New book on Lee. Would you read it?

Anybody who isn't caught up with an agenda of one sort or another can read it and decide the merits for themselves - pro, con, or in between. Not releasing a book because "it's too heavily politicized a moment" would be an insult to people who are capable of looking at things objectively.

If it were as simple as that of writing your thoughts and the audience taking or leaving it I doubt the author would have had that discussion with his editor. He did because he has to go on news sources that have been in several years of trench warfare using Lee as a proxy for their modern political battles and who are not emotionally amenable at the moment to have their minds changed in any way.

If I were his editor I would have advised him to release it now if you want to sell more copies or in a few years if you want to have any hope of changing any opinions or having an honest even handed dialogue.
 
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If it were as simple as that of writing your thoughts and the audience taking or leaving it I doubt the author would have had that discussion with his editor. He did because he has to go on news sources that have been in several years of trench warfare using Lee as a proxy for their modern political battles and who are not emotionally amenable at the moment to have their minds changed in any way.

If I were his editor I would have advised him to release it now if you want to sell more copies or in a few years if you want to have any hope of changing any opinions or having an honest even handed dialogue.
I may not have been clear. You're correct insofar as it may be a purely "marketing" decision, but that has nothing to do with whether anybody should read the book - now, 2 years down the road, or whenever. It would be unfortunate if somebody could not have access to worthwhile scholarship because of some extraneous climate fueled by "interest group agendas". And there are multiple such blind agendas with opposing viewpoints in this area, lest we fool ourselves into thinking it's all one way.
 
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"And Lee was not the author or even one of author's of the Constitution. I think it is safe to say he's not a good reference on secession."

That doesn't leave us with many who are, and certainly none by 1861. So he was as good a reference as Jeff Davis, Alec Stephens, etc. And last I looked the same applies to John Calhoun.

I know, that member was predicating like Lee was an authority on the Constitution. Lee just gave his theory, nothing more. I'm not a Constitutional lawyer or even a lawyer for that matter but I have theory to why secession was prohibited. I think it had more to do with National Security and foreign policy.


This secessionists argument runs contrary to what Hamilton and Monroe said in the Federalist Papers and in the Monroe Doctrine. Hamilton wanted the United States to be a dominant power in the New World, act as an intermediary between the European powers and any new countries establishing near the U.S.. But proponents of secession interpret the 10th Amendment as way out of the Union without any qualms, despite the Founders objective to keep the Europeans out of the Western Hemisphere.

If the Monroe Doctrine was the USA's foreign policy, then what was the USA's domestic policy? According to secession logic, the USA was willing to lose internal territory in the continental USA through secession and simultaneously tried to gain territory externally in the Western Hemisphere. Alexander Hamilton's desire was to make the USA a world power, but he approved of the 10th amendment to allow states to secede and lose domestic territory? Therefore, we can make a summation that the founder's objective is to gain external territory and allow the loss of internal territory. That seems illogical to me. What Hamilton was saying is that the USA needs to expand its territory and influence in the Western Hemisphere and not lose any territory.


Secession would have led to neo-colonialism: In 1861, Dominican military commander and royalist politician Pedro Santana signed a pact with the Spanish Crown and reverted the Dominican nation to colonial status. Spain was wary at first, but with the U.S. occupied with its own civil war, it felt it had an opportunity to reassert control in Latin America. On March 18, 1861, the Spanish annexation of the Dominican Republic was announced. The end of the American Civil War in 1865 and the re-assertion of the Monroe Doctrine by the United States, which was no longer involved in internal conflict, prompted the evacuation of Spanish forces back to Cuba that same year. Even in 1862, the French invaded and conquered Mexico, appointing a puppet monarch. I think Washington denounced this as a violation of the doctrine but could not intervene because of the CW. In 1865 the U.S. stationed a large combat army on the border to emphasize its demand that France leave. France did pull out, and Mexican nationalists executed Maximilian.

IMO, there's no way secession was appropriate from the Continental USA because it would have regressed the New World back to the old World, something Monroe was explicit about. The French, Brits and Spanish would have tried to regain their lost territory and colonials in the Western territory. But secessionists thought territory in the continental USA can break from the USA. That makes absolutely zero sense to US National Security and foreign policy. Just a theory.
 
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