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]

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.

I've already said that slaves seized during the war have at least a reasonable argument to be made justifying it, but how many slaves were seized during the war, and how many after?

How do you legally justify any such actions after the war?

[DiogenesLamp]

Do you believe ethically that Article IV section II of the Constitution is a moral law.

Article IV, Section II is obviously not moral law, but it is law that was passed by the agreed upon system, and therefore it becomes a moral obligation to uphold it, change it, or abrogate the agreement.

All the states agreed to uphold it, and if they renege on the agreement, it breaches the contract.

You seem to defend vehemently that it must be obeyed.

I apply the same vehemence to other constitutional clauses as well. What do you think should be done regarding constitutional law? Refuse to obey the ones that liberals disagree with?

It is cited in many of your threads that since it is in the Constitution it is inviolable.

Till amended or repealed. Do you not believe the Constitution should be enforced as written?

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.

Somehow you and others have gotten the impression I am referring to wartime conditions. I am not. Of course you don't give back any seized assets during the war! I thought it was axiomatic that we were talking about post war conditions. To suggest we do so during a war is so silly it never occurred to me anyone would think we were talking about the period when the war was being fought.

I personally do believe Article IV section 2 of the Constitution is unethical and immoral.

Well I do too, and it would have been better had it never been put in there.

I am glad that it has been removed by Amendment to the Constitution.

I very much object to the fake ratification process used to claim that 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were ratified. You cannot throw out all the opinions of the people of a state just because you don't like their opinions. This is not how "consent of the governed" is supposed to work. This is how dictatorship works.

The Southern states would never have ratified those amendments at that time in History, and tossing out their right to vote and/or threatening them to vote as they are told renders the process invalid.

The Democratic process cannot operate as puppets of the government. That was never how our system was supposed to work.

[DiogenesLamp]

Just keep in mind that DiogenesLamp does not believe that the Fugitive Slave Clause had anything to do with Slaves (fugitive or otherwise).

I believe you would be better served by saying what is in your mind, and leaving it to me to say what is in mine. Article IV, Section 2 has long been regarded as a "fugitive slave clause", though that verbiage is not in it.

We have to grasp it's operation based on what is in it.

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.

I do not forget that all 13 states agreed to it. I also do not forget that the vast majority of the states were slave states in 1787.

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.

The Clause didn't evolve. Efforts to make recalcitrant states enforce it evolved.

Crazy Taney decided that Blacks were not citizens at the time of the Constitution

He got that part wrong, as I've said many times. The majority of blacks were not citizens at that time, but many were. In 1776, a "citizen" was anyone whom a state said was a citizen. Many states recognized citizenship for blacks, and through the operation of the Federal compact, those state citizenships were required to be recognized by other states.

Of course that meant that Dred Scot had no standing to bring his case for “due process”. Would DiogenesLamp have abides by this ruling.

I have little patience for the "standing" argument of courts. I regard those as attempts to ignore larger principles of law. If Dred Scot had been a citizen, he would not have been a slave, but his claim was that as a slave who entered a free state, he was thereby freed by the operation of a law from a free state.

Article IV, doesn't allow this.

Tanney's reasoning is wrong in parts, but his overall ruling is correct for that era because of the operation of Article IV, Section 2.

Remember too that whereas he comes across as being intentionally obtuse, he actually believes the absurd things he says.

You can read the plain verbiage of Article 4, Section 2, and believe that Dred Scott should have won, and you call me "obtuse"?

I didn't write the law, but i'm not going to pretend it means what I prefer it means.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, it's important to notice here that DiogenesLamp considers Fort Sumter a key to defending the Confederacy, as he says:

Here is someone else trying to speak for me. I do not think Sumter is "key" to defending the Confederacy. What I think is "key" to defending the Confederacy is the Declaration of Independence written "four score and seven years" before.

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.

So your very biased opinion alleges. You don't allow any consideration for their position that the land belongs to the people, and when the people assert independence, the land goes with them.

Fort Sumter was simply next on the Confederate list to be seized, and required a larger force because of Union troops in it.

There were no Union troops in it when South Carolina voted for Independence. They snuck over there in the middle of night in late December of 1860, after spiking all the cannons at Ft. Moultrie and burning their carriages. They had been telling the Confederates that all the forts were to be turned over to them eventually, and when they burned the cannons at fort Moultrie and then took up residence in the unfinished Sumter, the people of South Carolina regarded it as an underhanded backstabbing act of belligerence.

Charlestonians had believed they would be able to engage in greatly increased trade with Europe, and then suddenly they had a pack of belligerent liars with a fort full of cannons able to threaten shipping into and out of their harbor.

No "war fleet", a simple resupply mission.

With F***ing Warships making up the bulk of it. Once again, here is one of your "supply" ships.

[DiogenesLamp]

Because it destroys your Lost Causer defense of the Confederacy.

No, I ignore your attempts to compare Fort Sumter to Pearl Harbor because it is astonishingly silly.

Sumter was useless. It has remained empty for the vast majority of it's existence.

Pearl Harbor has always been crucial to the interests of the US. It has not ever been nonessential.

[DiogenesLamp]

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.

Trouble is, this fort was a serious threat to their shipping. At least one Northern newspaper had already called for the guns of fort Sumter to be fired at Charleston to prevent them from getting out of the tariffs demanded by the Federal Government. Anderson's officers at Fort Sumter actually discussed using the guns of Fort Sumter to attack Charleston.

The Fort commanded the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, and it would scare away trade so long as the potential existed that those guns might open up on ships attempting to trade with Charleston.

So Fort Sumter was not merely an issue of face with the Confederates, it was a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Charleston's merchant traders. Of course it was also a slap in the face to the efforts of the Confederates to be seen as a legitimate government. A government that cannot control it's own territory, isn't a real government.

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.

I've read discussions among Lincoln's cabinet that one of the things they feared most is that the Southerners would do nothing at all, and they would have a fort full of men doing nothing, and it would become an embarrassment. In the meantime the South would establish European trade and continue to behave as an independent state, and if it went on too long, it would become irrevocable.

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.

I don't have an ancestor "dog" in the fight. I think we all have a "dog" in the fight when it comes to Federal overreach. I think much of modern federal overreach and modern judicial overreach stems from the consequences of the civil war.

Federalism was severely damaged by the Civil War, and in that regard, I think we all have a "dog" in that fight.

I was opposing Federal and Judicial overreach long before I ever thought of the civil war, and every time I looked at the roots of some horrible federal policy of judicial ruling, it kept tracing back to the 14th amendment and the Civil War.

[x]

Trouble is, this fort was a serious threat to their shipping.

Trouble is, the political crisis and possibility of war disturbed trade. Do you seriously think the cotton planters were just dying to collect the superprofits you think were coming their way? No. They were trying to get through a crisis and trying to make a country, and some of them thought that war would help them to create a strong, united, independent South.

At least one Northern newspaper had already called for the guns of fort Sumter to be fired at Charleston to prevent them from getting out of the tariffs demanded by the Federal Government. Anderson's officers at Fort Sumter actually discussed using the guns of Fort Sumter to attack Charleston.

You find that shocking? Surprising? In some way significant? Nonsense. You can always find some newspaper advocating some fringe policy. Back then, before the Internet, those ideas found their way into newsprint, rather than onto computer screens. And at any meeting of officers in a crisis, some nutty ideas are bound to be floated.

But you'll note that they didn't act on that notion. They recognized that "attacking" or shelling the city would only bring the surrounding forces down on the fort faster than would otherwise be the case. Meanwhile nutty ideas were also circulating on the other side, but they weren't rejected.

The Fort commanded the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, and it would scare away trade so long as the potential existed that those guns might open up on ships attempting to trade with Charleston.

Then the guns of the city and other batteries would open up on the fort. It was a stalemate, and as the fort was at a disadvantage, I'd say they were pretty well deterred from attacking anyone.

So Fort Sumter was not merely an issue of face with the Confederates, it was a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Charleston's merchant traders.

Overdramatic in the extreme. And you've already as much as said that secession would destroy New York economically. Why couldn't Charleston wait until the crisis was peacefully resolved? Tell me, were those Charleston merchants just aching for war? Just dying to get every last penny sooner rather than later? And what made them superior to their Northern counterparts?

Of course it was also a slap in the face to the efforts of the Confederates to be seen as a legitimate government. A government that cannot control it's own territory, isn't a real government.

In terms of pride, that was something that Confederates probably could have lived with. The idea that people wouldn't take their government seriously was more serious, but still, if you think in those terms you're only hurting yourself.

What I mean is, if you think that if you don't get everything that you want immediately then you are done for, then you've painted yourself into a corner unnecessarily. You've made the situation more dire for yourself than it has to be.

Today, we recognize that Spain could live without Gibraltar and China could live for long decades without Hong Kong, and that two forces could exist side by side in a stand-off or stalemate without either being existentially threatened.

I've read discussions among Lincoln's cabinet that one of the things they feared most is that the Southerners would do nothing at all, and they would have a fort full of men doing nothing, and it would become an embarrassment. In the meantime the South would establish European trade and continue to behave as an independent state, and if it went on too long, it would become irrevocable.

First, you can't keep saying things like that without citing sources. Otherwise people will just assume you are making things up. Second, I really doubt that was the case. Secessionists were seizing federal property all over the place. That they would do nothing was probably the least of Lincoln's worries. Third, so what? If the secessionists really did do nothing and this won them their independence peacefully, isn't that what you would want and what America could probably live with? That they didn't was nobody's fault but their own.

I was opposing Federal and Judicial overreach long before I ever thought of the civil war, and every time I looked at the roots of some horrible federal policy of judicial ruling, it kept tracing back to the 14th amendment and the Civil War.

You needed to have some way of guaranteeing that states couldn't deny their people basic liberties. Without that we'd still have separate water fountains and washrooms for different races. Is that what you want? Twentieth century jurisprudence turned the 14th Amendment into something it wasn't meant to be, but how would you keep states from denying large parts of their populations basic human rights?

[clamper1797]

He did

[clamper1797]

He did ... imagine all the lives saved if the tyrant Lincoln had followed the constitution

[rockrr]

Lincoln did follow the Constitution while the rebels turned their backs on it entirely.

[Bull Snipe]

About 3.5 million before the war ended.

[Bull Snipe]

How many slaves were seized after the War ended?

[Impy]

So young Southerners were “radicalized” so to speak? Very interesting information.

[x]

So young Southerners were “radicalized” so to speak? Very interesting information.

In the C-Span conversation between Allen Guelzo and Gary Gallagher they said that Arlington and other properties were going to Lee's children, so if Lee remained with the Union, he'd likely be fighting with his children, and that might explain why Lee became a Confederate. It's also the case that Southern secessionism, sectionalism, and "state's rights" thinking had been growing since 1850 (and even earlier). I'm not 100% sure that Lee's children were ardent secessionists, but it's something that might be worth checking out.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "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."

Again I invite you to study my post #410, which addresses that exact question.
Near as I can tell, the case for Jefferson Davis' motives at Fort Sumter is iron-clad.

Here's the thing: in all these threads you've argued, in effect, that Davis was pushed ignorantly into an act of stupidity by Lincoln's so-called "war fleet".
My opinion, on the contrary, is that Davis was in fact quite brilliant, that he was "pushed into" nothing but rather acted 100% rationally based on what he knew at the time, namely, a "battle" at Fort Sumter (and/or Fort Pickens) would flip Virginia from Union to Confederate.
And along with Virginia, at least three more Upper South states, possibly others.

So, how could Davis not take advantage of that opportunity?
I also think Lincoln realized what was the likely outcome and could not have wished to see Virginia secede.
But he may well have thought war was coming -- somewhere, somehow, some-when -- no matter what he did, and therefore he really had no choice except to attempt to hold Fort Sumter as long as possible.

[BroJoeK]

Quoting BJK: "I read nothing in it that didn't sound like Trump's campaign & enthusiastic supporters, hooray for them!"

DiogenesLamp: "You didn't see the part about counterfeit tickets?
You didn't see the part about dealing in political favors to get nomination support?"

You didn't see the part where Lincoln told his people at the convention (Lincoln was not there!):

"I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none".[8]

As for alleged "fake tickets" for non-delegates, the fact remains that while Seward was the leader, he never had a majority of delegates and always had strong opposition.
So, if you'd like an analogy, Seward was similar to Stephen Douglas in the Democrats' party -- yes, a strong leader but also with strong opposition.
The difference between them was that where Fire Eaters in 1860 split their Democrat party in half, Republicans compromised their differences by settling on Lincoln.

Your repeated suggestions that there was something uniquely crooked about the Republican 1860 convention are simply not born out by evidence.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I've read discussions among Lincoln's cabinet that one of the things they feared most is that the Southerners would do nothing at all, and they would have a fort full of men doing nothing, and it would become an embarrassment."

x: "First, you can't keep saying things like that without citing sources.
Otherwise people will just assume you are making things up.
Second, I really doubt that was the case.
Secessionists were seizing federal property all over the place..."

It's one of DiogenesLamp's basic problems -- there is a canon of Lost Cause proof-texts much of which has been posted on FR CW threads at one time or another, so DiogenesLamp might well remember seeing something along those lines.
But many of those "proof-texts" are highly dubious to begin with -- of unknown or disputed provenance, quotes taken out of original context and reframed to mean something quite different, or just plain outright lies.
And DiogenesLamp does not know enough real history to even suspect which is legit and which not.

But even more important, DiogenesLamp has complained here that very often he can't even find those old quotes -- how can you search back years over thousands of posts?
So he is forced to respond from memory and naturally DiogenesLamp only remembers what he wishes to remember and remembers it in the way that he wishes it to have been.
In that sense, DiogenesLamp is a little like the recent accuser against the now Supreme Court justice.
Sure, he remembers something, but is not at all clear exactly what, and he only knows for sure that those evil Republicans were up to no good!

Bottom line goes back to my post #410 which lays out Jefferson Davis' reasons & motives for Fort Sumter, and they were neither trivial, stupid nor short-sighted.
Despite the Union's overwhelming numbers in men & materials, Confederates came within a hair's breadth of success and that hair's-breadth can be defined in two words: Kentucky & Missouri.
Lincoln believed that had Davis proved successful in flipping especially Kentucky, to solid Confederates, the Union was lost.

And that's what Fort Sumter was really all about.
It's not "follow the money," rather it's "follow the states".

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Let us remember Chicago's reputation for corruption."

And yet again DiogenesLamp wishes to blame a city for some alleged malfeasance, this time Chicago.
Sure today Chicago is our second or third largest metropolitan area, with a reputation for rough & tumble politics, ruled over by Democrats continuously since 1931.
But in 1860 Chicago was nothing like that.
In 1860 Chicago was only the country's 9th largest city, behind others like New Orleans, Baltimore, Cincinnati & St. Louis.
It even briefly had a Republican administration.
So there's no evidence today suggesting Chicago itself was any more or less corrupt than other cities, or that the 1860 Republican convention was any more or less "swampy" than any others of its time.

Indeed, compared to what Democrats did in 1860 (split up their party), Republicans were a civilized model of, ahem, "the art of deal making".

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

Noooo, if said correctly: money nearly always plays a role, but not always the leading role, indeed more often than not raw money is secondary to other reasons for political passion.

Indeed, DiogenesLamp's sole focus on money in the Union (but not in the Confederacy), tells us there was something a little "off" in DiogenesLamp's education and/or upbringing.

[BroJoeK]

impy: "You compare our revolution against a colonial power that was taxing us without representation"

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

By now DiogenesLamp well knows Canadians in 1775 had a very different situation, so different they were glad to have British troops stationed in their territory for protection against not only Americans, but also French Canadians.

And, none of the "intolerable acts" imposed on Americans applied to Canadians.
Indeed, one "intolerable act", the Quebec Act, was favorable to Canadians who were generally happy with it.

DiogenesLamp quoting Virginia ratification: "...may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression"

DiogenesLamp continues to fantasize these words meant Virginians intended to declare secession for any reason whatever, or indeed for no reason at all, whenever they felt like it.
But that is simply not true.
Those words "injury or oppression" referred exactly to conditions described in the Declaration of Independence, none of which existed in 1860.

DiogenesLamp: " 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: "

It says nothing of the sort, even the passage DiogenesLamp quotes here:

"whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,"

"Destructive" does not mean somebody wakes up with a political headache one morning and so wants a "divorce".
Rather it refers back to conditions spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, none of which existed in 1860.

DiogenesLamp: "When you try to assert that the Union went to war with the South because the South had slavery, you are deflecting."

I've never seen a pro-Union poster make such a claim, only Lost Causers say that.
What Unionists say is: Confederates declared secession & war to protect slavery, the Union accepted war to preserve the Union.

DiogenesLamp: "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."

Not one Union soldier in a thousand would have any clue what you're talking about.
They believed, first, they were preserving the Union and eventually, second, for that slavery must be abolished.

DiogenesLamp: "Slavery would have continued to exist if they had remained in the Union, and therefore Slavery is a non-issue"

DiogenesLamp well knows that's a lie, but keeps repeating it anyway.
Slavery was always the number one reason, and often the only reason, listed by Fire Eaters in their "Reasons for secession" documents.

DiogenesLamp: "...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..."

So claimed Deep South Fire Eaters in 1860 and Lost Causers today, but in fact, no US Founder ever proposed or supported unilateral unapproved declaration of secession at pleasure, meaning absent conditions analogous to those listed in the Declaration of Independence.

DiogenesLamp: "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."

What's totally invalid is DiogenesLamp's interpretation of our Founders' words & deed.
In fact, no Founder ever supported an unlimited "right of secession" for any reason or for no reason at all.
And yet that's just what began in 1860.

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy on DiogenesLamp: "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...."

Some people here have hoped to explain DiogenesLamp by referring to a mental condition whereby normal processes of learning & logic don't function in his head.
Instead, he's fixated on his Lost Causer mythology and won't move beyond it, no matter what.
Indeed, he even claims his immovable loyalty to fake-history is the result of having no family history "skin in the game".

Instead, he tells us his ancestors were elsewhere during the Civil War, but we can only guess where that elsewhere was, he gives no real clues.
Regardless, his loyalty to the Lost Cause appears full, genuine & unshakable, no serious equivocations, no hemming & hawing over it, he's apparently swallowed all the pro-Confederate Kool-Aid, and seems pretty happy with it.

Sad.