The Myth of the Kindly General Lee
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Virginiá
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« on: June 04, 2017, 03:00:29 PM »

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/

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Kalwejt
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« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2017, 04:12:43 PM »

I'm reminded of Albert Speer being called a "good nazi".
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TDAS04
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« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2017, 12:31:58 PM »

Not a nice guy, HP. 
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2017, 10:19:31 PM »

Underrated by Northerners, Overrwted by Southerners.

His writings on slavery don't seem any more racist than Abraham Lincoln's, and his racial problems were societal problems.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #4 on: June 10, 2017, 09:08:50 PM »

Underrated by Northerners, Overrated by Southerners.

His writings on slavery don't seem any more racist than Abraham Lincoln's, and his racial problems were societal problems.

True.  Most people forget, if they ever knew it, that abolitionists were but a fringe part of the Republican coalition.  For most Republicans, they just wanted to ensure that white workingmen didn't have to compete with blacks, be they slave or free,  either in the north or in the western territories.  Keeping down competition for jobs and land was also a factor in the nativist Know-Nothing Party becoming part of the Republican coalition as well.
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Technocracy Timmy
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« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2017, 10:32:19 PM »

Underrated by Northerners, Overrated by Southerners.

His writings on slavery don't seem any more racist than Abraham Lincoln's, and his racial problems were societal problems.

True.  Most people forget, if they ever knew it, that abolitionists were but a fringe part of the Republican coalition.  For most Republicans, they just wanted to ensure that white workingmen didn't have to compete with blacks, be they slave or free,  either in the north or in the western territories.  Keeping down competition for jobs and land was also a factor in the nativist Know-Nothing Party becoming part of the Republican coalition as well.

Republican Party nativists were especially aggrieved at the demographic changes of the country. For many of these WASP nativists, the Irish catholic wave was bad enough, but seeing the south importing more and more Africans? They were really upset about what slavery could mean for their precious white future of the country.
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Sumner 1868
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« Reply #6 on: June 10, 2017, 10:43:45 PM »

his racial problems were societal problems.

No, Lee's position can't be equated with that of with free soil society. Case in point:

https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_Suffrage_for_African_Americans_Referendum,_Question_1_(1857)

Yes, it still failed, and doubtless most of the people that voted for black suffrage had racial prejudices, but its clear that many thousands (if not millions) of white people in the North were further ahead on race than Lee or even Lincoln.


True.  Most people forget, if they ever knew it, that abolitionists were but a fringe part of the Republican coalition.  For most Republicans, they just wanted to ensure that white workingmen didn't have to compete with blacks, be they slave or free,  either in the north or in the western territories.  Keeping down competition for jobs and land was also a factor in the nativist Know-Nothing Party becoming part of the Republican coalition as well.

While the Radicals weren't a majority of the party, they were hardly "fringe" and made up at least a third of the party.
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vanguard96
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« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2017, 09:26:09 PM »

[quote}

His writings on slavery don't seem any more racist than Abraham Lincoln's, and his racial problems were societal problems.
[/quote]

Lincoln's views on slavery and blacks were abhorrent - bar set very low there.

"I as much as any man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race" 1858

He's no Lysander Spooner.
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #8 on: June 15, 2017, 08:39:51 PM »

Lee was raised by a family, in a society, dedicated to promoting slavery. It was their livelihood, so they had to support it. The divide widened in a dangerous display of opinion-based brinkmanship and escalation: as the North become more anti-slavery, the South become more pro-slavery. Lee had to become even more pro-slavery than his ancestors because the more the North pushed, the more pressure was put on the more moderate slaveowners.
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vanguard96
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« Reply #9 on: June 20, 2017, 09:01:21 AM »

I just listened to a podcast from Tom Woods from a few days ago on James Madison and the protest against his name on a high school as a part of overall iconoclasm that was associated with figures from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Near the end of the podcast they mentioned about white Southerners one or two generations ago having pictures of Robert E. Lee hanging on their walls next to Jesus.

My grandparents who lived in Nashville were Methodist educators and did not make overt mention of the war of Northern Aggression or say 'the South will rise again" or hang Confederate flags or pictures of Confederate figures or those times in their house. They lived in the same neighborhood as Lamar Alexander - literally two houses down the street from him. So my experience there and with my cousins was not one like that but then that was the 80's and in a fair-sized city. And in college also in Nashville at Vandy I did not see that. The first time I really saw the old stereotype full on was when I lived in Morristown in eastern TN - not as much in Morristown itself but in the surrounding rural counties. I suspect there could be a few old guys there who still felt that way.

What about in Arkansas from your experience?
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The Mikado
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« Reply #10 on: June 20, 2017, 12:33:37 PM »

Of course Lee wasn't an abolitionist. Abolitionists were a rarity nationally in 1860 and basically unheard of outside of New England.

Lee's myth is based on the idea that he's a brilliant military commander who took an outnumbered and undersupplied army and kept it in the field for four years, pulling off several battlefield victories against superior enemy forces, and managed to protect Richmond, a capital city a few dozen miles south of the Potomac, for that whole four year period. Lee's reputation is based on his tenacity and tactical cunning, not on his humanitarianism or morality.

EDIT:

I'm reminded of Albert Speer being called a "good nazi".

I think Lee's historical treatment is more akin to Rommel than Speer.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2017, 06:32:07 PM »

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of judging historical figures by their private opinions more than by their public actions. The fact of the matter is that, at the end of the day, Lincoln freed the slaves (you can argue about the why, but at the end of the day the result was the same) whereas Lee commanded an army whose stated goal was the preservation of chattel slavery in America. Their own moral rectitude is not really a relevant consideration, unless you're in the position of weighing souls, which a historian most certainly should not be. I will add, though, that there's a definite difference between believing blacks to be of an inferior race (which was a pretty standard view nationally in the 1850s) and believing that they were better off enslaved than free (which Lincoln, for all his hedging and evolutions on the issue, never contended).
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #12 on: June 21, 2017, 03:54:17 AM »

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of judging historical figures by their private opinions more than by their public actions. The fact of the matter is that, at the end of the day, Lincoln freed the slaves (you can argue about the why, but at the end of the day the result was the same) whereas Lee commanded an army whose stated goal was the preservation of chattel slavery in America. Their own moral rectitude is not really a relevant consideration, unless you're in the position of weighing souls, which a historian most certainly should not be. I will add, though, that there's a definite difference between believing blacks to be of an inferior race (which was a pretty standard view nationally in the 1850s) and believing that they were better off enslaved than free (which Lincoln, for all his hedging and evolutions on the issue, never contended).

Weighing past figures against the modern standard, will distort the vantage point and the most important takeaway.

There is no such thing as perfectionism in history, there is only the constant quest for betterment. I am so tired of these revisionists like that idiot in the NC legislature a few weeks back who attacked Lincoln. Lincoln is hero in our history because relative to the times, he moved the ball 20 yards, while Lee was playing defense. Did Lincoln violate civil liberties? Yes, but so did the damn South many times over. A slave society is by nature a totalitarian society because of the constant few of servile insurrection.

The South didn't become more extreme because of Northern pressure. The south led most every argument, every demand, demanded the breaking of every past agreement, because they concentration of slaves in growing numbers posed a severe threat to public safety and the constant fear, that motivated the increasing extremism, was that worry that tomorrow the South will look like something out of the movie Spartacus (and these people knew classical history).

As this become a more pressing fear, more repressive laws were passed making it illegal to teach blacks to read, making it illegal to espouse religious beliefs that opposed slavery and made it illegal to campaign against it or organize against it. And if a slave runs a away you could be compelled to join a posse to track them down. That is violations of freedom of speech, religion, association and press.

Along with this heightened fear of the concentration of slavery in the slave states, came increasing demands for lands. Suddenly the Missouri Compromise is anti-Southern and has to be repealed. Suddenly you have to force Northerners to help catch runaway slaves (Fugitive Slave Act) and trample all over Northern State's rights, in order for the South's state's rights to be preserved. Finally, the courts start throwing out decades of precedence, to make rulings favorable to South and finally the Supreme Court has to violate all sorts of precedent, norms and the constitution to rule that it is unconstitutional to deny anyone's right to own slaves. It took the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott decision to unify the North behind a Slavery Restrictionist like Lincoln.

The south didn't become more extreme because they annoyed by a few posters sent south from New England. The South became more extreme because they were scared crapless that they would wake up to find their throats being cut by machetes. The south literally wanted "breathing space" or if you prefer "lebensraum" to spread the slaves out and reduce the risk of servile insurrection, them constantly demanding more and more, and getting it at many stages, pushed the North to unify behind a single party and candidate opposed to the expansion of Slavery. Lincoln would not have won in 1856 or any prior election.

Its hilarious when you consider the parallel that Kalwejt made, because the political evolution of the south is fairly similar (Though much elongated over time) to the ever increasing demands by Hitler in order for him to to be "satisfied".
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« Reply #13 on: June 21, 2017, 08:18:00 AM »

Naturally, Lincoln must be judged by such types as a racial extremist while still being a racist garbagebag.
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vanguard96
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« Reply #14 on: June 21, 2017, 09:39:12 AM »

Naturally, Lincoln must be judged by such types as a racial extremist while still being a racist garbagebag.

There are many arguments against Lincoln beyond being racist segregationist who did not believe in the equality of blacks and whites (which many people were in those days) like suspending habeas corpus, violently quelling dissent, instituting an income tax, forcing people to accept money not backed by gold or silver, denying medical relief to the enemies, and letting his generals conduct total war against civilians.

Just because Jefferson Davis and the Confederates were OK with many of these same things plus chattel slavery does not make it acceptable that Lincoln did them - even in war.  Just because Forrest and other Confederate generals butchered surrendering Negro troops did not give the OK for similar atrocities committed under Sherman and Sheridan.

Famously Lincoln & General Grant greenlighted Sherman's destructive tactics focused on civilian infrastructure that have both earned praise from military strategists as well as sanction from many Southerners. While directives expressly forbade attacking civilians rape and murders did occur.

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/rape-and-justice-in-the-civil-war/

This is a chapter in the Civil War that has a lot of controversy of course but at the same time the lack of multi-dimensional studies on both Union & Confederate aggression against civilians is something that should be addressed in the historical record aside.

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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #15 on: June 21, 2017, 12:14:37 PM »

I just listened to a podcast from Tom Woods from a few days ago on James Madison and the protest against his name on a high school as a part of overall iconoclasm that was associated with figures from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Near the end of the podcast they mentioned about white Southerners one or two generations ago having pictures of Robert E. Lee hanging on their walls next to Jesus.

My grandparents who lived in Nashville were Methodist educators and did not make overt mention of the war of Northern Aggression or say 'the South will rise again" or hang Confederate flags or pictures of Confederate figures or those times in their house. They lived in the same neighborhood as Lamar Alexander - literally two houses down the street from him. So my experience there and with my cousins was not one like that but then that was the 80's and in a fair-sized city. And in college also in Nashville at Vandy I did not see that. The first time I really saw the old stereotype full on was when I lived in Morristown in eastern TN - not as much in Morristown itself but in the surrounding rural counties. I suspect there could be a few old guys there who still felt that way.

What about in Arkansas from your experience?

The Confederate flag and its like are unanimously seen as deplorable in my circles, but among those who are hurting, among those in poverty, there is an unfortunate amount of Confederate flags. These are the people Howard Dean famously said he wanted the vote of and was so viciously attacked for saying. These are the people who are hurting and who are ignored and have been for so long. I don't defend their views, but I will defend them as people who are radical for good reason.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2017, 09:16:57 PM »

There is no such thing as perfectionism in history, there is only the constant quest for betterment. I am so tired of these revisionists like that idiot in the NC legislature a few weeks back who attacked Lincoln. Lincoln is hero in our history because relative to the times, he moved the ball 20 yards, while Lee was playing defense. Did Lincoln violate civil liberties? Yes, but so did the damn South many times over. A slave society is by nature a totalitarian society because of the constant few of servile insurrection.
Exactly. This is one of the few points on which I actually agree with Marx : in order to achieve a perfect society, one must first create a less bad society. It's not a matter of 'excusing' the moral failings of past generations, but rather of acknowledging that the process has to start somewhere, and attempts to achieve instantaneous revolution usually end in disaster.
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vanguard96
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« Reply #17 on: June 22, 2017, 02:12:45 PM »


Exactly. This is one of the few points on which I actually agree with Marx : in order to achieve a perfect society, one must first create a less bad society. It's not a matter of 'excusing' the moral failings of past generations, but rather of acknowledging that the process has to start somewhere, and attempts to achieve instantaneous revolution usually end in disaster.

I am not sure if a perfect society is even a good goal to have. Humans are imperfect. What is perfect for the overwhelming majority may be absolute tyranny for others.

The other part about starting from somewhere I believe is apt.

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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #18 on: June 23, 2017, 09:48:26 PM »


Exactly. This is one of the few points on which I actually agree with Marx : in order to achieve a perfect society, one must first create a less bad society. It's not a matter of 'excusing' the moral failings of past generations, but rather of acknowledging that the process has to start somewhere, and attempts to achieve instantaneous revolution usually end in disaster.

I am not sure if a perfect society is even a good goal to have. Humans are imperfect. What is perfect for the overwhelming majority may be absolute tyranny for others.

The other part about starting from somewhere I believe is apt.


While Marx thought perfection could be achieved, our own constitution only calls for "a more perfect union".
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The Mikado
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« Reply #19 on: June 28, 2017, 01:45:33 PM »

Serious question: I really did think that the celebration of General Lee to this day had to do with his military prowess, not his alleged kindliness. How is Lee different on this front than his direct contemporary Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the legendarily effective Prussian/German general widely celebrated as one of if not the greatest general of his generation?

von Moltke the Elder was no winner on political principals, but the man knew how to win battles. I always thought the celebration of Lee was about his military competency in winning engagements like the Battle of Chancellorsville which Lee had no business winning against a Union army more than twice the size of his, and not due to Lee's actual character as a human being.
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #20 on: June 28, 2017, 03:24:06 PM »

Serious question: I really did think that the celebration of General Lee to this day had to do with his military prowess, not his alleged kindliness. How is Lee different on this front than his direct contemporary Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, the legendarily effective Prussian/German general widely celebrated as one of if not the greatest general of his generation?

von Moltke the Elder was no winner on political principals, but the man knew how to win battles. I always thought the celebration of Lee was about his military competency in winning engagements like the Battle of Chancellorsville which Lee had no business winning against a Union army more than twice the size of his, and not due to Lee's actual character as a human being.

     Lee is celebrated as a general, but there also is the notion that he was a cut above as a man as well. To liken to a more recent figure who was respected by his opponents despite serving a hideously depraved regime, the attitudes I have seen towards Lee are similar to what I have seen displayed towards Rommel.

     With that said, I have also never heard anyone allege that he was an abolitionist. In fact, even the views suggested in that letter, as bad as they are, would have been considered outright progressive by the standards of the Antebellum South. I have recently been reading the autobiography of Frederick Douglass and many of the Southerners he describes encountering say far more viciously racist things than that.
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Kingpoleon
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« Reply #21 on: June 28, 2017, 06:37:55 PM »

Let us judge all men relative to their time, region, and culture, for otherwise we live in a world of absolutes, and in a world of absolutes there is no room for error.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #22 on: July 11, 2017, 03:57:55 PM »


Exactly. This is one of the few points on which I actually agree with Marx : in order to achieve a perfect society, one must first create a less bad society. It's not a matter of 'excusing' the moral failings of past generations, but rather of acknowledging that the process has to start somewhere, and attempts to achieve instantaneous revolution usually end in disaster.

I am not sure if a perfect society is even a good goal to have. Humans are imperfect. What is perfect for the overwhelming majority may be absolute tyranny for others.

The other part about starting from somewhere I believe is apt.

Humans are imperfect, but should we just go on accepting a barbaric holdover from tribal society (taken to all sorts of extremes by global trade and racialism), like slavery, simply because "humans are flawed so why bother"?

Your argument ironically leads to a stationary society and the continued violations of the same principles and freedoms to uphold this dreadful institution, all because its removal was brought about a like temporary lapse in respect for same said principles.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #23 on: July 11, 2017, 07:15:00 PM »

Let us judge all men relative to their time, region, and culture, for otherwise we live in a world of absolutes, and in a world of absolutes there is no room for error.

Judging Lee by his contemporaries' standards on the moral front is fine. Many of his contemporaries weren't slaveowners and shed their blood and lives to set other men free, or at least didn't actively lead a treasonous rebellion to try to preserve that institution.

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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #24 on: July 12, 2017, 09:14:38 PM »
« Edited: July 12, 2017, 09:16:30 PM by PR »

Let us judge all men relative to their time, region, and culture, for otherwise we live in a world of absolutes, and in a world of absolutes there is no room for error.

This discussion reminds me: as utterly loathsome and horrifyingly racist Woodrow Wilson's views on black people and many immigrant groups obviously were, was he really that out of the ordinary for a well-educated white Southerner who came of age through the Civil War and Reconstruction and who, being an elite American/Western academic/intellectual of his time, subscribed to the same kinds of elitist, elaborately constructed (intellectually speaking) racist and classist ideologies that were so fashionable in elite circles during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (with such unforgettable contributions from this period including eugenics)?

I guess what I'm saying here is that Wilson was very much a man of his time - specifically, a man of his regional, cultural, generational, and social class background. None of this excuses Wilson, of course; rather, it damns the many more of that era who were like Wilson, to one extent or another, in addition to Wilson himself.
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