This is true but it is also true that he decided to defend his state, family and friends.
I’m conservative and could care less if confederate statues/flags remain
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I'm talking more about specific people/generals involved on both sides..the Union was not without sin either btw. Everyone just wants to put some Disney version of hero vs villain on the Civil War and it was MUCH more complicated than that, that's all I was pointing to with my comments above.
It’s Just really really not important to glorify a failed rebellion. Teach about it? Sure. Display artifacts from it in museums? Absolutely.
But why does what was once the “confederacy” need monuments? Removing the statues isn’t removing history, it’s removing the glorification of what’s really a genital wart on the penis of America.
I think some look at it as if you start to give an inch with this mob, they will take a mile. At some point a line as to be drawn. They will never be satisfied.
It's REALLY NOT. One side wanted to own people. The other side wanted to stop that. Everything else is just details.
Well I think the place to draw that line is not at "We would like to keep the statues up of an enemy of the United States that fought to keep your ancestors enslaved". It's somewhere farther back.
Do you think the Civil War would have been fought if the United States had allowed the south to keep their slaves, and allowed the practice of slavery to continue in future states?
Mighty tough talk.
I didn't say I drew the line, I said that some believe that. The evidence is starting to mount that the anarchists will not be satisfied at all.
Because both sides were greedy and wanted to own more property/territory, slavery was a factor in the war but there were other factors/disputes involved as well that even without slavery would have still started a Civil War. Read up on them, this is exactly what I'm talking about here with the Disney version of good vs evil.
Remember the freeing of the slaves was a political ploy by Lincoln that occurred after the war started. The western members of the Union Army weren't pleased about that. There are numerous accounts of soldiers from Indiana, Minnesota, and Michigan expressing disgust at this. They joined to preserve the union not to free slaves.
No. There weren't. Slavery was the issue that they were fighting for more territory for. If there were other issues they were concerned about, please post them.
True, but the south seceded specifically because they were fearful that Lincoln would end the practice of slavery. It's IN THE DAMN ARTICLES OF SECESSION.
Oh? The US government was attacking Lee's state, friends, and family? When did that happen?
The statue near my house is to honor the men from Illinois that died fighting on that hill. That monument is in Kennesaw GA. Should we take that down as well?
The beginning of the Civil War, or more aptly named, the War for Southern Independence, was extremely complex and was not as simple as "just over slavery." The Northern states (mainly New England yankess) who spoke highly of the Union, threatened succession in the War of 1812, because their trade was threatened. Real patriotic bunch up there. This was more about economics than anything else.
Apparently you are from the north because my history teacher taught me that the war of northern aggression was fought over states rights. Now to be fair I personally don't think it was about slavery, I really do believe it was about states rights which is what the constitution was founded on. There were slaves all over the US so that was not just a southern thing. Heck when President Lincoln freed the slaves he didn't even free the ones up north that had to come later...
I'm from Alabama, and you had a pretty shitty teacher. It was definitely over slavery.
So, not that anyone cares, but I've been thinking about this confederate statue and confederate naming thing and it finally struck me that it is freaking insane to have statues and monuments and schools named after people who tried to tear the country apart. I mean, they were literally attempting to destroy the United States of America and yet for the last 150 years there are pockets where they have been celebrated. These people led a revolution and lost and yet they still have schools and military bases named after them. Seems pretty ridiculous.
In light of this new perspective, I fully support removing all confederate statues and naming from every single piece of federal land and am a little amazed it hasn't been done already. Now, that is not the same thing as destroying history, we can still learn about it from history books and in museums and such, but if I was an American, much less a black American, attending Robert E. Lee high school I think I should be somewhere between shocked and really freaking pissed. My two cents.
You don't really want to boast about northern states and their labor laws in terms of factories.
It was much more complex than that. It truly was more about States' Rights. The north didn't march off to war to free slaves, they did so to preserve the Union. Had they done that at the beginning, it is doubtful they would have had support from the western states. The abolition movement was very small when considering the size of the nation and only strong in the New England states.
So can we eliminate St Patrick's Day? I am Irish and I gotta say the way they came to us was slavery (By your definition above) as well. Many of them were treated horribly.
Specifically, was it before or after Lee turned his back on his country, and then the Confederacy started hostilities?
The United States didn't fight initially to end slavery, but the Confederacy DEFINITELY seceded and started the war for the right to own people.
St. Patrick was a former pirate slave who was brought to Ireland, and St. Patrick's Day is a religious and national holiday celebrating the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. Who finds it offensive (other than, perhaps, recovering alcoholics)?
When Lincoln raised an Army and it was evident they intended to march through Virginia to attack the Cotton States, Lee resigned his commission.
You all are applying 20th and 21st century concepts of this Republic onto Lee and others. Back then one''s state is who one was loyal too as well as the country. A state is and was a second sovereign. More so back then than now. They say that the Civil War changed the way we viewed the United States. Before the war it was "The United States of America ARE" after the war it was "The United States of America IS" A collection of many versus one. He didn't turn his back on the United States so much as he defended his home sovereign state of Virginia.
Edit: All the states didn't secede at once. The NC and Virginia only seceded after the North made clear they were going to use an Army to force the Cotton states back into the Union.
Look it up.
What I find ironic is that the people who want to keep the statues (and who argue that the statues are part of their heritage or honor their noble ancestors who fought to preserve state's rights) are the same people who tell black folks complaining about slavery to get over it because it ended 160 years ago. The hypocrisy seems to escape them.
If you went back in time May 1863, you wouldn't have thought that. In fact, the North was tiring of the war and the high casualties. Had Lee won at Gettysburg, there are many that thought the North would have forced Lincoln to sue for peace. As it was, he didn't and the South ultimately lost a war of attrition.
Lee chose his homeland of Virginia as did a great many people who chose their states.
