The Statute and the Man

On a thread which I do my best to avoid someone posted:

Lee is only famous because he led Confederate armies. If secession had never happened and the Confederacy had never come into existence, Lee would have lived his live and died as an obscure member of the United States military. You can’t untangle him from the Confederacy. And if you look at even a cursory history of the memorialization of the Confederacy, it all pops up in the 1890s and 1900s and 1910s, as Jim Crow was being codified. These statues were explicitly raised as symbols of Jim Crow and of white supremacy.

However, it's a little more complicated:

Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American general known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginiain the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. A son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years. During this time, he served throughout the United States, distinguished himself during the Mexican–American War, and served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy.

When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command.[1] During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis. Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning most of his battles, all against far superior Union armies.[2][3] Lee's strategic foresight was more questionable, and both of his major offensives into Union territory ended in defeat.[4][5][6] Lee's aggressive tactics, which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism in recent years.[7] Lee surrendered his entire army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. By this time, Lee had assumed supreme command of the remaining Southern armies; other Confederate forces swiftly capitulated after his surrender. Lee rejected the proposal of a sustained insurgency against the Union and called for reconciliation between the two sides.

After the war, Lee supported President Andrew Johnson's program of Reconstruction and intersectional friendship,[citation needed] while opposing the Radical Republican proposals to give freed slaves the vote and take the vote away from ex-Confederates. He urged them to rethink their position between the North and the South, and the reintegration of former Confederates into the nation's political life. Lee became the great Confederate hero of the War, a postwar icon of the "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" to some. But his popularity grew even in the North, especially after his death in 1870.[8] Barracks at West Point built in 1962 are named after him.

 

When he had to make the most important decision of his life he made the wrong choice. Think about this: He was offered a "senior Union command". Considering his skills, if he had accepted such command and served as one of the leaders of the Union Army would the War have been shorter? Would far fewer have died?

A great tragedy.



This struck me:

"Barracks at West Point built in 1962 are named after him"

In 1962? That late. When JFK was President?



Sen. Booker is trying to get statues of Confederate figures removed from the U.S. Capitol (every state is allowed to place 2 statues there):

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/08/booker_acts_to_remove_confederate_statues_from_cap.html


How many sculptures of Benedict Arnold are there in the US? 



ska said:

How many sculptures of Benedict Arnold are there in the US? 



ska said:

How many sculptures of Benedict Arnold are there in the US? 

Two?


Where else would you find the leader of a sedition movement--because that's what it was--so revered as to be in so many parks and landmarks? Especially one that happened over 150 years ago. He may well have been a great man but he committed treason. Even his great great (great?) grandchildren think his statues belong in a museum, not a public park.



RobB said:



ska said:

How many sculptures of Benedict Arnold are there in the US? 






ska said:

How many sculptures of Benedict Arnold are there in the US? 

Two?

The old pushed post while it seemed to be stuck and it posted twice issue. 



ska said:

How many sculptures of Benedict Arnold are there in the US? 

There is a statue of his foot at the Saratoga Battlefield monument. 


Tweet this morning on the "culture" argument for preserving Confederate statues:

https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/899306200763858945


Let me preface this by saying I absolutely detest white supremacy, condemn Nazism and deplore Donald Trump (but I repeat myself).

That said....  there is a point to the equivalency between Washington (who served as a Colonel in the British Army during the French Indian Wars) and Lee.  Both owned slaves and both fought against the constituted governments of their countries.  The primary difference is that Washington won and Lee lost.

This is, of course, not praise for Lee but rather to try to look at Washington and his slave owning contemporaries in an honest light.  What does the descendent of one of Washington or Jefferson's slaves see when they look at their statues?  As a white man, I can only guess. Its easy (and proper) to demand that the statues of Lee and Jefferson Davis be tossed on the burning dumpster of history but a deeper study of our shared experience is sorely needed if we are to feel empathy for our fellow Americans.

(ETA:  I apologize for the preachy tone of the above.  I would have written it differently if I was a better writer.)



Klinker said:


 
That said....  there is a point to the equivalency between Washington (who served as a Colonel in the British Army during the French Indian Wars) and Lee.  Both owned slaves and both fought against the constituted governments of their countries.  The primary difference is that Washington won and Lee lost.
 

Washington led an Army in an anti-colonial war to liberate colonies from a despotic monarchy. Lee led an army in a war to preserve a slavocracy.



LOST said:



Klinker said:


 
That said....  there is a point to the equivalency between Washington (who served as a Colonel in the British Army during the French Indian Wars) and Lee.  Both owned slaves and both fought against the constituted governments of their countries.  The primary difference is that Washington won and Lee lost.
 

Washington led an Army in an anti-colonial war to liberate colonies from a despotic monarchy. Lee led an army in a war to preserve a slavocracy.

The victors write the history.....

That said, slavery and prospects for its future played a fair role in the decisions of the Southern colonies to secede from Great Britain.  In some ways, the Sommerset Decision in the early 1770s set the stage for the revolution.  Certainly, the British decision to free slaves who crossed over to their side played a major role in motivating Patriots throughout the South.


To some extent people are always people of their time. At most you can hope they will move the bar a bit in the direction of a better society a I believe Washington and Jefferson did. Those who try to push it too far are inevitably branded as lunatics. Politics is the art of the possible so Adams made a deal with the devil to advance things he held dear, while accepting slavery which he hated.

But I have no doubt that had the Revolutionary War failed, Washington and Jefferson would have been hanged and history would have viewed their actions very differently. To the victors goes the spoils.

“Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.” 
― Christopher Hitchens


As a black woman, I can tell you that it has always worked my nerves when I hear people wax poetic about the sanctity and infallibility of the Founding Fathers. I live near Washington's Home in Morristown and have visited the slave quarters there. It's chilling. My hometown, Madison NJ, is named after James Madison, a slave owner who came up with the 3/5th rule. These men are not perfect and don't deserve my reverence. They stole land from indigenous people. They kept humans as slaves. They did not recognize women as equals. What is to celebrate there?


I say tear down all their statues. Rename every school. Rename every town (including my own). But I know what's realistic and this is not.  


Let the one without sin cast the first stone.


I'm not sure what you mean by Washington's home in Morristown. There is Washington's Headquarters that was the home of the Ford family. For 2 years during the war Washington,his family,aides, and servants stayed there. Also I never saw slave quarters . There is a museum in back designed by the architect of the jefferson Memorial.


The Onion: Trump Warns Removing Confederate Statues Could Be Slippery Slope To Eliminating Racism Entirely

http://www.theonion.com/graphic/trump-warns-removing-confederate-statues-could-be--56663 

(The real fake news is starting to seem more real...)



galileo said:

I'm not sure what you mean by Washington's home in Morristown. There is Washington's Headquarters that was the home of the Ford family. For 2 years during the war Washington,his family,aides, and servants stayed there. Also I never saw slave quarters . There is a museum in back designed by the architect of the jefferson Memorial.

He did live there for a few years during the war and there were slaves residing/working in the home. They show you exactly where they slept. So, I'm not sure what you're talking about.


FWIW, George Washington and his wife, Martha, also doggedly pursued reclaiming their runaway slave, Oney Judge. But this is all known history. I didn't need to tell anyone this.


Folks want to act like having memorials, schools and towns named after slave owners is OK, but Confederate leaders is not. They're all reminders of an ugly past. But these reminders are everywhere in America and removing them isn't my priority. I'd prefer to focus on more important things like health care, education and public safety.  


Washington brought his slaves with him wherever he traveled.  History books "of a certain age" call them "personal servants".  That's just racist historese for "slave".



Hahaha said:

As a black woman, I can tell you that it has always worked my nerves when I hear people wax poetic about the sanctity and infallibility of the Founding Fathers. I live near Washington's Home in Morristown and have visited the slave quarters there. It's chilling. My hometown, Madison NJ, is named after James Madison, a slave owner who came up with the 3/5th rule. These men are not perfect and don't deserve my reverence. They stole land from indigenous people. They kept humans as slaves. They did not recognize women as equals. What is to celebrate there?




I say tear down all their statues. Rename every school. Rename every town (including my own). But I know what's realistic and this is not.  

So you are saying that Donald Trump was correct at his Wednesday press conference.



unicorn_and_rainbows said:

So you are saying that Donald Trump was correct at his Wednesday press conference.

A really smart and insightful guy, he is.



Well Trump does not believe in science. He probably did not expect there to actually be an eclipse.


I'd be fine if there were no public monuments to any individual person. It's awfully aggrandizing in a country where "all men are created equal," isn't it?



Washington helped build the country within which the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were ratified, were the Civil Rights Act was passed, where Barack Obama was elected president. Lee fought, and thankfully failed, to establish a country where none of that would be possible. I think the former is worthy of recognition, and the latter only of ignominy. 

I'll agree that we should find ways to better note the shortcomings and moral failures of our heroes along with their successes, but I can't agree we shouldn't memorialize them at all. Perhaps we should require that all statues of public figures be mounted on bases of clay?


Two hundred years from now someone will call for tearing down a statute of Barack Obama because:

"He ate animals".


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