Trump: 'Robert E. Lee was a great general'

The Hill ^ | 10/12/18 | CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO

[yesthatjallen]

President Trump praised Confederate Geader Robert E. Lee as "a great general" on Friday during a campaign rally in Lebanon, Ohio.

"So Robert E. Lee was a great general. And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee," Trump said before launching into a monologue about Lee, Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

"He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story. But Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, 'I can’t beat Robert E. Lee,'" Trump said.

"And he had all of his generals, they looked great, they were the top of their class at West Point. They were the greatest people. There’s only one problem — they didn’t know how the hell to win. They didn’t know how to fight. They didn’t know how," he continued.

Trump went on to say, multiple times, that Grant had a drinking problem, saying that the former president "knocked the hell out of everyone" as a Union general.

"Man was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognized as a great general," Trump added.

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 13, 2018 Trump has drawn criticism for his defense of Confederate statues, including those of Robert E. Lee.

He drew widespread condemnation last year following a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., saying that white nationalist protesters were there to oppose the removal of a "very, very important" statue.

"They were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said at the time. “This week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”

Trump, speaking at another rally in Ohio last year, said that he can be one of the “most presidential” presidents to hold office. "…With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” he said to a crowd in Youngstown.

[clamper1797]

He was a great general defending hearth and home from northern aggressors

[DiogenesLamp]

This message seems to have something to do with Pearl Harbor, so i'll pass on it.

[DiogenesLamp]

My post #410 addresses several points, including a Pearl Harbor comparison, which you should both acknowledge & address -- the analogy is too close to legitimately ignore.

So in other words, a bunch of silly hair-splitting.

[DiogenesLamp]

You couldn’t be more wrong. Seward was even more of an abolitionist than Lincoln.

So what if he was? Was it within the President's power to abolish slavery? Lincoln repeatedly said it wasn't. Would Seward have said otherwise?

And there was no way Seward, or any other republican president, was going to just let the southern states go.

Don't be so sure. Seward was governor of New York. Let me acquaint you with New York's constitutional ratification statement.

That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people, and that government is instituted by them for their common interest, protection, and security.

That the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are essential rights, which every government ought to respect and preserve.

That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness;

It would be hard to argue that other states could not invoke the same power that New York had reserved for itself when it approved the constitution.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Till then the *UNION* must obey the constitution, even if the Confederate didn't."

Spoken like a true Democrat, double standard & all.

Let me put it this way: you realize, don't you, that you are here only "projecting" your own values & interpretations back onto 1860s Unionists, right?

So, sure, those are your values, they make sense to you and I'm not certain why I'd even want to argue against them for today's political context.
But to make such values valid in 1860 you'll need to show where someone then even understood what you're talking about and any serious discussion of it then.

I don't think there was any such discussion, have certainly never seen it reported on.
People back then seemed to understand and take for granted just what words like "war" or "rebellion" implied in terms of "constitutional rights" for enemy combatants.

Now the historical fact is the Civil War was vastly more "civil" than most any other war before or since, certainly compared to the two 20th century world wars.
But nobody I've heard of imagined at the time that enemy combatants would retain full rights of citizens in the country they fought against!

So why do you continue to claim otherwise?

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "This is a yes or no question. So try again."

And I've answered it three different times now.
My answer doesn't change, so what do you not understand?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "April 15, 1861."

By which time the Union had suffered six casualties at Confederate hands -- killed, wounded, missing & captured -- and lost another Federal fort.
In following weeks they suffered dozens more casualties.

On May 6 Confederates declared war on the United States.

Do you know when the first Confederate soldier was killed in battle with any Union force?

It was June 10, 1861 at Big Bethel, weeks after Virginia had already joined the Confederacy's declared war on the United States.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "This message from you is not even comprehensible to me.
But at least it was short."

It refers, briefly, to the previously unknown pre-preamble to our Constitution which grants someone named DiogenesLamp unlimited authority to declare ex-cathedra just what is & is not "constitutional".

This unknown pre-preamble requires no evidence, no legal justifications and allows no higher appeals to DiogenesLamp's constitutional rulings.

Amazing, isn't it, that nobody ever saw such a pre-preamble before?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Supposing it does, *who* gets to decide if something is a "Rebellion"? "

Wouldn't you think it was those rebels themselves?
I mean, if they provoke war, start war, formally declare war and wage war on the United States in Union states & territories... wouldn't that be a pretty good clue?

Seems pretty straightforward to me, so what am I missing?

DiogenesLamp: "Did the framers of the constitution ever intend to apply the term "Rebellion" to states who through a Democratic process voted to separate from the Union?
I very greatly doubt it."

But Confederates themselves declared war on the United States, so our Founders would in no way be as confused as DiogenesLamp is about it.

DiogenesLamp: "I recall one Supreme Court Justice (Salmon P. Chase, I think) saying "Secession is not Rebellion." "

But rebellion certainly is rebellion and a formal declaration of war against the United States will get everybody's attention, real quick.

DiogenesLamp: "So did Lincoln go to the courts to get them to decide it was a "rebellion", or did he just through his own power, declare it so?"

You might remember that term, "controlling legal authority"?
Well, in cases of rebellion in 1861 that "controlling legal authority" was President Jefferson's 1807 Insurrection Act.

Of course, I don't always agree with Jefferson, but in this particular case seems to me his Insurrection Act made perfect sense.

You disagree?

"Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State or Territory by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion. "

How is that not clear to you?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Mockery isn't much of an argument. I guess it makes you happy or something, but it doesn't impress me."

You puffed yourself up as the ultimate authority on what is & is not constitutional.
I've merely given you constitutional permission (via "pre-preamble") to play god over us.

So feel free to turn down your appointment to god-ship if that was not, in fact, what you really meant.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, didn't Porter go with Powhattan to Fort Pickens, not Sumter?

Yes he did, and under secret orders directly from Lincoln which deliberately bypassed the Navy chain of command. Porter wrote about the Sumter expedition in his memoirs as if to excuse himself for taking this crucial ship away from the Sumter expedition.

Orders to Fox & others used the words "opposed" and "resistance" without other modifiers like "in any way".

Close enough.

"If you are opposed in this, you are directed to report the fact to the senior naval officer of the harbor, who will be instructed by the Secretary of the Navy to use his entire force to open a passage, when you will, if possible, effect an entrance, and place both the troops and supplies on Fort Sumter."

[DiogenesLamp]

You're gonna keep going with your preamble attempt at humor. I'm going to ignore it.

[DiogenesLamp]

Corwin passed both houses with just the bare numbers required and opposition came entirely from Republicans. Publicly, Lincoln did his constitutional duty which was to forward it to the states.

The President has no necessary role in the Constitutional amendment process. Informing people that he had no objection to it was effectively permission to support it for his party followers.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I think the Navy counts too."

The Confederate navy was first established by seizing Union ships.
I'd call those acts of war beginning months before Fort Sumter.

A listing of Civil War naval battles shows that the first Confederate casualties happened on July 28, 1861 in sinking the Confederate privateer Petrel by the USS St. Lawrence.
The Confederate Petrel was a seized Union revenue cutter flying a British flag when it was chased & sunk by the St. Lawrence.
Confederates suffered 4 killed, their first losses at sea.

DiogenesLamp: "When was it again that West Virginia became a Union state?
And how did it do that since the constitution expressly forbids it?"

West Virginians declared their secession at roughly the same time as Virginians.
Naturally, under your "suicide pact" theory, and using your pre-preamble authority, you solemnly declare Virginia's secession "constitutional" and West Virginia's "unconstitutional".

But here's the key difference: by the time Virginia formalized their secession (May 23, 1861), they were also declaring war against the United States (May 6, 1861).
By stark contrast most West Virginians remained loyal, or at least neutral, throughout the war.

[DiogenesLamp]

I can read for myself. I don't need others to "interpret" the constitution for me. Much of our problems with constitutional law is the manner in which people want to "interpret" it to mean something very different than what the words actually say, or what the intent actually was.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Article IV, says the same thing, so it's really axiomatic."

It says no such thing and only your own wild fantasies imagine them the same.
Indeed, as I read the Dred Scott history, even crazy Roger himself never argued the kind of nonsense DiogenesLamp posts here over & over in defense of the Dred Scott ruling.

So we can see the most bizarre situation possible: DiogenesLamp agrees with crazy Roger's ruling but for reasons which crazy Roger himself was never imaginative enough to concoct!!

How does that even work?

[DiogenesLamp]

But if that, ahem, "someone" has provoked, started, formally declared & waged war on the United States, how is that "someone" not a rebel, or whatever other name might make you feel better about it?

And you know farmer Joe is involved how?

As best I can tell, you are asserting without evidence that the laws of war or rebellion, as understood & practiced in the 1860s, were in fact "unconstitutional" and should have been abandoned then to whichever degree was needed to guarantee Confederate victory, is that right?

You may be referring to war time, i'm referring to post war constitutional violations. If you would read what I write more closely, you would realize we have been discussing the confiscation of slaves after the war.

I'm not certain on this... Would you call the deaths of thousands of soldiers on battlefields from Maryland to New Mexico enough "proof" that a war was on?

You are trying to deflect the point about proof of rebellion with proof of war. Sure, anyone you pick up on the battlefield can likely be regarded as having been proven at war, but you cannot make such blanket statements regarding the civilian populations. According to constitutional law, you have to prove they were guilty of crimes against the United States. You can't just declare everyone guilty.

Except they did.

[DiogenesLamp]

I'll repeat, if I've said this before: that makes you a coward, intellectually dishonest,

No, it makes me a rational person who is not interested in ridiculous histrionics that you feel like venting. Pearl Harbor is not comparable to Fort Sumter. Not in terms of deaths, not in terms of value, not in terms of who was doing the attacking and why, and not in terms of National interest.

[DiogenesLamp]

Spoken like a true Democrat, double standard & all.

If you think it is unreasonable that the Union should have to abide by the system of law that it violently forced on people who did not want it, then I don't really see what point there is in arguing with you.

Preserving the Constitution is tantamount to preserving the Union, because the Union only exists as a condition of the agreement known as the Constitution.

If the constitution isn't supreme, it's not a constitutional Union, it is an usurpation.

[BroJoeK]

NFHale: "Picking fights or arguments over something that ended 150 years ago solves nothing.
Muzzles point OUT of the perimeter, and there’s plenty enough enemy out there."

Right, of course.
Dixiecrats, as the name implies, are just old-time Southern Democrats, very few left, and some of whom want to become Republicans.
But they want us to buy their Lost Cause mythology.
And they are not bashful or shy about telling us, or for many, insulting us when we don't.

So on pretty much any Civil War thread they soon-enough jump in and cr*p all over it, which brings us in to keep the historical record straight.

Ahem, some of them are more persistent than others, and so the threads go on & on until, finally, they grow tired or distracted by another "fresher" thread.

For those of us who enjoy it, and sometimes have time for it, it can be a lot of fun and hugely educational.
Sorry if you don't think so.