Robert E. Lee: Confederate statues shouldn't exist

Great Debates
1

"It’s often forgotten that Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed monuments, specifically Confederate war monuments,” said Jonathan Horn, the author of the Lee biography, “The Man Who Would Not Be Washington.”

In his writings, Lee cited multiple reasons for opposing such monuments, questioning the cost of a potential Stonewall Jackson monument, for example. But underlying it all was one rationale: That the war had ended, and the South needed to move on and avoid more upheaval."

“I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered."

2

I’ve seen this on my Facebook feed today and I am unsure what I should take away from it. As a society should we strive to put not only this, but all of Lee’s beliefs into law or policy? Or is it that us white male rednecks are so simple-minded as to say, “Well, hell, if Bobby Lee was again’ it, then I’m again’ it”?

Or should we read the message and acknowledge that it probably wasn’t a good idea in 1866 to stoke the flames of the Civil War that had ended one year prior? Does that still apply in 2017?

The problem I have with this whole debate is that there are many reasons for Southerners to be proud of the men back then like Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet which do not require or even suggest a belief in slavery or white supremacy. Those reasons don’t lend themselves to five second soundbites and I don’t really have time to explain it, but it can be summarized that we as Americans tend to look toward our ancestors with respect for doing what they believed was right; we are imperfect ourselves, but we can admire our past for its good qualities.

I enjoy studying the Civil War and I believe that many figures, North and South, deserve our respect and at times scorn. I see no problem with honoring Lincoln, Lee, Chamberlain, Jackson, Hancock, or many others.

3

I don’t care what Lee thought on any topic any more than I care what Goering thought about how best to clean up the mess he helped create. The wave of civil war monuments really picked up speed in the 20s when the klan was making a resurgence and then had a second wave of popularity beginning in the late 40s when the Dixiecrats started to mobilize against integration, first of the US military and then of our schools. It was a white supremacist movement. The statue of Lee in Charlottesville, for example, coincided with a gift of $1,000 to UVA from the KKK.

In fact the efforts to take down statues honoring the confederacy, isn’t revisionism, it is an attempt to correct a campaign of historical revisionism based on white supremacy.

In order to make it pass the smell test, the movement pushed some lies. The first was to focus only on military tactics and battles, not the social movements behind those battles. Another was that the war wasn’t about slavery, although every state that seceded mentioned slavery in their declaration. And another lie was that Lee was an honorable and reluctant warrior.

Far from seeing Lee as a worthy and honorable adversary, Grant hated Lee. He felt that Lee was
“setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized.”

While Lee was a general his army committed a number of atrocities against black people, including enslaving any black person unfortunate to be caught by his army as it marched to Gettysburg. When Lee proposed a prisoner exchange with Grant, Grant made it clear that it would have to include captured black union troops. Lee declined, the black troops weren’t prisoners, but property

Lee was also a cruel slave owner, even for the time period. In one case, a 19th century Virginia court ruled against Lee in favor of his slaves. All this info is referenced in the link below, but there is quite a bit of scholarship that undoes the myth of Lee as a warrior Santa Claus.

And Lee is just one confederate traitor, there are hundreds of statues to his comrades in arms. We let the losers write history and we’re still letting them write it.

ETA: When Lee was university president he declined to punish students accused of raping students from a black girls school nearby, or of participating in lynching. Why on earth would we want a statue of someone like that in our cities?

4

Losers don’t deserve participation trophies.

5

Maybe you tend to look toward your ancestors that way, and maybe you can admire our past for it’s good qualities while ignoring the bad ones but I don’t and I can’t.

Fuck that shit. “For doing what they believed was right” is not enough reason to respect somebody. Holy fuck that’s a stupid idea. I can think of a whole bunch of people who were doing what they thought was right but was not and in fact they were terrible, awful people.

Seriously, this one incredibly imbecilic notion, that we respect people for doing what they thought was right (even if it was incredibly wrong). Maybe you do that; I don’t if what they were doing is so obviously wrong.

6

In Lee’s case, doing what he believed right was the execution of captured black union troops and having brine poured on the backs of whipped slaves.

7

Statues and monuments are not needed simply to remember history. And the absence of a statue or monument does not mean that a particular time or person in history is being erased or sanitized from history. I’m sure the KKK and ordinary citizens who lynched blacks in the South and elsewhere believed they were doing what was right. Lynching is very much a part of U.S. history. We don’t need a statue of a black man being lynched surrounded by a cheering crowd to remember.

Lee, Jackson and Longstreet violated their oaths as officers of the United States Army, took up arms against their country and their government, and set about killing tens of thousands of their fellow countrymen in a traitorous cause whose primary purpose for being was to perpetuate an immoral institution. Whether they believed in their cause’s primary purpose or had some other rationalization to justify their cause and their own actions is irrelevant. That they set about killing tens of thousands of their fellow countrymen with skill and at times boldness is a dubious basis for praise or reverence worthy of a statue.

8

Lee was a racist and a traitor to his country, and I don’t think he was even a good general.

However… this episode of ‘brine on wounds’ has been misunderstood.

Saline solutions are antibacterial and are still used in modern medicine. Salt water has been used on wounds throughout human history to prevent infection, because it works. It may be painful, but it cleans and has an antiseptic effect. It was standard in armies and navies where soldiers and sailors were flogged to pour brine over the wounds afterwards - not because it was painful (though it was) but to prevent infection.

9

Actually, I rather suspect it was for both reasons. To sterilize, but inflicting a little extra pain was a punishment bonus( or vice versa ). Neither slave owners nor British naval officers were very generally known for their humane demeanor. They just were interested in absolute control and brutal efficacy.

10

So was George Washington.

Slavery was normal throughout the world until it was gradually abolished in the 19th and 20th centuries.

11

Washington was known for leading the revolutionary army and serving as the first president of the United States. His rebellion, which was successful, established a new democracy in the world, albeit one that still had slavery. His work put in motion the thoughts that would contribute to the concept that slavery was unjust.

Robert E. Lee is known for leading a failed rebellion specifically to preserve the institution of slavery and to halt the progress that Washington unwittingly enabled. Further, the installation of confederate memorials was part of a campaign to reinforce white supremacy at points in history when it was threatened: in the 1920s, in the middle of the century and now.

If you are making the argument that Washington should also not be honored, then make it. If, however, you are trying to make the case that their contributions in this world were equally positive, I’m afraid I’m going to need more than one sentence.

12

It’s all a matter of perspective. The UK has a written history going back to Roman times. The Old World has a history going back millennia. That allows a longer-term view. And Great Britain abolished black slavery within England and Wales in 1706 and all slavery in England and Wales in 1772 (some colliers in Scotland had to wait until 1799). And that’s just the UK. Fight your ignorance here. So Washington was very late to the anti-slavery party.

And, of course, as a Briton, Washington rebelled against Great Britain, so he was definitely a rebel.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

13

Again, you’re not making much of a point. Just saying something you think is profound, but isn’t.

Washington is known for leading American troops to beat the British and serve as the first president of the US. Not surprisingly, Brits might have a different opinion of him, but we’re talking about the US. Washington was also a slave owner, but his primary importance in American history is as the person who overthrew the British and established a new nation.

Lee is known for leading a failed rebellion to preserve slavery. His only contribution to history is that, a failed rebel intent on preserving slavery. Absent that, he is a footnote in history, a guy who married into the Custis family and whose father served with Washington.

Washington, even if you remove slavery from his past, is still an important figure of global importance and is rightly seen as playing a very large role in the establishing of the United States of America, which, not surprisingly, a lot of Americans see as a good thing.

If it is a matter of perspective it is because understanding it takes some effort to see past your own, narrow world view and limited understanding of the issues to think about what you’re saying before you type.

14

I can’t help you if you’re not willing to fight your own ignorance.

15

Again, you just make a single statement and expect that to suffice. What precisely do you disagree with in my argument?

16

I’m pretty sure that the idea here is that Lee is a hero to a lot of these people who want the statues. But even their hero didn’t want statues. So maybe it’s a good idea to listen to him and not put up statues?

Sure, that’s not the reason you or I would use, but maybe it would be convincing to those who want to honor Lee’s memory–which they do better by doing what he wanted then having a statue he didn’t want.

17

Lee was a dishonorable monster who betrayed his nation and his state, but that doesn’t mean that he’s always wrong about everything. And in this case, he’s right: Statues of prominent Confederates do nothing but keep open the wounds of war. They and the attitudes behind them are the reason why, even a century and a half later, the wounds of that war are still festering.

18

I love the narrowness of the world view that is required to support keeping the statues: white American culture is the default and we’ve all agreed on this set of lies; any attempt to correct those lies and we will freak out, up to and including physical violence. Talk about snowflakes.

19

These comments are exactly correct.

20

And Britain is perfectly justified in removing statues of George Washington anywhere in their jurisdiction.