When were confederate monuments erected and why?

[joeybaggz]

Food for thought?

Robert E Lee was married to George Washington’s granddaughter. He worked with Grant during the Mexican-American war and became a decorated war hero defending this country He believed slavery was a great evil and his wife broke the law by teaching slaves to read and write. After the civil war he worked with Andrew Johnson’s program of reconstruction. He became very popular with the northern states and the Barracks at West Point were named in his honor in 1962. He was a great man who served this country his entire life in some form or other. His memorial is now being called a blight. No American military veteran should be treated as such. People keep yelling, “You can’t change history.” Sadly you can. This is no better than book burnings. ISIS tried rewriting history by destroying historical artifacts. Is that really who we want to emulate?
As they tear down this “blight” keep these few historical facts in your mind. No military veteran and highly decorated war hero should ever be treated as such. This is not Iraq and that is not a statue of Sadam.

IN ADDITION:: Lee was also very torn about the prospect of the South leaving the Union. His wife’s grandfather George Washington was a huge influence on him. He believed that ultimately, states rights trumped the federal government and chose to lead the Southern army. His estate, Arlington, near Washington DC was his home and while away fighting the war, the federal government demanded that Lee himself pay his taxes in person. He sent his wife but the money was not accepted from a woman. When he could not pay the taxes, the government began burying dead Union soldiers on his land. The government is still burying people there today. It is now called Arlington National Cemetery. Do you left leaning liberals want to tear that one up too?

 

[poche]

We, the descendants of the Old Confederacy want an identity unto ourselves. I think it doesn’t matter what the monument is to the same people would be objecting.

 

[dvdjs]

Treason it wasn’t, if seceding was constitutional.

Fine. Secessionists in the cause of slavery that might also be guilty of treason.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

It’s nice that you can find other aspects of Lee’s life. But I think that it is clear that these do not figure into his memorials. He is memorialized as a civil war general. We should not memorialize secessionist traitors who fought for the cause of slavery.

The answer to a slippery slope is to define standards, not to oppose everything - even things that make perfect sense.

Since the goalposts have moved, who gets to define the new standards? Who gets the dirty job of holding the line to those standards?

You can welcome this statue teardown or that one, but what if they want more? When you let them go before, will you now willingly step in their path and tell them “enough!”? There are already calls to do something about the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial. I would have laughed at that a few years ago. But I am not laughing now.

 

[dvdjs]

Since the goalposts have moved, who gets to define the new standards? Who gets the dirty job of holding the line to those standards?

You can welcome this statue teardown or that one, but what if they want more? When you let them go before, will you now willingly step in their path and tell them “enough!”? There are already calls to do something about the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial. I would have laughed at that a few years ago. But I am not laughing now.

who decides now?

 

[7_Sorrows]

Food for thought?

Robert E Lee was married to George Washington’s granddaughter. He worked with Grant during the Mexican-American war and became a decorated war hero defending this country He believed slavery was a great evil and his wife broke the law by teaching slaves to read and write. After the civil war he worked with Andrew Johnson’s program of reconstruction. He became very popular with the northern states and the Barracks at West Point were named in his honor in 1962. He was a great man who served this country his entire life in some form or other. His memorial is now being called a blight. No American military veteran should be treated as such. People keep yelling, “You can’t change history.” Sadly you can. This is no better than book burnings. ISIS tried rewriting history by destroying historical artifacts. Is that really who we want to emulate?
As they tear down this “blight” keep these few historical facts in your mind. No military veteran and highly decorated war hero should ever be treated as such. This is not Iraq and that is not a statue of Sadam.

IN ADDITION:: Lee was also very torn about the prospect of the South leaving the Union. His wife’s grandfather George Washington was a huge influence on him. He believed that ultimately, states rights trumped the federal government and chose to lead the Southern army. His estate, Arlington, near Washington DC was his home and while away fighting the war, the federal government demanded that Lee himself pay his taxes in person. He sent his wife but the money was not accepted from a woman. When he could not pay the taxes, the government began burying dead Union soldiers on his land. The government is still burying people there today. It is now called Arlington National Cemetery. Do you left leaning liberals want to tear that one up too?

 

[St_Francis]

Fine. Secessionists in the cause of slavery that might also be guilty of treason.

Shades of the (American) Revolutionaries against the (English) crown, no?

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

Shades of the (American) Revolutionaries against the (English) crown, no?

Reminds me of that scene in James Clavell’s novel Shogun which goes something like this: Blackthorne the sea pilot and Toranaga the would be Shogun were having a conversation in which Blackthorne described a rebellion. Toranaga said how disgraceful and disrespectful, there is no excuse for such impudence against authority. Blackthorne’s response: there is … if you win.

Anyway there is talk in the UK of tearing down Lord Nelson’s statue even though he was merely one of the greatest heroes ever in English history for his victory at Trafalgar in 1805.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Reminds me of that scene in James Clavell’s novel Shogun which goes something like this: Blackthorne the sea pilot and Toranaga the would be Shogun were having a conversation in which Blackthorne described a rebellion. Toranaga said how disgraceful and disrespectful, there is no excuse for such impudence against authority. Blackthorne’s response: there is … if you win.

Anyway there is talk in the UK of tearing down Lord Nelson’s statue even though he was merely one of the greatest heroes ever in English history for his victory at Trafalgar in 1805.

What did he do wrong?

 

[commenter]

I would have said the same thing a very few years ago, that the USA was safe from the current madness.

Your countrymen George Orwell (1984) and C. S. Lewis (That Hideous Strength) saw what was coming.

 

[dvdjs]

Shades of the (American) Revolutionaries against the (English) crown, no?

Of course - apart from the cause of slavery, which is no small matter. The founding fathers knew that they were risking their fortunes and lives - that there would be a response by Crown that the colonies should submit of perish. But they took the risk for a cause that, unlike the cause of slavery, was not intrinsically dishonorable. And they won.

 

[commenter]

Of course - apart from the cause of slavery, which is no small matter. The founding fathers knew that they were risking their fortunes and lives - that there would be a response by Crown that the colonies should submit of perish. But they took the risk for a cause that, unlike the cause of slavery, was not intrinsically dishonorable. And they won.

The cause of slavery was, and is, intrinsically dishonorable. At the state and national level, slavery was the dominant cause of the Civil War, and those in the South who were in a position to make decisions, made dishonorable decisions; not just regarding slavery, but also to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent persons.

But they are not just tearing down monuments of the dishonorable system of white supremacy. They are also tearing down war memorials of drafted teenage boys who had nothing to do with causing slavery, who put their life on the line to defend their home city.

This vandalism is dishonorable.

 

[exnihilo]

Of course - apart from the cause of slavery, which is no small matter. The founding fathers knew that they were risking their fortunes and lives - that there would be a response by Crown that the colonies should submit of perish. But they took the risk for a cause that, unlike the cause of slavery, was not intrinsically dishonorable. And they won.

I’m curious, both sides had conscripts which is a form of slavery. It seems your objection to slavery is only private slavery and not public slavery. You have no problem with government slaves. I’m wondering how you justify that? Is it that the state can do anything and is above morality? Or is it you just don’t like the CSA and so make ad hoc arguments against it?

 

[GKC]

Fine. Secessionists in the cause of slavery that might also be guilty of treason.

Only ex post facto. And you know what the Constitution says about that.

The question was open, at the time. And had been raised, before, as at the Hartford convention, 45 years before the war. The question was answered, after the war. A state may not leave the Union.

 

[GKC]

who decides now?

Increasingly, folks in the street appealing to and practicing argumentum ad baculum.

 

[GKC]

Tell your father that commonsense and charitableness are indeed at a premium locally, these days.

 

[GKC]

Admirable.

Rare.

 

[GKC]

Burckhardt 's terrible simplifiers.

 

[YADA]

I think its time to start buying stock in Stationary companies, Staples and Office Depot …

Next they will go after all the City and street names … every business and resident will have change their addresses -

And it wont just be Confederate names - but Christian ones … like the Crosses that have already come down due to litigation - and state/county/city logos - like Stubenville -

I expect names like St Paul, OR, Salem, OR … Los Angeles, CA and San Francisco, CA , Corpus Christi TX … mountains like Mt Hebo, Mt Pisgah - All have to go - sooner rather than later …

Jefferson Davis Highway … Washington Parkway et al - gotta go!!

They wont have to change anything named for Robert Byrd though - he gets a pass like all the rest of the {D] crowd …

 

[Ridgerunner]

The cause of slavery was, and is, intrinsically dishonorable. At the state and national level, slavery was the dominant cause of the Civil War, and those in the South who were in a position to make decisions, made dishonorable decisions; not just regarding slavery, but also to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent persons.

But they are not just tearing down monuments of the dishonorable system of white supremacy. They are also tearing down war memorials of drafted teenage boys who had nothing to do with causing slavery, who put their life on the line to defend their home city.

This vandalism is dishonorable.

I don’t question that slavery is intrinsically dishonorable, though there were times and places where it might be argued, as in some of the places in Europe where it was more like indentured servitude and assumed to be only for a time.

But the more I read about the Civil War, the more I am inclined to doubt it was about slavery in all cases, though it surely was in some. I am convinced in my state it wasn’t. I’m fairly persuaded it wasn’t in Arkansas, either.

In some cases, one had to pick which side was going to attack one’s state, because one or the other surely would. Being neutral was not an option. My state tried that and was immediately invaded by Union troops for it.