Well said. He is a man who has suffered, and is used to treating others who suffer through misery. His bedside manner post-war would have been legendary.
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Well said. He is a man who has suffered, and is used to treating others who suffer through misery. His bedside manner post-war would have been legendary.
How would a Lincolnist Reconstruction differ from Johnson's? Politically Johnson gave the south pretty much everything they could reasonably expect after the war.
Or do you mean that Lincoln would have been a better statesman and more effective in rhetorically knitting the country back together?
I suppose I would agree, but how far would that go in the economic and political struggle against plantation interests? Johnson's reconstruction left it alone. If Lincoln could somehow dismantle the plantations by being even gentler he would be more than just some sort of political genius.
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I guess one major difference is that Lincoln may or may not have pardoned the planters but not being as politically vulnerable as Johnson I doubt he would have returned their property. That's a very interesting change, especially if he can smooth relations with common ex confederates.
Lincoln gets a somewhat mythological status but I'll admit if anyone was up to the job it was him.
Or do you mean that Lincoln would have been a better statesman and more effective in rhetorically knitting the country back together?
I suppose I would agree, but how far would that go in the economic and political struggle against plantation interests? Johnson's reconstruction left it alone. If Lincoln could somehow dismantle the plantations by being even gentler he would be more than just some sort of political genius.
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I guess one major difference is that Lincoln may or may not have pardoned the planters but not being as politically vulnerable as Johnson I doubt he would have returned their property. That's a very interesting change, especially if he can smooth relations with common ex confederates.
Lincoln gets a somewhat mythological status but I'll admit if anyone was up to the job it was him.
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As for Lee:
I have a complicated opinion of a complicated man. His letters to his sons and other family members show he really agonized over what he would do if Virginia chose to secede. And I can respect his decision to resign his commission rather than accept command of an army that would invade Virginia and kill Virginians. His family went directly back to the heroes of the Revolution - his father was Light Horse Harry Lee - and the Custis and Lee families were "First Family of Virginia!" (Free 1776 reference). So it was just socially, familially and emotionally impossible for him to do it. George Thomas did - and paid for it by being declared 'dead' by his family and never speaking to them again.
I get all that. We are sometimes under intolerable pressure to do what society, family and friends expect of us.
But then he accepted a generalship in the Confederate Army. In other words, he faced a great moral test... and muffed it, because there is no evidence that he had any zeal for slavery or Confederate independence.
He required his men to comport themselves well - as well as any men of the war and better than most. He surrendered the Army rather than ask the men to scatter into guerilla bands, and he was gracious in defeat. When the war was over, he retired quietly to Virginia, turned down offers of public office and made known his view that the war was over, the judgement of the Almighty was rendered, and Southerners must accept it. That did take moral courage, in a post-war South.
So there is a lot to admire there, but just as I can admire parts of Rommel's character while despising others, I do believe Lee's putting on the gray coat was a weak, expedient moral failure - at best a naive one - from a man who, otherwise, worked very hard to do what his family and position required. Lee was supremely dutiful, in every moment of his life except one.
Lincoln post-war would have had to fight both the Radical Republicans and, as Southern states were re-admitted to the Union and sent members to Congress, a shrinking Republican base of support. He might well have found himself walled off by both sides and ineffective.
People who worked with him over long periods of time often came to respect and admire him. But he never had any success changing a Southerner's mind, or a slave-owner's mind. I can say I think Lincoln would have been a better post-war president than the Southern-apologist Johnston. But given our 150-year wallow in Lost Cause treacle, I think the nation might have been better off if the Radical Republicans had been given their head to Reconstruct the South along the lines of equality. The medicine would have been awful... but so is the disease.
I have a complicated opinion of a complicated man. His letters to his sons and other family members show he really agonized over what he would do if Virginia chose to secede. And I can respect his decision to resign his commission rather than accept command of an army that would invade Virginia and kill Virginians. His family went directly back to the heroes of the Revolution - his father was Light Horse Harry Lee - and the Custis and Lee families were "First Family of Virginia!" (Free 1776 reference). So it was just socially, familially and emotionally impossible for him to do it. George Thomas did - and paid for it by being declared 'dead' by his family and never speaking to them again.
I get all that. We are sometimes under intolerable pressure to do what society, family and friends expect of us.
But then he accepted a generalship in the Confederate Army. In other words, he faced a great moral test... and muffed it, because there is no evidence that he had any zeal for slavery or Confederate independence.
He required his men to comport themselves well - as well as any men of the war and better than most. He surrendered the Army rather than ask the men to scatter into guerilla bands, and he was gracious in defeat. When the war was over, he retired quietly to Virginia, turned down offers of public office and made known his view that the war was over, the judgement of the Almighty was rendered, and Southerners must accept it. That did take moral courage, in a post-war South.
So there is a lot to admire there, but just as I can admire parts of Rommel's character while despising others, I do believe Lee's putting on the gray coat was a weak, expedient moral failure - at best a naive one - from a man who, otherwise, worked very hard to do what his family and position required. Lee was supremely dutiful, in every moment of his life except one.
Lincoln post-war would have had to fight both the Radical Republicans and, as Southern states were re-admitted to the Union and sent members to Congress, a shrinking Republican base of support. He might well have found himself walled off by both sides and ineffective.
People who worked with him over long periods of time often came to respect and admire him. But he never had any success changing a Southerner's mind, or a slave-owner's mind. I can say I think Lincoln would have been a better post-war president than the Southern-apologist Johnston. But given our 150-year wallow in Lost Cause treacle, I think the nation might have been better off if the Radical Republicans had been given their head to Reconstruct the South along the lines of equality. The medicine would have been awful... but so is the disease.
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I always thought, Lee choosing his side 'cause the region of his birth and rejecting the Union due to this. At least, in my country, more in-depth knowledge in the subject has Lee's decision to fight for the C.S.A instead of the U.S.A in this birth-matter.
This is very much my understanding of the matter.
His home is Virginia. His father, famously, was a very effective commander of light infantry and dragoons during the Revolution and later became governor of Virginia.
It is like expecting someone from this era to pick between Finland and European Union when push came to shove, an imperfect analogy but each individual has their own individual reasons for supporting their decision.
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That's assuming he has to fight at all, and lead the armies as well. Not wanting to fight against your home state and your family and friends is one thing. Leading the armies that defended slavery is another. I'm sure that Lee would have been under great pressure to help defend his family as well, would probably have been branded a coward, so staying out the fight was not an easy option to take. But Lee's choice does show that his loyalty to Virginia and family weighed more heavily for him than his moral objections to slavery. Actually, let's be clear here: Lee's views on slavery look rather peculiar to the modern eye:
First, this is the doctrine of the White Man's Burden, the same that justified colonialism and imperialism in Africa and Asia in his lifetime. Second, Lee argues that slavery was good, for the time being, for black folk but bad for white folk. Third, he did think slavery was necessary and rejected abolition. There is a pretty big difference between him and Calhoun but also a wide gulf between him and Lincoln. In short, his family was in the South and he didn't believe in the Northern cause, so I doubt Lee had to wrestle with his conscience for all that long.
There is a deeper layer here. Robert E. Lee has become the symbol of Southern honor. He's been whitewashed, his character made out as entirely noble, showing that good people could and did fight for a bad cause. It's a way to redeem the history of your family, very similar to the "good Wehrmacht" myth in post-WW2 Germany. The Germans of course have demolished that myth some time ago and are honestly reckoning with the failures of their grandparents. Post-Civil War Southerners constructed not only the Jim Crow system but a hugely influential school of historians (the Dunning School) which disparaged Reconstruction as mere carpetbaggery (incidentally robbing the freedmen of their agency) and upheld people like Lee as moral exemplars. It's been a century and a half and there are still people who believe that crap.
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The plantations were disestablished already. There had been this apocalyptic civil war... the freedmen has seized most of them while the slavers fled. The conflict happened when the slavers returned and tried to reassert their antebellum position.
My comment was about what he did at Gettysburg with the charge.
Muh oaths. Lee did nothing wrong. His country was Virginia and the CSA.
It's always about race and you know it. These threads are full of "stunning and brave" attacks on General Lee and the South because of it, and the elite consensus about it that you've been inculcated with is the impetus.
The scare quotes around stunning and brave tell their own story. No one here or in the serious histories of Lee has claimed that for themselves. You're doing the attacking here and in a very sneaky way. Why don't you come right out and tell us what the proper understanding of Lee and the South should be, in your opinion? Which ideas have been "inculcated" in us? By whom? And why are they wrong?
Generally, people are judged on their ability to keep their word. Few Southern noncommissioned officers abandoned their oaths. Few Navy officers did. But almost the entire political class of the South renounced their oath to defend the Constitution.
No, that was a choice. He hadn’t fought in the Mexican War for Virginia. He’d just been offered the command of the Army to put down the rebellion.
its really not.
? So... my elite consensus is that a guy born to (and married into) what amounted to American royalty, who was successful in his military career, and who could literally see the White House from his porch, had, wait for the consensus... political ambitions?
And that when he saw that those ambitions were impossible, he chose to go with the side where they were possible?
I might be silly but anyone who has visited Arlington House is given the same facts during the tour.
Now they don’t talk about overwhelming ego or personal ambitions, but I don’t think that is a hard inference to draw.
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Wouldn't commanding a victorious Union Army in the Civil War be a pretty good move in terms of personal ambitions? Lee could use the fame to become President, as Grant did.
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Grant was a northerner.
And remember how anathema Lincoln was to the southern planter class, of which Lee was a part. He had become President without a single slave state electoral vote. This revulsion at the new power structure on a Federal level, and the implications for the Slave Power were what led to secession in the first place.
So you don't think a Southerner who beats down the rebellion would have good political prospects? I mean Lee must have known that the Confederacy was the underdog so in any calculation with regard to personal political ambition, taking the command offered by Lincoln would seem like the safer bet.
Johnson gave the plantations back and allowed the reconstruction governments to virtually re-enslave the freemen.
The conflict did not start until congressional reconstruction tried to break them up and guarantee freedman rights.
Not when a man like Lincoln has just been elected AND the South had seceded.
You can rearrange the schedule, sure.
But in practice, the plantations had been abandoned by the owners. The freedmen occupied them. The planters came back and demanded the return of their land, property, and usually wanted the freedmen to work for free. On the ground scuffles ensued, and both sides petition the Federal occupation forces to settle the issue.
Alss for the nation, Johnson chose poorly.
I meant after the war. Lee would be the victorious general who chose loyalty to country over all else. Good image for a political career.
Johnson blocked Sherman and the Freedman's bureau from redistributing 'abandoned' plantations. He then pardoned plantation owners and returned their property. A good example are the lands belonging to Jefferson Davis' family near Vicksburg Mississippi. Abandoned in 1862, taken over by the Freedman's bureau who leased it back to the former slaves. After the war, Jeff's brother Joseph gets a pardon and his land back.
General Howard had to get a bill passed to sell public lands because the plantations were no longer abandoned. (This didn't work either for other reasons)
It actually would be very interesting If Lincoln had survived and not felt the political need to return the plantations.
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Certainly, but who would vote for him? He would get no support from the South, and his prospects of winning the Northern vote against Northern candidates with similar military plaudits and no rebellious families were not as good.
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