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In the June 1969 issue of Civil War History — Volume 5, Number 2, pages 116-132 — a renowned Southern historian attacked the legacy of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
"No single war figure stands in greater need of reevaluation than Lee," wrote Thomas L. Connelly, the late University of South Carolina professor. "One ponders whether the South may not have fared better had it possessed no Robert E. Lee."
Connelly's essay was among the first academic musket shots fired on Lee's standing as an outmatched but not outwitted military genius presiding over a Lost Cause — a reputation celebrated in fawning biographies and monuments like the one removed Friday in New Orleans.
Was General Lee overrated? Get your armchair historian on...
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The Truth About Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: He Wasn’t Very Good at His Job
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @02:12AM (6 children)
I think a good compromise would be to ship all those disgruntled slaves' descendants to Los Angeles and San Francisco with plenty of downtown properties converted to affordable housing for them -- calling it "reparations."
It's a win-win situation that also preserves American history.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday June 12 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)
Paid for primarily with extra taxes on the southern colonies, right?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday June 12 2017, @03:08AM
No, what are you, racist or something? Refugees Welcome, as some people like to say.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:24PM (3 children)
I've got a different idea for a compromise. Get all those people who still support the "Southern Culture" of the antebellum US South. That is gather all the people together that support keeping and creating statues celebrating a culture that enslaves humans beings, a culture that believed in enslaving other humans enough to treasonously rebel from its own government, launched on attach on its own government's military base, and continued a war that killed 100's of thousands. Oh and they lost! Why not take those people and send them back to were they came from. Who knows, some of them might even fit into the post-brexit UK.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:02AM (2 children)
> [...] a culture that believed in enslaving other humans enough to treasonously rebel from its own government [...]
The U.S. Declaration of Independence said:
which resembles what we today call the right of self-determination. Not to defend slavery as a reason to form a country, I wouldn't call it treason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:08AM (1 child)
Hmm, you do realize that the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing as a founding document of the United States? While an inspirational read, it does in fact describe treason: against the British Crown, and can be read as an apologia for that act.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:04AM
The reason I mentioned the Declaration of Independence is that it, as far as I know, is the earliest expression (anywhere) of a right to self-determination. I do understand that it never had the force of law. If we acknowledge that right, we needn't call separatist movements treasonous.
Over the week-end there was a referendum on the status of Puerto Rico; one choice presented was independence. The U.S. president participated in the wording of the referendum by suggesting that the status quo ought to be an option. As far as I know he didn't denounce the presence of the independence option. In 2014, the British prime minister stated that the referendum on Scottish independence would be binding--meaning that, had there been a vote in favour of independence, his government would have honoured it. Critics of the Crimean referendum don't say that the people of Crimea ought not to have had a choice in its status, instead noting problems such as the absence of an option for continuing the status quo, denouncing the presence of the Russian military. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which doesn't have the force of law, mentions a right of self-determination.