Lee Arlington, Bobby Lee and the 'Peculiar Institution.'

Very interesting and revealing article. Thank you for sharing. "I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race", Robert E. Lee, commenting on slavery.


 
"In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country." Robert E. Lee
 
Didn't we debunk this very same article a few months ago? We certainly have debunked the theme of it many times here.

Pryor is becoming the DiLorenzo of the Northern revisionism world.
 
Didn't we debunk this very same article a few months ago? We certainly have debunked the theme of it many times here.

Pryor is becoming the DiLorenzo of the Northern revisionism world.

What can't be debunked is that Lee's opposition to slavery was tepid at best, and non-existent at worst.
 
What can't be debunked is that Lee's opposition to slavery was tepid at best, and non-existent at worst.

Robert E. Lee:

"Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy. This influence though slow, is sure. The doctrines & miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years, to Convert but a small part of the human race, & even among Christian nations, what gross errors still exist! While we see the Course of the final abolition of human Slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who sees the end; who Chooses to work by slow influences; & with whom two thousand years are but as a Single day."

Abraham Lincoln:

"But while it drives on in its state of progress as it is now driving, and as it has driven for the last five years, I have ventured the opinion, and I say to-day, that we will have no end to the slavery agitation until it takes one turn or the other. I do not mean that when it takes a turn toward ultimate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a year, nor in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at least; but that it will occur in the best way for both races, in God’s own good time, I have no doubt." - Sept 18, 1858

Source: http://www.bartleby.com/251/43.html
 
What can't be debunked is that Lee's opposition to slavery was tepid at best, and non-existent at worst.


I think that pretty much sums it up.

Lee, unlike Lincoln, was disengaged from actualizing emancipation. Philosophically, the two men may have had broadly similar ideas. But in the world of action and participation, one was passive and one was active.
 
I think that pretty much sums it up.

Lee, unlike Lincoln, was disengaged from actualizing emancipation. Philosophically, the two men may have had broadly similar ideas. But in the world of action and participation, one was passive and one was active.

One was a politician and one was a military commander.
 
I think that pretty much sums it up.

Lee, unlike Lincoln, was disengaged from actualizing emancipation. Philosophically, the two men may have had broadly similar ideas. But in the world of action and participation, one was passive and one was active.

Most Americans were passive. Does that mean that opposition to slavery was "non-existent" for everybody but Lincoln and a handful of Abolitionists?
 
I haven't read either Pryor or DiLorenzo (except for a few pages), but if Pryor's citations stand up, she's got some pretty solid ground for the FACTS she shows (such as Lee paying a constable to retrieve his slaves). Her opinions drawn from those facts are like everybody else's opinions - worth only what they are.

I'd like to see the terms of Lee's father-in-law's will. This article says when his slaves were freed was to be at the choice of the executor (meaning Lee could free them whenever he liked), whereas I've read elsewhere that there was some kind of term on it, like they should be freed in five years. Can anybody help me with a cite here?
 
I haven't read either Pryor or DiLorenzo (except for a few pages), but if Pryor's citations stand up, she's got some pretty solid ground for the FACTS she shows (such as Lee paying a constable to retrieve his slaves). Her opinions drawn from those facts are like everybody else's opinions - worth only what they are.

I should clarify my remark above. Although I do believe Pryor twists facts to support her own agenda and is sometimes downright disingenuous, she is heads and shoulders above DiLorenzo in that she provides all the facts and doesn't just take out-of-context snippets. The comparison I made above wasn't so much between the two authors themselves, it was more about how bloggers, publishers and producers take their word as gospel truth and use it to support their own agendas, and in the process propagate it all over the media.
 
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