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.

[DiogenesLamp]

When does that happen in real world politics? Secession movement start out with a sense of grievance that can become ulcerous. You of all people ought to know that. And when feelings of grievance become intense enough, people don't "depart like gentlemen."

We let the Philippines and Cuba go. Of course there was a little unpleasantness, but we eventually did.

When things of value are at stake, things get even uglier.

And there it is.

1) Same difference. 2) Not true.

I see oppression as something worse than taking money from well to do rich people. Exploitation seems a better word. And on your second point, the FedGov did spend some money in the South, but the bulk of it was spent in the North.

If he lost the election, he wouldn't have much say in what happened afterwards.

True, but the people to whom he would have lost, likely wouldn't have triggered secession.

He could have fecklessly dithered like Buchanan

Which implies the only correct course of action is to go to war. I'm not convinced that is true.

and let his underlings ship weapons South to be used against US troops.

Potentially used. At the time it was not certain that there would be a war. Perhaps with a formidable enough military capability in the South, that might have served to further render war less likely.

But yes, Buchanan should have put a stop to that.

He could have surrendered forts and territory to the enemy and let the slavers take over the capital.

Hadn't they already controlled it for most of "four score and seven years"?

And malcontents today would scourge him for that.

I think a lot of historians already regard Buchanan as one of the worst presidents.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The point was that freeing slaves was illegal.
While you can make a specious argument for doing so during the war, you cannot make a legal argument for doing it after the war.
Of course restricting it to slaves also undermines it's claim of validity as a war tactic. "

But didn't you just admit you have no god-like authority to declare what is, or is not, illegal or constitutional?
And yet here you are doing it again.

How does that even work?

The fact is there were no successful legal challenges to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which means that by war's end virtually all the Confederacy's 3.5 million slaves had been freed.
Do you now tell us they should have been immediately put back into slavery??
On what basis is that even conceivable?

And by war's end most Union slaves had also been freed by their own state governments such that when the 13th amendment was ratified in December 1865 only a smattering of slaves remained anywhere to be freed.

So what, precisely, are you trying to tell us should have happened instead?

DiogenesLamp: "Which is an illegal act pulled completely out of Lincoln's @$$.
States determine who is allowed to vote, not the Federal Government, at least that's the way it was prior to the Civil War. "

And yet again, your authority for declaring it "illegal" is what, exactly?

Seems pretty obvious to me that people who had officially declared themselves non-citizens would not automatically again become citizens just because they surrendered unconditionally in a war they'd fought for four long years.

DiogenesLamp: "Disenfranchising the legal and valid citizens of a state is a dictatorial move, not a constitutional one.
It is a clear usurpation of the powers reserved to the state under Article I, Section 2."

But nobody disenfranchised them, they disenfranchised themselves, in 1861.
It just took a few years after to 1865 to re-enfranchise all those ex-Confederates.
Makes perfect sense to me.

[DiogenesLamp]

Porter sounds to me like a "loose canon" on the Powhattan.

He sounds like a man in the supreme confidence that he had Presidential carte blanche for starting a war with the South. As he never revealed his secret orders, we can only surmise that they would either embarrass the government or outrage the populace. Probably both.

It is just a stroke of luck that Porter was stopped by Meigs, or he would have started the war in Pensacola by attacking the Confederates without provocation.

I wouldn't read anything into the term "entire force" beyond the orders saying none of those ships were excused from duty if he needed them.

What are gunships supposed to do when sent on a mission?

[DiogenesLamp]

But I have already heard Democrats complaining about alleged conservative "judicial activism", and that was even before Kennedy retired.

To them, undoing ridiculous liberal decisions is "activism." The courts are just power by another means, and they are all about power.

So now with, we expect, a solid conservative majority, expect Democrats to complain to the rafters about how the Supreme Court is actively overturning laws Democrats worked so hard to put on the books.

Yup.

Of course it's just nonsense, but when did that ever stop a good Democrat?

+1.

[DiogenesLamp]

But recruiting more slaves-states into his new Confederacy had everything to do with why Jefferson Davis decided to start war at Forts Sumter and/or Pickens.

I've heard the theory, and I don't dismiss that it might have had an influence on Davis, but i'm not convinced this is the sole reason he did what he did.

The theory has some plausibility, but I haven't seen enough supporting evidence to accept it outright.

[DiogenesLamp]

That happened all the time with the convention system.

I doubt it was to this extent. Let us remember Chicago's reputation for corruption.

Now that primaries make the difference, the offers are much larger and made to whole classes of the population.

But that is a very different thing from clear cut bribery to an individual.

I like how sometimes it's "all about money" and sometimes it's only about money with the people Diogenes doesn't like.

You've lost me here. When is it not about money? It's always about money.

[Impy]

“What, your narrative challenged by the fact that George Washington was a traitor to the United Kingdom?”

King George can screw himself. You compare our revolution against a colonial power that was taxing us without representation to a rebellion against the lawful government of the United States that Virginia and all the other Southern states voluntarily entered into, because pro-slave forces couldn’t handle losing the election? Give me a break with this ridiculous tangential argument.

“deflect from the salient point by Injecting Slavery”

You mention George Washington rebelling against King George and you accuse me of deflecting? You got some nerve!!!

Slavery and the preservation of political power for slave owners (rich a-holes, cheap labor express of their day) was the only reason the Confederacy existed. It can no more be removed from discussion of the Civil War than nitrogen can be removed from Earth’s atmosphere.

[Bull Snipe]

So the Government has no right to seize a Confederate cannon, or a Confederate rifle, because it is not specifically listed in the powers of the Federal Government to do so in time of war. A slave was more value to the Confederate Government’s war effort than a Confederate cannon or rifle.

[Bull Snipe]

The law is the law, disobey at your own peril.

“You don’t have an ethical belief in the moral foundation of law?”
Do you believe ethically that Article IV section II of the Constitution is a moral law. You seem to defend vehemently that it must be obeyed. It is cited in many of your threads that since it is in the Constitution it is inviolable.
In your opinion Article IV section II needed to be followed no matter what the consequences of that action may be. Return the slaves so they can continue to dig fortifications, Return the slaves so they may continue to cast cannon, Return the slave so they can they can make the ammunition to kill American soldiers.
Obedience to Article IV section II is paramount in your view of the world. Your opinion of what is moral is strange indeed.
I personally do believe Article IV section 2 of the Constitution is unethical and immoral. I am glad that it has been removed by Amendment to the Constitution.

[HandyDandy]

Just keep in mind that DiogenesLamp does not believe that the Fugitive Slave Clause had anything to do with Slaves (fugitive or otherwise). He forgets that it was included after the Southern Slave States, Georgia and South Carolina insisted upon its inclusion as their determining factor for ratifying the United States Constitution. He can’t wrap his head around the distinct possibility that Article IV, Sec 2, clause 3, most likely was the seed out of which the War of the Rebellion later erupted. It evolved from the Fugitive Slave Clause, to the Fugitive Slave Act, to the Fugitive Slave Law, to the Compromise of 1850 and finally to the Dred Scott Decision. In that decision (1858), Crazy Taney decided that Blacks were not citizens at the time of the Constitution, that they were not then and there citizens and that they never could be citizens. Of course that meant that Dred Scot had no standing to bring his case for “due process”. Would DiogenesLamp have abides by this ruling.

Remember too that whereas he comes across as being intentionally obtuse, he actually believes the absurd things he says. He is the worst case of a self-deluded individual that I have ever encountered online. He is the worst sort of historical revisionist. And Honest Abe lives in his head rent free.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The claim that the South started the war is not "well said."
You just happen to agree with it.
Throw that out, and the rest falls apart."

First, it's important to notice here that DiogenesLamp considers Fort Sumter a key to defending the Confederacy, as he says: "Throw that out, and the rest falls apart."

But the fact is Confederates began committing acts of war against the United States in December 1860, seizing forts (45), arsenals (12), ships (9), mints (3) and other Federal properties across the South.
None of those seizures was "provoked" by Federal actions, and neither was Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter was simply next on the Confederate list to be seized, and required a larger force because of Union troops in it.

And Fort Sumter was among the first times Confederates encountered serious Union on-site resistance to Confederate aggression.
Finally, Fort Sumter was the first Confederate aggression to provoke the Union to call up military forces to retake what was seized.
That was the military action which, if the Union could be said to have "started war", did it.
But even DiogenesLamp can see you can't label a mere call-up "war" when it is in response to actual Confederate acts of war at Fort Sumter.
So, he must back up another step: what about Lincoln's "war fleet" with orders to "attack Confederates" and "invade the South"??

Of course that's all just nonsense:

1. No "war fleet", a simple resupply mission.
2. No orders to "attack Confederates", rather orders of "no first use of force".
3. No "invasion" because the larger ships were to remain well off-shore while small boats brought supplies to Fort Sumter.
   
4. Even Jefferson Davis himself was not concerned about being seen to start war at Fort Sumter.
   Sure he thought it better to maneuver Lincoln into starting firing first, but in the end that didn't really matter, due to "other considerations", #1 being Virginia.

Of course, in a sense, Confederates did not start war at Fort Sumter, they actually started it months earlier seizing Federal properties, Fort Sumter was merely the first serious Union resistance.

All of which DiogenesLamp well knows, but can't acknowledge because it reduces the rest of his Lost Causer defense to mere rubble.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I’m not going to let you drag me into your Pearl Harbor chaos."

Because it destroys your Lost Causer defense of the Confederacy.

I "get" that.

[rockrr]

Just think of the tens of thousands of lives that would have been saved had he honored his oath to his country.

[Bull Snipe]

how do you figure. that would not have stopped Civil War

[rockrr]

Nope - it likely wouldn’t. But it would have substantially taken the wind out of their sails.

[Bull Snipe]

maybe, maybe not

[x]

Anderson invaded Sumter in December of 1860. The property ceased to be that of the US government when South Carolina voted to secede.

I also think it would have been good to avoid war. But for there to be peace, both sides needed to be able to have options and some freedom of action, and both sides needed to be able to save face.

When you say that your side is right and entitled to what it demands and the other side has to cede everything to them, you make war inevitable - at least if your adversary has any self-respect at all. When you say that the existence of a fort in the hands of the other side is itself an act of war, or that efforts to maintain such a fort constitute an act of war, justifying an armed response you make the war.

When you deny the other side breathing room and an opportunity to save face and demand that they give in to you absolutely, it's hard to see how you can blame anyone else for the war. It was people who thought as you do that made the war, and it's unfortunate that you haven't learned anything from their example.

That's why your claim not to have a dog in the fight or a horse in the race is so laughable. Of all the people here, you are the one with a dog in the fight. Most Americans don't know about or care about the Civil War, or take one side or the other in their view of the conflict. Of those who do, some say will admit that those on the other side had legitimate reason for acting as they did, while others don't give the matter much thought. Very few go to the lengths that you do to deny that the other side has any legitimacy at all.

[x]

But that is a very different thing from clear cut bribery to an individual.

It's not "bribery." It's "horse trading." It's barter or rational exchange. How do you think running mates and cabinet secretaries were chosen - are chosen? They are the people who offer support to the winning candidate and there's usually a promise (implied or explicit) involved.

You've lost me here. When is it not about money? It's always about money.

My point was that it's always about money and materialistic or opportunistic motivations for you when it comes to Lincoln and the Republicans, but somehow it's more idealistic and pure when other political actors are involved.

I see oppression as something worse than taking money from well to do rich people. Exploitation seems a better word.

I said people rebelled when they felt oppressed. Southerners - plantation owners and slave owners - felt oppressed and revolted. The difference between oppression and exploitation is significant in other matters, but in this regard it's trivial.

Which implies the only correct course of action is to go to war. I'm not convinced that is true.

The correct course of action was not to cave in to sedition and subversion.

[rockrr]

If one were interested enough to follow DegenerateLamps illogic (I don’t count myself among them) one could just as easily say, “You’ve lost me here. When is it not about ego? It’s always about ego.”

His claims are so detached from reality that, beyond a quick chuckle now and again, he isn’t worth the effort.

[DiogenesLamp]

King George can screw himself. You compare our revolution against a colonial power that was taxing us without representation

If it was intolerable, why didn't the Canadians revolt?

to a rebellion against the lawful government of the United States that Virginia and all the other Southern states voluntarily entered into

Let us see what Virginia actually agreed to.

WE the Delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly, and now met in Convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us, to decide thereon, DO in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: ...

The State of New York had a very similar verbiage in it's ratification statement.

because pro-slave forces couldn’t handle losing the election?

Well firstly, that's your opinion of why they wanted independence, and secondly, the Declaration of Independence does not specify what reasons are sufficient to assert the right of independence. It merely says that the people have a right to it if they want it:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

You mention George Washington rebelling against King George and you accuse me of deflecting? You got some nerve!!!

When you try to assert that the Union went to war with the South because the South had slavery, you are deflecting. The Union did not go to war with the South because the South had Slavery. Therefore, only the VALID reasons why the Union went to war with the South have any bearing on the subject. Claiming the war was about slavery is just propaganda to justify the Union invading. The Union didn't care about slavery in the South, (Or in Union States either) they invaded to stop the Southern people from having financial independence from Washington DC.

Slavery and the preservation of political power for slave owners (rich a-holes, cheap labor express of their day) was the only reason the Confederacy existed.

Slavery would have continued to exist if they had remained in the Union, and therefore Slavery is a non-issue. You have a more valid point about them trying to preserve their political power, but the South's reasons for seceding are irrelevant. They had a right to do so for any reason sufficient to convince their people that they wanted independence, and as they voted to leave in accordance with the Democratic process, it doesn't matter why they wanted to leave. They had a right to do so for any reason that satisfied them.

The principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence are either valid or they are not. If they are valid, they are just as valid for the Confederates as they were for the Founders.