← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · heritagelost
Thread ID: 11953 | Posts: 7 | Started: 2004-01-19
2004-01-19 06:26 | User Profile
January 19th is Robert E. Lee day!
2004-01-19 07:45 | User Profile
Alas, it is not so.
If Americans were anything like Robert E. Lee it would be Robert E. Lee Day.
2004-01-19 10:10 | User Profile
[QUOTE=heritagelost]January 19th is Robert E. Lee day![/QUOTE] Thanks for the Robert E. Lee post. A great book I read in 87 on Lee was "Robert E. Lee The Last Years 1865 to 1870" by Daniel Flood.... What does the insription on the Rhodesian Flag read if translated in to English?
2004-01-19 16:55 | User Profile
HERE are some quotes from Robert E. Lee on blacks, from a thread submitted to OD from Faust entitled "The Rainbow Confederacy NOT!":
Robert E. Lee
To his wife in 1854:
"The views of the [President] of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people of the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth, and they must also be aware that their object is both unlawful and entirely foreign to them and their duty; for which they are irresponsible and unaccountable; and can only be accomplished by them through the agency of a civil and servile war.
"In this enlightened age, there are few I believe but what will acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white than to the black race, and while my feelings are stronger enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially and physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their instruction as a race, and I hope will prepare and lead them to better things."
"Unfortunately, too, the numerous deep estuaries, all accessible to their [Union] ships, expose the multitude of islands to their predatory excursions, and what they leave is finished by the negroes whos masters have deserted their plantations, subject to visitations by the enemy."
Letter to daughter Annie, from Coosawatchie South Carolina 8 Dec 1861
"My own opinion is that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the right of suffrage would open the door to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassment in various ways. . .I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them. . .I have always thought so!"
? R.E. Lee Feb 1866 response to the question "Do you not think that Virginia would be better off if the colored population would go to other Southern states?" answered before a US Congressional committee.
"The Radical party are likely to do a great deal of harm, for we wish now for good feeling to grow up between North and South, and the President, Mr. Johnson, has been doing much to strengthen the feeling in favor of the Union among us. The relations between the Negroes and the whites were friendly formerly, and would remain so if legislation be not passed in favor of the blacks, in a way that will only do them harm."
? as told to the Marquess of Lorne, May 1866
"On the subject of slavery, he assured me that he had always been in favour of the emancipation of the negroes, and that in Virginia the feelings had been strongly inclining in the same direction, till the ill-judged enthusiasm (amounting to rancour) of the abolitionists in the North had thrned the Southern tide of feeling in the other direction. In Virginia, about thirty years ago, an ordinance for the emancipation of the slaves had been rejected by only a small majority, and every one fully expected at the next convention it would have been carried, but for the above cause. He went on to say that there was scarcely a Virginia now who was not glad that th esubjct had been definitely settled, though nearly all regretted that they had not been wise enough to do it themselves the first year of the war. . .The Englishman had told him that the working population [slaves at Shirley] were better cared for there than in any country he had ever visited. . ."
? account of interview with Lee by Herbert C. Saunders of England, August 1866
"The one excuse for slavery which the South can plead without fear before the Judgement bar of God is the blacker problem which their emancipation will create."
"You will never prosper with the blacks, and it is abhorrent to a reflecting mind to be supporting and cherishing those who are plotting and working for your injury, and all of whose sympathies and associations are antagonistic to yours. I wish them no evil in the world ? on the contrary, will do them every good in my power, and know that they are misled by those to whom they have given their confidence; but our material, social, and political interests are naturally with the whites."
? R..E. Lee to his son, R.E. Lee, Jr., March 12, 1868
"I have always observed that wherever you find the Negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving."
? RE Lee to his cousin Col Thomas H. Carter June 1865
"Political power should not be placed in the hands of freedmen for obvious reasons."
"At present, the negroes have neither the intelligence nor the other qualifications which are necessary to make them depositories of political power."
? Letter to William S. Rosecrans, September 1868 signed by Lee and 32 Southern statesmen including PGT Beauregard, Charles M. Conrad, Virginia Governor John Letcher, John R. Baldwin and James Lyons.
"Work is what we now require. Work by everybody and work especially by white hands."
? 1869
"The question of supplying labour to the South is one of vital importance in which all classes are concerned and particularly the agriculturist, inasmuch as regular and constant work is more necessary to his prosperity than in most of the other industrial pursuits. I believe this can only be secured by the introduction of a respectaable class of labourers from Europe, for although a temporary benefit might be derived from importation of the Chinese and Japanese, it would result I fear in eventual injury to the country and her institutions. We not only want reliable labourers, but good citizens, whose interests and feelings would be in unison with our own. . ."
? 1869
The following quote has been attributed to Lee by Susan Lawrence Davis, author of Authentic History of the Ku Klux Klan, but has never been verified by any other source. When visited by Klan members, just before the first convention of the Klan in May 1867, to ascertain whether continuation of the order met with his approval, Miss Davis writes that he replied:
"I would like to assist you in any plan that offers relief. I cannot be with you in person but I will follow you but must be invisible; and my advice is to keep it as you have, a protective organization."
Return to Rainbow Confederacy
2004-01-19 17:17 | User Profile
"If I had forseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I forseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men and my sword in this right hand." --
Gen. Robert E. Lee, 1870, spoken to former Gov. Stockdale of Texas
2004-01-19 20:32 | User Profile
Robert E. Lee
Soldier, Patriot, Statesman, Husband and Father.
God bless the memory of this most honorable American.
2004-01-19 20:54 | User Profile
The local San Jose Mercury News advertised, in their events column, a barbecue celebrating Gen. Robert E. Lee's birthday this previous Saturday (alas, I was unable to attend due to prior familial commitments). The mere facts that this event was A) advertised in the dominant media and B) took place at all here in the Bay Area, is indicative of something. I'm not certain what, but it can't be bad....