Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
So far, Lee has been quoted as saying,
"Secession is nothing but treason."
"Secession is nothing but rebellion."
"Secession is nothing but revolution."
Which is it?
Hal
Pretty much all three as far as content goes. But you already know that. You and I have discussed it in this very thread, and I refer you back to post #55 for the complete quote from one of his letters, and to posts after that for further instances from letters and conversations of his in December 1860 to April 1861. Lee left no room for error in interpretation.
But, just looking at that particular letter to his son you already have, here is how it would match up:
"Secession is nothing but treason."
The letter actually says: "In 1808 when the
New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo
law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession
was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it
be now?"
"Secession is nothing but rebellion."
This particular letter actually doesn't use the word "rebellion". It says: "It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution." Also some similar things. Just reread the post #55.
"Secession is nothing but revolution."
The letter actually says: "Secession is nothing but revolution." Also: "It was intended for perpetual union, so expressed in the preamble,& for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled." (Apparently Lee subscribed to the same view expressed by the Chief Justice in the post-Civil War case White v. Texas, that the "more perfect Union" of the Constitution is necessarily the "perpetual Union" of the Articles of Confederation.)
But much more disturbing than any minor misquote here is your repeated attempts to avoid the thrust of what Robert E. Lee said time after time. You already know the answer to your own question, or could easily refresh your knowledge by simply re-reading the posts you received. You should really not use techniques that are so vulnerable in your postings, such as this one or covering up the parts of a quote you do not like with "..." You will only discredit what you say as others reveal what you are trying to conceal, and once it is shown that you have done this in one or two or three or more instances, everything you post becomes suspect. This is a bad policy, and I urge you to stop using it.
Words like "liberty" and "freedom" and "rights" are high-sounding and have been used and misused by many through the ages. The key to understanding what these people meant would be dependent upon what the words meant to them. If when it is all boiled down what they meant by the high-sounding phrases was "we get to live in a slave society", then the war really was about slavery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
Of course. Wicked Southern men are not allowed to speak for themselves, but rather require enlightened and all-knowing force-unionists to correct them and explain what it is they REALLY meant when they "misuse" such "high- sounding" words. Because when they "misuse" such high-sounding terms it might obscure and tarnish the pure motives of the god-Yankees' war against self-government.
But, of course, when one of them says what YOU want them to say, then you take that all back. Because then, their words are to be held up as gospel -- and to be displayed as proof of the Yankee glory hallelujah trampling of wicked Southern grapes of wrath.
How arrogant.
Hal, you really are a pistol. Time after time you avoid direct questions and resort to personal remarks. You try to hide the actual words in quotes behind "..." and to take phrases and sentences out of context and rearrange them to make them appear what they are not. And when you see that giving a straight answer will reveal something you cannot abide admitting, you launch into this silliness.
Note that I did not say anything about "Wicked Southern men" or any of this other trash you have invented to go off on a tangent. I merely inquired as to what these men meant by what they said, giving direct quotes from Southerners alive in those days as background, many of them famous and well-known. If you don't think any of those examples apply, why not? What other definitions of these words, in common usage in the South of the 1860s, do you think they meant?
The problem, you see, is that I am not "arrogant" enough to think I understand them completely -- I want to learnt what they meant in their own terms. You reject that, sure that you know what they meant, and hide behind this invective instead of dealing with their reality. How arrogant that is!
This sort of technique can only make you look bad. If you wish your positions to be treated with respect, you need to avoid this sort of rhetoric and actually support your position. When you do not, you only make it look like you have something you are afraid of and trying to hide.
Hal, you really are a pistol. Time after time you avoid direct questions and resort to personal remarks. You try to hide the actual words in quotes behind "..." and to take phrases and sentences out of context and rearrange them to make them appear what they are not. And when you see that giving a straight answer will reveal something you cannot abide admitting, you launch into this silliness.
What is the point in discussing statements from the historical record, when one takes the liberty to totally alter the definition of the very words that are used in order to support a position?
How was I supposed to know that those silly comments about what they REALLY meant was made in all seriousness?
Quote:
Note that I did not say anything about "Wicked Southern men" or any of this other trash you have invented to go off on a tangent. I merely inquired as to what these men meant by what they said, giving direct quotes from Southerners alive in those days as background, many of them famous and well-known. If you don't think any of those examples apply, why not? What other definitions of these words, in common usage in the South of the 1860s, do you think they meant?
Was I the one that was so presumptuous as to insinuate that the words they chose were not the ones they meant? But rather, what they REALLY meant was, of course, the "S-word?"
And I'm the one being accused of launching into silliness?
I tell you what, let's drop this tangent. Don't take the Southern soldiers who said those things at their words, and don't place any credibility in mine.
Instead, may I suggest that you take the opinion of a fellow pro-force-unionist, who is held in high esteem in some circles, about what those slaving Southerners REALLY meant when they "misused" those "high-sounding" words like liberty, etc.? James McPherson's "For Cause and Comrades" explains what they meant in chapter eight. In fact, those quotes all come from that single chapter. I am almost certain that even the god-father of forced-union himself would frown on your word-smithing attempt at discrediting those soldiers' statements.
Unless the things their grandparents fought for were REALLY just about the right to own slaves, then I'd have to assume they meant what they said.
Quote:
The problem, you see, is that I am not "arrogant" enough to think I understand them completely -- I want to learnt what they meant in their own terms. You reject that, sure that you know what they meant, and hide behind this invective instead of dealing with their reality. How arrogant that is!
Please excuse me for not seeing the desire to "learn" in your attempt to alter the meaning of English. I hope you can understand how I missed that. But if learning what they meant is your goal, then perhaps you'll accept McPherson's take on them.
You see, I am not the one who took it upon myself to decide what they REALLY meant. I merely sought to let their words speak for them. But that was unacceptable to you, because they didn't say what you want them to say. And you believe I am the one rejecting what was said?
Quote:
This sort of technique can only make you look bad. If you wish your positions to be treated with respect, you need to avoid this sort of rhetoric and actually support your position. When you do not, you only make it look like you have something you are afraid of and trying to hide.
Regards,
Tim
Please let me ease your mind on this particular point. I can assure you that I will lose no sleep worrying about how I look to you. No offense intended. It's just that I've been around long enough to know that the ONLY way you would ever approve of my looks is if I were to bow down to your libertarian treatment of the historical record -- and admit that every time a Southerner says he fought for "liberty" and "freedom" and "rights" or anything else under the sun, then he really meant he was just fighting for the "S word."
So let's attempt to set the above record straight. You see, when I answer Unionblue's argument that soldiers are the one's that REALLY know what they are fighting for, with quotes from several soldiers that contradict his point about the "S word;" and then YOU jump in with your lecture to me about how those Southerners "misuse" the high-sounding words like liberty, etc., and that they were REALLY talking about something else (read, "slavery"), then perhaps one should redirect that respect comment.
No offense intended Tim. You seem like a very bright and knowledgeable fellow. So surely you can understand why it is difficult for me to treat such questions seriously.
If you are unable to admit that those Southern soldiers meant what they said simply because it undermines your view, then we have an insurmountable problem that will unavoidably impede future discourse, don't you think?
But much more disturbing than any minor misquote here is your repeated attempts to avoid the thrust of what Robert E. Lee said time after time. You already know the answer to your own question, or could easily refresh your knowledge by simply re-reading the posts you received. You should really not use techniques that are so vulnerable in your postings, such as this one or covering up the parts of a quote you do not like with "..." You will only discredit what you say as others reveal what you are trying to conceal, and once it is shown that you have done this in one or two or three or more instances, everything you post becomes suspect. This is a bad policy, and I urge you to stop using it
Tim, you give me way too much credit!
I urge you to reread the post I was answering in my initial posting of Lee's words. You will surely note that I was merely adding the parts that you neglected to mention in your initial inaccurate claim about Lee's feelings about secession.
My point is, was, and has been -- that Lee considered secession the lesser of two evils. He chose to fight for the right of secession. Not for forcing union.
Again, as usual, you find it insulting when someone provides quotes from Southern leaders of that day you disagree with; I think that is merely pretense. You do not wish to see these men completely as they were in those days, but that is not surprising. Neither did they, once they had fought their war and lost.
Regards,
Tim
Tim, please don't give yourself so much credit.
I find nothing from the historical record "insulting."
However, I will have to admit that I do find your condescension to be just that.
Tim, you give me way too much credit!
I urge you to reread the post I was answering in my initial posting of Lee's words. You will surely note that I was merely adding the parts that you neglected to mention in your initial inaccurate claim about Lee's feelings about secession.
My point is, was, and has been -- that Lee considered secession the lesser of two evils. He chose to fight for the right of secession. Not for forcing union.
I am not sure how you can seriously dispute that.
Hal
Hal, go back and reread the thread. Anyone who wants to can go and see what you deliberately omitted when you quoted from Lee's letter to his son. Note that I posted the entire paragraph, and you posted parts of sentences from it. Heck, I even changed the text color to assist you in finding what you missed.
Lee told you many times -- as documented -- what he would do and what he thought. He was consistent about it. He said often that secession was rebellion/treason/revolution. He said he saw no good in it. Right or wrong, he saw his primary duty to Virginia, and he would follow her no matter what she did. That is what he considered his "honor". That is the only "lesser of two evils" choice he made. What is the choice you think he made?
"Every one should do all in his power to collect and disseminate
the truth, in the hope it may find a place in history and descend
to posterity. History is not the relation of campaigns, and
battles, and generals or other individuals, but that which shows
the principles for which the South contended and which justified
her struggle for those principles." Gen. Robert E. Lee
__________________ "The sword is mighty, but principles laugh at swords. Overwhelming force may crush truth to earth but, crushed or not the truth is still the truth." Regards, Ashley
"I have too exalted an opinion of the American people to believe that they will consent to injustice, and it is only necessary, in my opinion, that truth should be known, for the rights of every one to be secured. I know of no surer way of eliciting the truth than by burying the contention with the war."
Robert E. Lee, September 7, 1865.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
"The South recognized its settlement by the arbitrament of arms; but the purpose
for which the south went to war has been perverted by the radical party."
"We could have pursued no other course without dishonour. And as sad as the results have been,
if it had all to be done over again, we should be compelled to act in precisely the same manner."
"The South recognized its settlement by the arbitrament of arms; but the purpose for which the south went to war has been perverted by the radical party."
"We could have pursued no other course without dishonour. And as sad as the results have been, if it had all to be done over again, we should be compelled to act in precisely the same manner."
Robert E. Lee
Of course, we have shown many times that Lee considered secession nothing but revolution and treason. He went to war in defense of Virginia, which he considered his country more than the United States -- just as he was loyal to the United States until Virginia seceded, and incensed with secessionists in the Deep South. He said that you could free all four million slaves as far as he was concerned; he wouldn't go to war for them.
So absolutely, I agree that Lee would not have changed his course, just as he said. But the honor he spoke of was duty to Virginia and that was how he made his decision. That was his "purpose". It had nothing to do with a "right of secession" or slavery or "states rights" or tariffs. Pure and simple, he would follow Virginia, wherever Virginia went.
Beyond that, he was opposed to the use of military force against the seceding states and might -- or might not -- have refused to take part in military operations even if Virginia had remained in the Union.
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