[BeaverFever]

$1:

Robert E. Lee owned slaves, and other facts on the Civil War general

https://www.google.ca/amp/amp.nola.com/ ... es_and.amp

[herbie]

$1:

And while simple minds like yours think the war was about slavery it wasn't.

Yeah. The states broke away over issues of slavery, the most significant speech by Lincoln was about emancipation, and slavery ended with the war.
But it wasn't about slavery.
Tell that to your black friends and neighbours.

[Thanos]

$1:

I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.

- Ulysses S. Grant

Different people, different times. Thanks to the advent of the art of propaganda that kind of magnanimity is all but extinct today.

[ShepherdsDog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Robert E. Lee owned slaves, and other facts on the Civil War general

https://www.google.ca/amp/amp.nola.com/ ... es_and.amp

And so did many Northern officers. Lee freed any he'd inherited by 1862. Northern slaves weren't freed until December 6th 1865, when the 13th ammendment was ratified...after the Confederacy had surrendered. Question is, what's your fucking point, or do you have one?

[BeaverFever]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

$1:

Robert E. Lee owned slaves, and other facts on the Civil War general

https://www.google.ca/amp/amp.nola.com/ ... es_and.amp

And so did many Northern officers. Lee freed any he'd inherited by 1862. Northern slaves weren't freed until December 6th 1865, when the 13th ammendment was ratified...after the Confederacy had surrendered. Question is, what's your fucking point, or do you have one?

Read the article.

Also freeing slaves out of your own personal generosity means nothing when you're fighting to defend the rights of others to own slaves.

[Public_Domain]

[Thanos]

It's actually a vivid episode in the eternal class struggle. At least 300,000 Southern white males, most of them poor farm and small town boys and held in as much contempt as the slaves were by the patrician aristocrat plantation owners, died for a truly vile economic and social system that they had no stake in and benefited practically nothing from. It was an early preview, for the big show that would kick off fifty years later with World War One, of how nationalism can be skillfully manipulated by propaganda and myth-making into persuading people into essentially committing group suicide by going to war for those who regard the individuals in the lower social orders as little more than single-use disposable trash.

[Public_Domain]

[rickc]

Saying that the soldiers of the Confederacy were fighting just to maintain slavery is disingenuous. Was slavery disgusting? Yes it was. The fact of the matter is that very few southern families owned slaves. (Full disclosure: my ancestors did own slaves. Its not something that I am proud of, but facts are facts. I do not wish to whitewash history.) The vast majority of southerners had nothing to do with the slave trade. They felt that their way of life was under attack by outsiders. I have lived in the north and the south. They both have their pros and cons. When it comes to manners and social decorum, there is no contest. The south wins hands down. They have manners. They open doors, they give up their seats for women and elderly. They wait their turn in lines. They don't sit in their car outside a house honking the horn. They get off their ass and ring the bell. If someone is being a rude dick in the south, someone else is going to stomp their ass into the ground. If the cops show up and they get some testimony about how the person was being a major dick, than the major dick gets some silver bracelets, and not the person who stomped his ass (that person drinks for free the rest of the night). Its the exact opposite in the north. Someone can be a major dick all day long if they please. If you even say anything to them, than you get some bracelets and a court date for assault and uttering criminal threats.

Slavery was bad and needed to be stopped. we all agree. The world feels that there is another disgusting practice that needs to be banned and that is the Canadian seal hunt. The whole world (except Canada and Norway) is repulsed. On this issue Canada is the social pariah. So why doesn't it stop? Why do Canadians who have never picked up a club and bashed a seal pup's brain in defend the practice? Maybe they don't like outsiders sticking their nose in their business and telling them what to do. Kind of like the American south in 1860. What if the U.S. said it was going to invade Canada over the practice? The whole world would be on our side. Obviously you people need some civilizing. Now all you Canadians who have never had anything to do with the seal harvest, are you just going to stand around and let your country be invaded? No you are not! You don't give a shit about the seal hunt, but you are not going to stand around and let some outsider take over your country and dictate your way of life to you. Claiming that Canadians were fighting to keep a repulsivive practice going would be horse shit. Thats the situation the average southerner found himself in in 1860. The first land battle and the vast, vast majority of the battles were fought in the south, on their land. How could they NOT veiw the north as invaders? They were fighting for their friends, neighbors, relatives, and way of life. Slavery be damned.

I am against confederate battle flags being flown at government institutions anywhere in the U.S. They do not belong there. These monuments however are part of history. They should stay, If there were a monument displayed showing my ancestors mistreatment, or killing of slaves, I would NOT want it taken down. Let it stand, Let the people know what went on there. Don't whitewash it. Don't sugarcoat it. It happened. People should never forget what went on there. Does it bother people? GOOD!!!! It SHOULD bother people!!! Is some snowflake offended? GOOD!!!! You SHOULD be offended. Its when people are no longer offended, that we truly have a problem. People who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Leave history alone. Let the people see it for themselves, warts and all.

[ShepherdsDog]

There is a similar feeling about Louis Riel. Many see him as a hero while many still view him as murderous rebel

[BRAH]

Wait until the Left decides the Lincoln memorial is racist.

[BartSimpson]

BRAH BRAH:

Wait until the Left decides the Lincoln memorial is racist.

Too late.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/07/tho ... -monument/

[JaredMilne]

There was a similar controversy over the statues of the prime ministers that were going to be built on the campus of Wilfrid Laurier University. The statues were eventually removed due to a combined protest of students and faculty.

The problem I have with this is that it puts history and major figures into a black-and-white frame. Apparently we're not allowed to have any pride in figures like John A. Macdonald, even if we acknowledge their flaws and failures. Doing so, at least how the supporters of taking down the statues come across to me as saying, is apparently racist and colonialist.

Never mind that, as this thread has shown with the likes of Lee and Lincoln, history is a lot more complicated than that. With Macdonald, for instance, I can admire his ability to bring together seemingly different points of view and find common ground between them, and his defence of Francophone rights and the French language, while also cursing his only applying these principles to Caucasians.

Previous historians like Donald Creighton lionized guys like Macdonald, presenting them as nearly flawless. But they were flawed, and more recent historiography has done a valuable and important service in reminding us of this.

The catch, though, in that recognizing the bad about previous historical figures and eras we also risk ignoring the good and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[GreenTiger]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

BRAH BRAH:

Wait until the Left decides the Lincoln memorial is racist.

Too late.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/07/tho ... -monument/

Yes, The left has decided that

Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson were evil racist individuals, so far no requests to have these monuments destroyed.

[Freakinoldguy]

GreenTiger GreenTiger:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

BRAH BRAH:

Wait until the Left decides the Lincoln memorial is racist.

Too late.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/07/tho ... -monument/

Yes, The left has decided that

Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson were evil racist individuals, so far no requests to have these monuments destroyed.

That'll come because, when you're rewriting history there's no stone or fact to be left unturned.