TPM: What If We’d Been Mean to Robert E Lee?
This casting was up December 29 at Talking Points Memo (TPM). It is about 50 minutes long and a very interesting conversation between John, Kate, and Prof. Heather. Covering the state of democracy in America is the topic and well worth the listen.
You mean, after the conclusion of the Civil War. That would have sorted him out for sure.
His VA estate (Arlington) was confiscated for use as the National Military Cemetery, although technically it belonged to his wife Mary Custis Lee.
“Arlington National Cemetery was established during the American Civil War after the land the cemetery was built upon, Arlington Estate, was confiscated from the private ownership of Confederate States Army general Robert E. Lee’s family following a tax dispute.” (Wikipedia)
The Union confiscated the Lee family estate in Arlington, actually owned by Lee’s spouse, a descendant of Geo Washington, for non-payment of taxes, and it was turned into the National Military Cemetery even before the war was over. Lee himself was a distinguished West Point graduate & it was apparently decided that the humiliation of defeat was punishment enough.
@Fred,
Both Lee and Davis were fortunate not to have been hanged for treason.
Confederate States Army officers educated at West Point – Wikipedia
In addition to RE Lee, “Jefferson Davis, himself a former officer and West Point graduate (class of 1828), preferred West Point trained officers for the Confederate States Army (CSA). ,… There are several (indicated) familial relations between the officers, e.g. between members of the Lee family of Virginia. Other notable Confederate officers include James Longstreet (class of 1842), Stonewall Jackson (class of 1846), and J.E.B. Stuart (class of 1854).” …
Elsewhere on the web, “The Academy produced 445 Civil War generals: 294 fought for the Union, and 151 for the Confederacy.”
“Both Lee and Davis were fortunate not to have been hanged for treason.”
I agree. Instead, they got statues in their honor.
Dobbs et al.
sorry, I can’t let that pass. the lust for blood is a blotch on your honor.
the Civil War was not obviously an act of treason. the South assumed it had a right to withdraw from a Union that was threatening its well-being (however much we despise their means of well-being from our vast enlightenment a hundred and sixty years later).
Lincoln knew this. He also knew that slavery was evil. But more than that he understood that destroying the Union would destroy the hopes of democracy, as well as the military viability of the whole nation, north and south. He also knew that a program of hanging “traitors” would assure the civil war would continue as at least a guerrilla war for decades, besides being a disgusting violation of morality.
That’s why Lincoln is “the greatest President.”
I think we have had three (only) Presidents who deserve to be called “great”. Washington made democracy work when it was new, Lincoln saved the Union and ended slavery, and Roosevelt saved the people…for a time…from unregulated capitalism while defeating two would-be evil empires.
compare them to what we have today…not Biden who is at least adequate…but to the modern Republicans…and you can get some idea of what a great man has to contend with to preserve and protect the nation from the evil in men’s hearts.
The Civil War was an act of sedition. Those who carried it out were treasonous. Feel free to disagree.
That Lincoln declared that the USA was the last best hope of mankind and took action to preserve it makes him the greatest President ever.
“… Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 message to Congress, delivered during the American Civil War, (he wrote) ‘In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.’”
@Dobbs,
Taking up arms against your country is treason. Davis, Lee and the rest of the Confederacy were guilty of treason. They knew it when they committed treason. The penalty for treason is death, and they were fortunate to have escaped that penalty.
Saying they were fortunate not to be hanged doesn’t mean I wanted them to die, of course. I’m opposed to the death penalty under all circumstances. Anyone who accuses me of blood lust for pointing out a simple fact is dishonorable.
Most of the long-arc of American history can be described as ‘how the Confederacy lost the civil war, but Confederate ideology, politics, economics, and culture devoured the United States from within.’
Beyond being ‘mean’ to people like Lee, the United States would have turned out as a much better country if the Union had given the Confederacy its independence after burning its cities to the ground and exterminating its political and business elites.
Without the Southern boat anchor providing an unshakable power base for kleptocrats and Christian nationalists, you folks might have wound up with a democracy that provided good jobs and healthcare you could actually afford.
noboby:
You folks, not including you?
Odysseus
us folks don’t think so. kleptocrats seem to live in the north as well as the south and most of the rest of the world whether capitalist or socialist. murdring your defeated enemies has never been a good idea.
joel
i was avoiding talking to you because your feelings are so easily hurt. in all of the excitement Dobbs agreed with you. I was talking to him. You both seem to feel that anyone who disagrees with you is being mean to you.
Dobbs
yes, Lincoln saved the Union…he did it by not being bloodthirsty…demanding the death of people who believed their cause was honorable…just as the Revolution was honorable..but would nevertheless have gotten Washington hanged if he had lost the war. Had Lincoln lived..he was killed by someone who believed he–lincoln– was the traitor…AND had he executed the “traitors” we would still be fighting the Civil War. People are like that. You may need to read some books about Lincoln to realize how not-bloodthirsty he was. Fighting the Civil War when it was necessary made him old long before his time. Well, it’s a complicated opinion that I have, I wouldn’t expect you to share it. But I feel a need to mark my disagreement in case, you know, someone is listening.