Historical Perspective on the Confederate Monuments Issue

As is required in this PC world, I must preface this by making clear that I fully subscribe to Dr. King's foundational premise that a man should be judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin. And because I believe this, the ideas of "supremacists" of any race are abhorrent to me. I don't understand how people can raise their children to hate groups of people ... but to be honest, I think that's just what identity politics does. We have been dealing with identity politics on the Left for decades, and perhaps what we are now seeing is the rise of right wing identity politics. It's all despicable to me, because politics should be about ideological differences, not about racial animus. I fear the country is in bad shape, in part due to the fact that 24/7 cable news makes money off this divisiveness, it keeps us glued to their networks and makes them money. So expect to see more urban strife, unless you can find a way to turn off the television and get your news from more sober sources.

There is a very good reason why Confederate monuments exist in town squares from Virginia to Texas: Lincoln would most definitely have approved of them. Remember in his 1864 Inaugural Address, Lincoln said "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Note that Lincoln did not say this applied only to the wounds of the North. Lincoln was concerned about the wounds of ALL Americans, ALL veterans, ALL widows, ALL orphans. After all, he prosecuted this war with all he had in order to preserve the Union of ALL Americans, right?

Lincoln had the opportunity to have Lee, Longstreet, etc. hanged, but he famously asked Grant to "let 'em up easy". Lincoln actually had enormous respect for Lee, and saw him as a partner in putting the country back together again (a view he did not hold for Jefferson Davis). Sadly, of course, Lincoln didn't live to do create this partnership, and his successor, Andrew Johnson, behaved more punitively towards the South. Even so, no one dared to treat Lee as a war criminal, although some firebrands in the North talked that way.

In the years after the war, many former Confederate leaders behaved in an exemplary manner, of course none so famously as Lee, who advised against a terrorist resistance to the Union, and who later served as President of Washington College, which is now known as Washington and Lee University.

Fast forward to today. While there can be no doubt that bigotry exists in the US, and that it is most heinously exemplified by these neo-Nazis, we have to ask ourselves if the benefit of "feeling good" about erasing such symbols of the Confederate past in the US South is worth painting all Southerners who respect and admire people like Robert E. Lee as racists. Do we really want to push the Right into the same kind of identity politics that has beset the Left? That's exactly what demagogues like Steve Bannon want ... because of the counter-reaction it is sure to create.

God help us all if we cannot tolerate those who find virtue in Robert E. Lee. To call him a "traitor" is to ignore that he was loyal to his "country" which to him was Virginia. Before the Civil War, the "United States" was a plural noun, as in "the United States are wonderful". After the war, it became a singular noun, as in "the United States is wonderful". Calling Lee a traitor is the equivalent of charging him with an ex post facto crime.

True, he was a slave-owner (most of his slaves inherited through his wife, a descendant of George Washington). But if I recall, a clear majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners. It is an ethical black mark on an otherwise honorable man.

President McKinley, a Brevet Major in the Grand Army of the Republic, had no issue with giving a command to CSA General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

From what little I've read...many of these statues were erected about the time as the rise of the Klan in the South. If true that is a rather funny coincidence.

The statues did not bother me nor has the Rebel Flag. I think the problem is there are too many people, way to sensitive on both sides of the political aisle

From what little I've read...many of these statues were erected about the time as the rise of the Klan in the South. If true that is a rather funny coincidence.

The statues did not bother me nor has the Rebel Flag. I think the problem is there are too many people, way to sensitive on both sides of the political aisle Originally Posted by WTF

The Southern Poverty Law Center is putting out that nonsensical BS propaganda trying to connect these statues to the Klan, but if one looks at an economic curve of post-war recovery in the South, it would probably reflect, and better explain, that it was only at the turn of the century that communities in the South had enough surfeit funds to finance monuments.

The origins of the statue of Robert E. Lee in New Orleans starts with Lee's death. It was Lee's passing that motivated the folks in New Orleans to raise a statue in his honor, and when the statue was dedicated, there were Union veterans of the GAR in the crowd cheering his memory. Also, it should be remembered that the Washington Monument in D.C. was dedicated during this same period: 1885 -- 90 years after Washington died. The Jefferson Memorial wasn't dedicated until WWII, and it took 60 years for the United States to get around to building a memorial for the men and women who served in uniform for the U.S. during WWII.

Statues like the one torn down in Durham are literally tombstones for the men who did not come home. The money for most of those courthouse statues was raised in bake sales, and the like, by the widows, mothers, daughters and sisters of the men who did not come home.

Fuck the SPLC and its propaganda!

From what little I've read...many of these statues were erected about the time as the rise of the Klan in the South. If true that is a rather funny coincidence.

The statues did not bother me nor has the Rebel Flag. I think the problem is there are too many people, way to sensitive on both sides of the political aisle Originally Posted by WTF

From "what little I've read"!!!!!! Now there's a shocker!

He comprehends even less! That doesn't stop his post count.

The SPLC is just another arm of the Democratic Socialist party. Just like N.O.W. Just like Media Matters. Just like Antifa.

From "what little I've read"!!!!!! Now there's a shocker! Originally Posted by bambino

Yes I freely admit Confederate Statues is not something I'm a breast of....now if you'll just admit what a little dick you have and free your hands of the pressure to appear big!

good points. a lot of that had more to do with reconciliation with the former confederates than with white supremacy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is putting out that nonsensical BS propaganda trying to connect these statues to the Klan,

Fuck the SPLC and its propaganda! Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Well the SPLC ain't the one's now dressed up like Nazis and Klansmen!

Look, I've said from the start it is much ado about nothing but it is no different that taking down Saddams statue. Just another power struggle.

And imho Trump fucked up...he now has the Jews kinda irritated with him!


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good points. a lot of that had more to do with reconciliation with the former confederates than with white supremacy. Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

But Trump has turned this into support of white supremacy....that is why so many peeps are shaking their head , peeps from his own camp!

Since the SPLC lists churches who don't buy into the Pro LGBTUQ agenda as hate groups, i don't put ONE OUNCE of credibility into what they have on their list.