in the very shadow of Gettysburg's disaster to the dying wife of his wounded and captured son?—“In his own good time He will relieve us, and make all things work together for our good, if we give Him our love and place in Him our trust." That his immediate family circle regarded him with the affectionate devotion founded on respect which is the surest indication of those sterling and fundamental qualities which alone can cause a man to seem a hero to those near to him,—the confidants of his privacy,—appears from those family letters and recollections which have been so freely published. That he impressed himself on those about him in his professional and public life to an uncommon extent,—that the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia as well as those of his staff and in high command felt not only implicit and unquestioning confidence in him but to him a strong personal affection, is established by their concurrent testimony. He, too, might well have said with Brutus:—
My heart doth joy that yet in all my life
I found no man but he was true to me.
I shall have glory by this losing day.
Finally, one who knew him well has written of him—“He had the quiet bearing of a powerful yet harmonious nature. An unruffled calm upon his countenance betokened the concentration and control of the whole being within. He was a kingly man whom all men who came into his presence expected to obey.” That he was gifted in a prominent degree with the mens aequa in arduis of the Roman poet, none deny.
And now, Virginians, a word with you in closing: “Show me the man you honor; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me then what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long possibly to be, and would thank the Gods, with your whole soul, for being if you could. Whom shall we consecrate and set apart as one of our sacred men? Sacred; that all men may see him, be reminded of him, and, by new example added to old perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Whom do you wish to resemble? Him you set on a high column, that all men looking at it, may be continually apprised of the duty you expect from them.”
The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.
...
read the rest @ http://leearchive.wlu.edu/reference/misc/centennial/adams.html
LOL! :)
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