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Off Topic/Non-philatelic Disc. : General Lee

 

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amsd
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Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads

21 Jun 2018
12:18:31pm

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I'm moving this here from the Boer War, although there certainly overlaps in the discussion. Bruce stated:

""It brought to mind the other books I inherited and read (on the Civil War) and the history of Robert E. Lee - who unlike Smuts, seems to be (unfairly?) vilified as a traitor and race-hater whose statues need to be torn down and his memory erased.

I'm not trying to start a debate, I'm just saying (as an objective reader of history) that I find it interesting."

But you did go there.

Lee was a traitor--that is simple. He fought a war against his own country.

"Or, as Civil War historian Eric Foner described Lee’s mixed viewpoint on slavery more succinctly in the New York Times:

“He was not a pro-slavery ideologue,” Eric Foner, a Civil War historian, author and professor of history at Columbia University, said of Lee. “But I think equally important is that, unlike some white southerners, he never spoke out against slavery.”

“What interests people who debate Lee today is his connection with slavery and his views about race. During his lifetime, Lee owned a small number of slaves. He considered himself a paternalistic master but could also impose severe punishments, especially on those who attempted to run away. Lee said almost nothing in public about the institution.”

“Lee’s code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to blacks. During the Gettysburg campaign, he did nothing to stop soldiers in his army from kidnapping free black farmers for sale into slavery. In Reconstruction, Lee made it clear that he opposed political rights for the former slaves. Referring to blacks (30 percent of Virginia’s population), he told a Congressional committee that he hoped the state could be “rid of them.” Urged to condemn the Ku Klux Klan’s terrorist violence, Lee remained silent.”"

I don't think his memory should be as you say erased but rather the statues to traitors should come down and removed to a museum that explains why the statues were put in place and by whom, why these people were traitors to the United States using their words and deeds"

.

Bruce, I have a very different view, even though I'm a New Yorker, transplanted from (northern) Ohio.

I don't think it's so easy to merely call Lee a traitor. To do so, one would need to call his ancestors, inlcuding LightHorse Harry, one, too. The primary reason we might call one a traitor and the other not is that the elder was on the winning side; the younger, well, not. Both Lees fought on behalf of one legitimate entity against another, larger, legitimate entity; Virginia vs England and Virginia vs the rump of the United States.

Besides knowing that Lee had slaves, I know little of his view of them. He summarily executed captured colored troops or put them to work digging earthworks. Grant put a stop to the executions by threatening retaliation against captured CSA soldiers. This changed the POW structure that had essentially been one of parole until then; and changed it for the worse. There would have been few Confederate officers who would have felt differently than Lee; and, there were few federal officers who had a much higher view of the colored troops. Few voluntarily served with them, and many that were delegated to do so were just drunks, cowards, and racists.

It's no accident that federal colored units were segregated; and no accident that they were officered by whites, with no exception.

As to opposing civil rights for blacks, Lee was hardly alone. In fact, one wouldn't have needed either the 14th Amendment of 1868 or the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 were this not a majority opinion throughout much of the land.

I'll leave the statues alone, as that's far more complex.

But what interests me about Lee is his military accumen; the rest is, I'm afraid, a shared history of an America that has little use for people who don't look like the men making the laws or commanding the troops.

David

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Tom in Exton, PA

22 Jun 2018
12:07:26pm

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re: General Lee

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History is lost on our current population.
Most of them think General Lee is a car.

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ernieinjax
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22 Jun 2018
12:30:00pm
re: General Lee

Hey Tom..most under 30 have no clue about that show

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roy
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22 Jun 2018
12:57:45pm
re: General Lee

I rather like this Maximum Card:

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(First Day of Issue cancel)

Roy

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ernieinjax
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22 Jun 2018
02:01:17pm
re: General Lee

Hang the damn traitor LOL I drive by Robert E Lee High School everyday

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lemaven
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22 Jun 2018
03:48:54pm
re: General Lee

Isn't there also a US stamp celebrating the "Lee and Washington University"? (Odd way to treat a traitor, assuming it was named after Bob Lee and not Bruce Lee).

Perhaps this graduate of West Point (the ultimate All-American military institution, as far as I know) was required to first pledge his loyalty to the Commonwealth of Virginia - from whence he came - when called to do so by his State leaders? And/or perhaps fighting for a collective "Union" against his home state after declaring secession would in itself be more "traitorous"?

Like an Estonian fighting for the rights of self-determination for Estonia instead of for Mother Russia? Or a German citizen fighting against the (speciously) democratically elected government of Germany pre-WWII? Perhaps some are a priori "good" or "bad/evil" but I am neutral on it.

I'm just a guy who likes to know stuff, and I'm interested in history moreso than biased and inflamed political rhetoric. And mostly to tie in my stamp collecting interests.

Dave.

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amsd
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Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads

22 Jun 2018
07:48:34pm

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re: General Lee

Dave,

many, not all, southern officers felt that way: that fealty to state was first, then to Union.

and, as in my original post, many subjects of Great Britain felt that way: fealty to colony, then to King, although here there seemed much less unaniminity of feeling

David

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philb
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22 Jun 2018
09:11:42pm

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re: General Lee

Is it possible that after Gettysburg Lee might have had some influence to save another two hundred thousand lives both North and South and General Sherman might not have had to destroy the infrastructure of Georgia ? Its all history now.

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amsd
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Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads

23 Jun 2018
02:33:39pm

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re: General Lee

it is possible; Lee's army was horribly wounded, and the western theatre already decided in the North's favor. Most port cities were already either occupied or fully blockaded. Lee continued to score victories, but they were fewer and mostly costlier. About this time, the first of 150 regiments of colored troops were added to the fight. And Sherman, Thomas, and Howard were cutting off the southernmost states, leaving the Carolinas, Virginia, and the border states as the last remaining battlefields


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ikeyPikey
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23 Jun 2018
08:19:38pm
re: General Lee

"... one wouldn't have needed either the 14th Amendment of 1868 or the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 were this not a majority opinion throughout much of the land ..."



I just started reading Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America by Victoria W. Wolcott.

Not an easy, entertaining read - more of a publish-or-perish, serious academic study - but it sure does a job describing the many different threads that played into & through race & public accommodations over the decades.

One major point - beaten past death, if you ask me - is that the oft-described dichotomy of Northern-vs-Southern treatment of African Americans is barely two sides of a coin, as the results barely differed despite any occasional difference in means.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey (who has two words for Mr Lee: "armed treason")
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Snick1946
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23 Jun 2018
09:26:09pm
re: General Lee

Some may find this to be an interesting read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/

Lee's army of Northern Virginia routinely captured free Black citizens and sent them South to be sold into slavery. Yeah I know, it was a different time, different values and all that. Even by the standards of 1863, that was vile. Lee apparently condoned it.

Lee was unquestionably an able military leader. In my view he sullied his reputation by fighting for an evil cause. Rant over..

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Stampme

23 Jun 2018
11:10:30pm
re: General Lee

It's never easy cutting through a romanticized fog going on since 1865 to find our way to an accurate depiction of the Civil War and the roles/reasons of the various participants.

Despite the postwar, fairly successful fog campaign and the effort made to romanticize the rebel participants/traitors and of course racists, one merely has to find modern books that strip away the propaganda campaign that was so carefully orchestrated; one that continued into the 1960s by the raising of statues, Jim Crow statutes and acts of terrorism against African Americans.

The war was fought over slavery and Lee who owned slaves also supported that system. Lee broke his military oath of allegiance and took up arms against The United States of America. I'd call that a traitor. This does not take away his military prowess. His silence on the KKK speaks volumes though, much more than inflamed political rhetoric that is common to any era.

Bruce




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amsd
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Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads

23 Jun 2018
11:19:39pm

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re: General Lee

Bruce,

George Washington

"owned slaves also supported that system. He broke his military oath of allegiance and took up arms against"

his government.

it's all in perspective and especially who won the war.

I rooted for the rebels in the earlier war and the Union in the latter

I also changed two letters in your quote, a proper noun to a pronoun

I'm not trying to defend Lee, any more than I am Washington, or Jefferson, or Madison, or Jackson ..... I'm putting them in their historical context, which were parallel.

David
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malcolm197

24 Jun 2018
08:01:16am
re: General Lee

There is an old principle in jurisprudence which says " the king de facto is the king de jure" which roughly translates that the government in power is the government by right.

This is not some specious argument, but a way of ensuring that a person cannot be retroactively accused of treason by a new government for being loyal to the old. Therefore once the Confederate States legally ( in their opinion ) seceded from the Union, the inhabitants of those states should not be accused of treason "after the fact", under the de facto de jure rules (which were in fact introduced in England when we changed Kings as often as we changed our socks, and there would have been no people left to govern the country if everyone was executed every time !) In fact technically a citizen of the Confederate States fighting for the Union would be the traitor !

However it is not the first time the U.S. has ignored this basic principal. Consider the loyalists after the war of Independence, the biggest illegal land grab in history.

While the rebellion in North America was in session, it was the rebels who were the traitors ( a fact usually glossed over as inconvenient ), and after the rebellion was over it was decidedly unjust to retrospectively target the loyalists as traitors. Of course if they had continued to be disloyal after the rebels became the legitimate government it would be different, but as I understand it they weren't given the chance.

Bringing up emotive issues like someone's attitude to slavery is an irrelevance - we are talking about legality here. If we believe in the "Rule of Law" the supreme arbiter is the Law, and in a civilised society one ignores the Rule of Law at one's peril - that way lies anarchy. If you take a moral stand that it must be in the full knowledge that the law will take it's course and you shouldn't winge when it all goes wrong for you ( and usually most people of principle admit that). You can change the law when you have won the argument, and then your position will become the legal one.

I would suggest that many of the ills of the Western world are as a result of most of us believing that we can choose which laws to obey and which not.

"Freedom" and "Human Rights" as trotted out by polticians is a myth and has very little to do with fairness or justice. Most of us have an instnict for what is fair or just even if we are often unable to articulate it. Most of freedoms and human rights aspired to can only come to pass at the expense of the freedoms or human rights of others.

End of lecture

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amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
21 Jun 2018
12:18:31pm

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I'm moving this here from the Boer War, although there certainly overlaps in the discussion. Bruce stated:

""It brought to mind the other books I inherited and read (on the Civil War) and the history of Robert E. Lee - who unlike Smuts, seems to be (unfairly?) vilified as a traitor and race-hater whose statues need to be torn down and his memory erased.

I'm not trying to start a debate, I'm just saying (as an objective reader of history) that I find it interesting."

But you did go there.

Lee was a traitor--that is simple. He fought a war against his own country.

"Or, as Civil War historian Eric Foner described Lee’s mixed viewpoint on slavery more succinctly in the New York Times:

“He was not a pro-slavery ideologue,” Eric Foner, a Civil War historian, author and professor of history at Columbia University, said of Lee. “But I think equally important is that, unlike some white southerners, he never spoke out against slavery.”

“What interests people who debate Lee today is his connection with slavery and his views about race. During his lifetime, Lee owned a small number of slaves. He considered himself a paternalistic master but could also impose severe punishments, especially on those who attempted to run away. Lee said almost nothing in public about the institution.”

“Lee’s code of gentlemanly conduct did not seem to apply to blacks. During the Gettysburg campaign, he did nothing to stop soldiers in his army from kidnapping free black farmers for sale into slavery. In Reconstruction, Lee made it clear that he opposed political rights for the former slaves. Referring to blacks (30 percent of Virginia’s population), he told a Congressional committee that he hoped the state could be “rid of them.” Urged to condemn the Ku Klux Klan’s terrorist violence, Lee remained silent.”"

I don't think his memory should be as you say erased but rather the statues to traitors should come down and removed to a museum that explains why the statues were put in place and by whom, why these people were traitors to the United States using their words and deeds"

.

Bruce, I have a very different view, even though I'm a New Yorker, transplanted from (northern) Ohio.

I don't think it's so easy to merely call Lee a traitor. To do so, one would need to call his ancestors, inlcuding LightHorse Harry, one, too. The primary reason we might call one a traitor and the other not is that the elder was on the winning side; the younger, well, not. Both Lees fought on behalf of one legitimate entity against another, larger, legitimate entity; Virginia vs England and Virginia vs the rump of the United States.

Besides knowing that Lee had slaves, I know little of his view of them. He summarily executed captured colored troops or put them to work digging earthworks. Grant put a stop to the executions by threatening retaliation against captured CSA soldiers. This changed the POW structure that had essentially been one of parole until then; and changed it for the worse. There would have been few Confederate officers who would have felt differently than Lee; and, there were few federal officers who had a much higher view of the colored troops. Few voluntarily served with them, and many that were delegated to do so were just drunks, cowards, and racists.

It's no accident that federal colored units were segregated; and no accident that they were officered by whites, with no exception.

As to opposing civil rights for blacks, Lee was hardly alone. In fact, one wouldn't have needed either the 14th Amendment of 1868 or the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 were this not a majority opinion throughout much of the land.

I'll leave the statues alone, as that's far more complex.

But what interests me about Lee is his military accumen; the rest is, I'm afraid, a shared history of an America that has little use for people who don't look like the men making the laws or commanding the troops.

David

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BenFranklin1902

Tom in Exton, PA
22 Jun 2018
12:07:26pm

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re: General Lee

Image Not Found

History is lost on our current population.
Most of them think General Lee is a car.

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ernieinjax

22 Jun 2018
12:30:00pm

re: General Lee

Hey Tom..most under 30 have no clue about that show

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22 Jun 2018
12:57:45pm

re: General Lee

I rather like this Maximum Card:

Image Not Found

(First Day of Issue cancel)

Roy

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ernieinjax

22 Jun 2018
02:01:17pm

re: General Lee

Hang the damn traitor LOL I drive by Robert E Lee High School everyday

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lemaven

22 Jun 2018
03:48:54pm

re: General Lee

Isn't there also a US stamp celebrating the "Lee and Washington University"? (Odd way to treat a traitor, assuming it was named after Bob Lee and not Bruce Lee).

Perhaps this graduate of West Point (the ultimate All-American military institution, as far as I know) was required to first pledge his loyalty to the Commonwealth of Virginia - from whence he came - when called to do so by his State leaders? And/or perhaps fighting for a collective "Union" against his home state after declaring secession would in itself be more "traitorous"?

Like an Estonian fighting for the rights of self-determination for Estonia instead of for Mother Russia? Or a German citizen fighting against the (speciously) democratically elected government of Germany pre-WWII? Perhaps some are a priori "good" or "bad/evil" but I am neutral on it.

I'm just a guy who likes to know stuff, and I'm interested in history moreso than biased and inflamed political rhetoric. And mostly to tie in my stamp collecting interests.

Dave.

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amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
22 Jun 2018
07:48:34pm

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re: General Lee

Dave,

many, not all, southern officers felt that way: that fealty to state was first, then to Union.

and, as in my original post, many subjects of Great Britain felt that way: fealty to colony, then to King, although here there seemed much less unaniminity of feeling

David

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philb

22 Jun 2018
09:11:42pm

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re: General Lee

Is it possible that after Gettysburg Lee might have had some influence to save another two hundred thousand lives both North and South and General Sherman might not have had to destroy the infrastructure of Georgia ? Its all history now.

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amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
23 Jun 2018
02:33:39pm

Auctions

re: General Lee

it is possible; Lee's army was horribly wounded, and the western theatre already decided in the North's favor. Most port cities were already either occupied or fully blockaded. Lee continued to score victories, but they were fewer and mostly costlier. About this time, the first of 150 regiments of colored troops were added to the fight. And Sherman, Thomas, and Howard were cutting off the southernmost states, leaving the Carolinas, Virginia, and the border states as the last remaining battlefields


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ikeyPikey

23 Jun 2018
08:19:38pm

re: General Lee

"... one wouldn't have needed either the 14th Amendment of 1868 or the Civil Rights legislation of 1964 were this not a majority opinion throughout much of the land ..."



I just started reading Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America by Victoria W. Wolcott.

Not an easy, entertaining read - more of a publish-or-perish, serious academic study - but it sure does a job describing the many different threads that played into & through race & public accommodations over the decades.

One major point - beaten past death, if you ask me - is that the oft-described dichotomy of Northern-vs-Southern treatment of African Americans is barely two sides of a coin, as the results barely differed despite any occasional difference in means.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey (who has two words for Mr Lee: "armed treason")
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Snick1946

APS Life Member
23 Jun 2018
09:26:09pm

re: General Lee

Some may find this to be an interesting read:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/

Lee's army of Northern Virginia routinely captured free Black citizens and sent them South to be sold into slavery. Yeah I know, it was a different time, different values and all that. Even by the standards of 1863, that was vile. Lee apparently condoned it.

Lee was unquestionably an able military leader. In my view he sullied his reputation by fighting for an evil cause. Rant over..

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Stampme

23 Jun 2018
11:10:30pm

re: General Lee

It's never easy cutting through a romanticized fog going on since 1865 to find our way to an accurate depiction of the Civil War and the roles/reasons of the various participants.

Despite the postwar, fairly successful fog campaign and the effort made to romanticize the rebel participants/traitors and of course racists, one merely has to find modern books that strip away the propaganda campaign that was so carefully orchestrated; one that continued into the 1960s by the raising of statues, Jim Crow statutes and acts of terrorism against African Americans.

The war was fought over slavery and Lee who owned slaves also supported that system. Lee broke his military oath of allegiance and took up arms against The United States of America. I'd call that a traitor. This does not take away his military prowess. His silence on the KKK speaks volumes though, much more than inflamed political rhetoric that is common to any era.

Bruce




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amsd

Editor, Seal News; contributor, JuicyHeads
23 Jun 2018
11:19:39pm

Auctions

re: General Lee

Bruce,

George Washington

"owned slaves also supported that system. He broke his military oath of allegiance and took up arms against"

his government.

it's all in perspective and especially who won the war.

I rooted for the rebels in the earlier war and the Union in the latter

I also changed two letters in your quote, a proper noun to a pronoun

I'm not trying to defend Lee, any more than I am Washington, or Jefferson, or Madison, or Jackson ..... I'm putting them in their historical context, which were parallel.

David
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malcolm197

24 Jun 2018
08:01:16am

re: General Lee

There is an old principle in jurisprudence which says " the king de facto is the king de jure" which roughly translates that the government in power is the government by right.

This is not some specious argument, but a way of ensuring that a person cannot be retroactively accused of treason by a new government for being loyal to the old. Therefore once the Confederate States legally ( in their opinion ) seceded from the Union, the inhabitants of those states should not be accused of treason "after the fact", under the de facto de jure rules (which were in fact introduced in England when we changed Kings as often as we changed our socks, and there would have been no people left to govern the country if everyone was executed every time !) In fact technically a citizen of the Confederate States fighting for the Union would be the traitor !

However it is not the first time the U.S. has ignored this basic principal. Consider the loyalists after the war of Independence, the biggest illegal land grab in history.

While the rebellion in North America was in session, it was the rebels who were the traitors ( a fact usually glossed over as inconvenient ), and after the rebellion was over it was decidedly unjust to retrospectively target the loyalists as traitors. Of course if they had continued to be disloyal after the rebels became the legitimate government it would be different, but as I understand it they weren't given the chance.

Bringing up emotive issues like someone's attitude to slavery is an irrelevance - we are talking about legality here. If we believe in the "Rule of Law" the supreme arbiter is the Law, and in a civilised society one ignores the Rule of Law at one's peril - that way lies anarchy. If you take a moral stand that it must be in the full knowledge that the law will take it's course and you shouldn't winge when it all goes wrong for you ( and usually most people of principle admit that). You can change the law when you have won the argument, and then your position will become the legal one.

I would suggest that many of the ills of the Western world are as a result of most of us believing that we can choose which laws to obey and which not.

"Freedom" and "Human Rights" as trotted out by polticians is a myth and has very little to do with fairness or justice. Most of us have an instnict for what is fair or just even if we are often unable to articulate it. Most of freedoms and human rights aspired to can only come to pass at the expense of the freedoms or human rights of others.

End of lecture

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