What if . . .General R. E. Lee wore blue?

General Lee and the 35 Star Union flag

President Abraham Lincoln would’ve replaced General R. E. Lee; or the Union would have lost the war. Don’t start throwing rotten tomatoes from your garden, yet—hear me out.

Let’s say Lee replaced Lieutenant General Winfield Scott in 1861. For one, Lee was unwilling (not unable) to really take command over his senior generals. He thought if he confronted any of their inappropriate behavior his generals wouldn’t listen to him. That’s not the case. Leaders should show justified anger at the right time and place.

Reluctant to correct his generals, there’s no way Lee could’ve taken command over Major General George McClellan or John Pope. Both were aggressive ego maniacs. Lee was a humble, compassionate, albeit passive-aggressive leader. It would’ve gotten ugly quick.  Lee would’ve gotten extremely frustrated. McClellan and Pope would’ve bullied their way over their commander. Then, Lincoln would’ve reshuffled his military personnel. Lee goes and supports Quarter Master Montgomery C. Meigs.

Let’s start over with a completely different scenario. Lee is given the same billet as U.S. Grant in 1864. This is all pretend, remember. Union Lieutenant General Lee is in charge of all the Union armies and moves out with the Army of the Potomac. Lee has the same A-team Grant tapped: William T. Sherman, George Meade, Philip Sheridan, and George “Old Pap” Thomas. We’ll even give Lee wins at Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor; and Sherman gets his win at Atlanta. But the war bogs down.

Major General William T. Sherman sends Lee a telegram in September 1864. “I want to drive a large contingent through Georgia and up into the Carolinas with the intent of making its inhabitants feel that war and individual ruin are synonymous terms.”[1] Lee’s eyes get big. The telegram clatters back with his response: “You will do no such thing. We must mitigate the evils of the war. Civilian and military property must be protected and no burning of the infrastructure.”[2] So now Sherman’s army holds up near Atlanta. And Lee, with the Army of the Potomac, stalls at Petersburg.

With the Union war effort bogged down on both fronts, there are grave political consequences. President Lincoln loses his re-election. George McClellan wins the White House. He then sues for peace with the Confederacy. The Union is divided and slavery prevails. Most likely, America would have a second Civil War.

Robert E. Lee was a great person, a capable and hardworking engineer and staff officer in the ante-bellum years. He wasn’t a consummate strategic leader in the Civil War. He possessed an intransigent personality. He wouldn’t confront senior officers. This in turn compromised his command over them; and it compromised his ability to control battles (case in point A.P. Hill and Henry Heth at the start of Gettysburg). His sincere philosophy of tempering the violence toward the civilians is noble. But it’s the opposite of what has to occur.

In a civil war, the conflict is between two societies and their armies. The people wage the war; their armies fight it. You have to thus break the will of the people, make them suffer, not just destroy their military’s capabilities. Yes, it’s horrific. It’s sadistic, and gross; it’s heart-wrenching. Lee knew this. He’d studied the widespread devastation seen during the Peloponnesian War, Athens versus Sparta (431–404 BC). He wanted to avoid this at all cost. So, whether Lee wore grey or blue, he would’ve inadvertently compromised the strategy.

What say you? Would Lee have won the war for the North? Don’t forget the South still fielded top notch generals. Lee would’ve had to contend against them.

[1] Michael Fellman. Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman. New York: Random House, 1995.

[2] William J. Jones, Life and Letters, 129–30.  During the American Revolution, the British mitigated the destruction in America, see Mackesy, The War for America, 32–7.



308 Responses to What if . . .General R. E. Lee wore blue?

  1. If Lee had remained loyal and joined the Union high command, he might have still be reluctant to make war on his native state and requested to best given a command in the West. He might have served instead of Fremont or Halleck as overall commander in the Western theater. It is interesting to think of him face Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh.

  2. I disagree with a number of the pre-set conditions put out in this, such as that slavery would have prevailed among other things.

    Also I disagree with some of the statements about Lee’s generalship style beyond a certain point; he certainly did like subordinates who thought for themselves and he would have certainly had problems with the likes of Pope and McClellan.

    But in my personal opinion, with the Union resources of men and supplies, he would have destroyed the Confederate armies he faced. Some aspects of the outcome may have varied but he would have defeated the foe he faced.

    I recognise fully the topic is hypocritical in nature.

  3. Robert E. Lee. “What if he wore Blue?” This possible state of affairs is not as outlandish as it seems. After all, Winfield Scott is supposed to have advocated for Robert E. Lee to assume command of the Union Army in April 1861. But, Colonel Lee turned the offer down, claiming “He would follow his native State with his sword.” For me, the development that may have swung “the Virginian’s insistence to remain with his State” …was the location of his Home at Arlington. Because, the early years of its existence found the Custis Mansion sited within the District of Columbia. Had the Retrocession of 1846/47 not occurred, Robert E. Lee would have been a resident of the District of Columbia… and his cut-and-dried rationale for resignation from the U.S. Army would have become decidedly murky.

  4. Correction: Phone autocorrect err above.

    My last line ought read, ‘This topic is HYPOTHETICAL in nature’

  5. you’re on solid ground with the probability and plausibility that Lee stayed in blue as 30 percent of his brother officers from VA remained loyal to the United States — i am with you so far … not too sure about what happens next however … so, with Lee as General in Chief, how does McClellan and Halleck ever figure in the equation … and your assessment of Lee seems a bit odd — passive aggressive, not a strategic leader, intransigent personality, poor leader, reluctant to confront subordinates — i would argue just the opposite … and plugging Lee into the war in place of Grant in Overland Campaign assumes the war takes exactly the same course … that’s a big assumption, but i am holding my rotten tomatoes 🙂

  6. With Lee in blue, where does that leave Thomas Jackson? Without Lee does the capturer of so many B&O rail engines, and hero of Bull Run get promoted faster? If he leads the Army of Northern Virginia, does the entire ANV get put under arrest for not marching to TJ’s standards, with Jeff Davis issuing a presidential pardon of them all? After Bull Run 2, while Pope recouped in Centerville, was it Lee’s idea or Jackson’s to try to march an army up Gum Springs Road around Centreville and onto the rear of Pope. It may matter in the event Lee in blue faced TJ in gray.

  7. FYI Robert E. Lee was neither in favor of Secessionism or of slavery. His main reason for turning down Lincoln’s offer was his devotion to the STATE OF VIRGINIA. He feared, rightly, that the 75,000 volunteers Lincoln summoned would mainly be used against his state. If Virginia had not seceded (and the western half of the state was against secession). Lee would never have joined the Confederate Army. Thomas Jackson was also not a fan of slavery, and he probably would have joined the Union Army also had Virginia not seceded. The entire war would have been fought further west had Virginia remained in the Union. General Beauregard would have probably filled the role Lee had in which case. So, Tennessee & Kentucky would still have been the Dark & Bloody Ground of the war, only more so. As for specifics, that would be hard to guess, but my gut feeling is the Rebellion would have collapsed a lot sooner, perhaps in late ’63/early ’64.

    1. Lee couldn’t betray his family & the State of Virginia. I agree. Lee’s dad abandoned the family. And I believe Robert E. Lee would always remain Loyal to his family. Agree, Lee was not a fan of slavery nor was Jackson. Unfortunately, many CSA politicians were. There are so many variables that would have been different. By the way, I deeply admire Lee. He has taught me a lot.

      1. No one can dispute that. As Frederick Douglass put it in the 8 June 1849 copy of the ‘Liberator’, all Americans together with the very structure of the constitution enabled slavery. A great deal of his pre-war statements and arguments do not correspond with those of the post-war.

        All Americans were responsible for slavery, North and South. The former had agreed to create and live in a country wherein they knew the institution existed and agreed to the constitutional terms enabling it on their part.

        That didn’t mean that individuals were not responsible for their actions. It meant there as a core responsibility that could not be disavowed, as Douglass made the point then, and Abraham Lincoln would echo 16 years later in his 2nd Inaugural Address.

        At the start of the war, Jackson did make statements to the effect of defending slavery. He did take Black Americans into slavery on his Northern invasion in 1862, as Abraham Lincoln did veritably the same as when he countermanded the emancipation orders of Generals’ Butler, Fremont and Hunter and remanded the Black Americans affected back into bondage. As recounted in his surgeon’s memoirs, (Hunter Holmes Maguire), due to the experiences that Jackson had during the war, his beliefs underwent a profound change and he became open to Emancipationism.

      2. Hugh, thank you for that of 8/15 12:47pm. It’s hard to accord the statement “Jackson was not a fan of slavery” with the fact he possessed slaves and fought for that continued status quo. The “what if” had to do with making your decision at the start of the war. It appears at the time of making the decision whether to fight for blue or gray, he was supportive of slavery. Glad to know he died wiser than that, but the what if supposition was at the time of having to decide, so maybe the statement “Jackson was no fan of slavery” was too general, ouch on the pun, and thank you for looking at both sides by saying he made slavery supportive statements at the start of the war. What if fervent Jackson had changed his mind on who to fight for after he changed his mind on slavery? Wouldn’t that be a story. Oh, I digress. Thanks again.

      3. I would put it to the point that one could own no slaves, but could readily believe in the right to own them, or being willing to make this an irrevocable right in America, and being willing to fight to reconvene those rights for all time to come.

        That is exactly the position of Abraham Lincoln at war’s start and before, such as his agreement to sell the slaves of his father in law’s estate.

        Or, how Ulysses S. Grant declared that if the war turned to ending slavery rather than just restoring the Union as it had been, he’d quit fighting.

        What is to be explicitly stated in any writings of him? The fact he said that or he changed his mind?

        A: BOTH.

        One can easily make the argument that SWJ did not fight the war as an individual to perpetuate slavery but given the typical Southern views of the constitution and American federalism he embraced.

        The reality is, both North and South begin the war with declared intentions of fighting for slavery; but the course and events of the war change this in and for both.

        And SWJ is an example of this.

      4. And the evidence implies, or at least it’s overall timeline roughly accords with, that SWJ changed his mind about slavery as an institution after thinking about the 1862 Confederate Emancipation Treaty.

      5. Jackson’s story is a window into the complexities arising from interpersonal relationships within slavery and the tension that produced ambivalence within some white southerners. Yet, regardless of the affection he may have shown toward enslaved people, and as politically ambivalent as he may have been about slavery, Jackson fully participated in a larger initiative intended not to end or undermine slavery, but to make slavery and racial inequality work.

        https://acwm.org/blog/myths-misunderstandings-stonewall-jacksons-sunday-school/

      6. So,NYgiant1952…

        The fact SWJ changed his views about slavery is not proof he changed his mind about slavery…

        The fact he challenged slavery fundamentally and deliberately with full knowledge of what he was doing by teaching Black Americans literacy, (no matter how this was conveyed, once Black Americans possessed this ability, it couldn’t be controlled as they could apply it to learning laws, reading maps and sign posts and other key geographical enabling information, forge/tamper with freedom passes/paperwork), etc, etc, in no way, shape or form means he challenged slavery in any meaningful way…

        THIS is the problem with not only your views as an individual but in the manner the war is taught these days, PERIOD!!!

        That depends on the omission of certain evidence from open critical reflection that is absolutely pertinent to the matter.

        In other words, it’s lying by omission!!!

        Trying to say that about SWJ is totally dependent upon NOT conceding the plain truth; the American Union from which he had lived and served his entire life and career was itself founded upon racism and genocide! Just ask what Aboriginals or French Canadians what the 1763 Royal Proclamation and 1774 Act protected them FROM! And what the DOI conveyed thereby by putting these as ‘Intolerable Acts’.

        How the Constitution of the USA since 1789 had given slavery and the racism against Black Americans by it national sanctions!

        To understand that, just ask the Black Americans whom fled to Canada or Mexico; want yo see the historical evidence they left behind? I’ll gladly post it here.

        Remember I mentioned Santiago Vidaurri…?

        That view of SWJ DEPENDS on simply not admitting what the evidence clear as a bell shows in piece after piece of primary evidence-

        The Confederates were willing to end slavery!

        Remember the challenge I put to you? I repeat it here now-

        I dare you to stare that’s not true. I dare you to state there is no evidence to that. I challenge you as one historian to another to not ‘shift’ but come up to the figurative scratch line in full view of one and all on here and put that.

        If you do, I will post one after the other every single one of the ballpark 50 pieces of primary evidence to show it is true!!!

        Everyone here who reads the chain of it will see it and can never again fail to concede it exists!

        So I say, w/o hagiographing SWJ in any context of any kind, w/o failing to apply a fair and balanced measure of criticism to his life where warranted, those 50 pieces of primary evidence destroy the argument above CW Memory makes of SWJ, and they destroy yours!

        You’ll be the one who has to reckon publicly with what Kevin M. Levin, Alan T. Nolan, etc, made serious flaws in their works, or lied about through omission of evidence.

        Ill post every single bit of every particle of evidence here.

        And I’m a man of my word…

      7. Rather to bear, the post you cite is from American Civil War Museum, not Levin’s page, but they fit into the same Historiographical scope.

        Challenge is still flung down.

  8. Well, we know Lee ‘went grey’ when Virginia seceded. So is it a fair conclusion that Lee’s acceptance of command of Union armies also means Virginia did NOT seceded? I mean, this is all make-believe. But Virginia being in the Union makes for an entirely different strategic layout for all involved, and the Union definitely benefits from it. The Confederacy loses a major source of supply and manufacturing, as well as potential troops to fill their ranks. The Union retains the legacy of constitutional luminaries like Washington and Jefferson and other notable residents of the state. The Union keeps the port facilities of Virginia from the get-go, and thus have more options to launch operations into points south. Lee, as Union commander, would have resources he rarely had as a Confederate commander.

    Protecting Washington, DC, would be easier because the Confederates would have a lot farther to travel to attack it from the south, and that no doubt would have freed up even more troops for the Union to employ in offensive operations. BUT, Lee would have had to contend with many of the same political leaders and generals that all the pre-Grant Union commanders had to contend with. Does Lee “going Union” result in any other officers who would make their names and legacies as Confederates joining him in the Union ranks? But Lee with the resources he didn’t have when he wore the grey uniform is quite compelling.

    1. Also, Douglas has reaffirmed why it was crucial for Virginia to throw in her lot with the Confederacy.

  9. This scenario is not “make believe”, as Lee was a United States soldier and did wear Blue.

    Now THIS, is an excellent “what if” question since it is based on fact, and is not based on a historical inaccurate fact.

    The events play out the same. The Union goes through multiple commanders until grant takes over in the East.

    1. It’s indeed a valid ‘what if’, but seeing how we all KNOW what Lee chose to do, any scenario that has him doing otherwise indeed becomes ‘make believe’.

      1. Doug, he did otherwise…He was once a soldier in the United States Army, before becoming. a traitor.

        Compare his once being a US soldier with the great “what if” of all time….What is Stonewall had been at Gettysburg. Now THAT is completely a-historical.

        Not only was that make believe, but also plays into supporting the Lost Cause.

        Discussing Lee as a Union solder does not play into that what so ever.

      2. But he did NOT ‘become a Union soldier’. It didn’t happen. Everyone was technically a ‘Union soldier’ who was a member of the US military before the war. I say again this is a relevant question, especially compared to so many of the others that garner attention on here, but it still remains make believe as far as how ACTUAL events played out. But they can be fun to discuss.

    1. It absolutely does. It did not happen. He joined the Confederates. I one hundred percent agree about that Stonewall fantasy, and so many others. But when it cones down to it, they all are fantasy. Real choices do make for anibteresting take. What if Grant took ‘the other turn’ following the Wildetness? He had that choice. But we know what he chose.

  10. Stonewall at Gettysburg places into the Lost Cause myth.

    Grant taking a different turn plays into the Lost Cause myth.

    Lee a Union soldier, doesn’t play into that myth.

  11. Lee was not a ‘traitor’ for siding with the Confederacy. The Confederates were not ‘traitors’ for making the decisions they did.

    If one is posing the argument that they disagree with and dislike what the Confederates fought for, that is one thing. If one is citing evidence that persons from the war era FELT that the Confederates had committed treason, that is only being honest about what the evidence posits, (for example, Thomas Morris Chester made no shortage of such opinion in his articles for the ‘Philadelphia Press’).

    That does not in point of fact prove that the Confederates were guilty of treason. This is a strictly legal matter.

    And the legal argument is decided upon this: Despite the fact that all legal elements for the offence of Treason being prima facie met in each of the prior incidents about to be named, three precedents disspell any argument that the Confederates were guilty of Treason per the US Constitution.

    -In the War of 1812, while a foreign enemy was successfully invading and occupying United States’ territory and subjecting its citizens to foreign occupation; killing US armed forces on US land and within US waters; successfully capturing the US capital and burning the White House to the ground and forcing the President and First Lady to flee for their lives, New Englanders did such actions as having a vote on secession; attempting to thwart the US government’s ability to finance the war; they withheld state troops from the American armed forces and Governor Strong of Mass. attempted to convene a peace treaty for his state alone, separate from the US government and other states, while the war was still being fought.

    Despite this, not a single New Englander ever faced any legal proceedings or consequences of any sort for any actions during the War of 1812.

    This was all, clear as a bell, per Article III, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

    -In the South Carolina Nullification Crisis of 1832, the South Carolinians informed the President, despite his communicated stance that resistance to enforce, collect and transfer the scheduled tariff rates and monies would result in the enforcement of this by United States Armed Forces, SC responded that the federal tariff law would not only be not enforced; any attempt by the United States government to set its armed forces within the borders of its state would result in these being attacked and killed by SC state forces to any extent necessary to prevent the US government’s intent and actions. In short, they openly threatened to levy war upon the United States and assembled, drilled, equipped state forces to achieve this in explicit manner.

    The American federal government responded to this explicit threat to convey war upon it by compromising; it agreed to rescind the tariff rate and set a new one acceptable to SC. For about four years prior to this, SC had flouted openly the ‘Aliens & Sedition Act’ by publishing materials contrary to this.

    No legal actions of any kind were ever brought against any South Carolinians for any of this with regards treason.

    -In the late 1830s, the state of Maine had occupied, constructed fortifications and manned them with state troops in disputed territory in the British colony of New Brunswick and had taken high-ranking British officials/New Brunswick militia prisoner and conveyed them back to custody in Maine. In addition to all other evidence defending this, (such as that of the Maine state Governor), Maine reps on the floor of Congress had declared that as Maine was a sovereign state of the Union, as sovereign as the original 13 which had created the Union, their state possessed all the same rights as those original 13. This entitled Maine to invade and conquer the territory of a foreign country and add this to the borders of their state without the need to so much as inform, let alone involve, the US government. When asked why their state would ever desire to do such actions, their response was, ‘to protect themselves from northern invaders.’ The British House of Commons in debate recognised that Maine had conducted ‘hostilities’ with the colony of New Brunswick. This, along with the pre-said actions, are actions of war.

    By the US Constitution, only and alone may the US federal government conduct war with another country on behalf of all the states. The actions of Maine had thereby legally put the rest of the states of the Union in the position of ‘levying war upon them’; they had engaged the rest of the country in a state of war outside of constitutionally prescribed manner.

    And yet…not a single thing, not one legal consequences for treason, despite, yet again, all prima facie elements having been met.

    Three precedents set an indisputable tradition; if none of these three had ever at their time ever faced any consequences for treason above the level of individuals’ personal opinions, which is the fact of the matter, then the Confederates can not be held to have committed treason, either. There is simply too much precedent.

    Lee and the Confederates ascribed to the ‘states rights’ notion of the American Constitution and American federalism, which viewed the states as paramount to the Union. This was the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, John Tyler, etc.
    It was based on such legislation, litigation, tradition, precedents, etc, as how in the 1774 ‘Letter to The Inhabitants of Quebec’, the Founding Fathers had articulated a model of federalism akin to Switzerland’s, wherein, the cantons were paramount to the Republic which bound them; that had seen Sam Houston describe Tennessee as, ‘my adopted country’; that William Rawle had documented in his 1825 work, ‘A View of the Constitution of the United States’, (which had been utilised and retained in the library later at West Point); and which had argued that secession, though an extreme manouever, was ultimately legal; near as many Presidents had believed as lawful/unpreventable as had been against it before Lincoln.

    As much evidence to the above paragraph, ‘Lee and the…’, can well indeed be put for the tradition of Washington, Jackson, etc, to Lincoln that viewed secession as illegal and the Union as paramount to the states. But this merely highlights the issue: At the time in 1860-61, it could not be positively stated one way or the other, which federalism school of view ‘was correct’, or, that treason by the constitutional definition was absolute, (three precedents that completely flouted it present a powerful argument that the given Constitutional section on treason was a ‘dead letter law’ by 1860).

    As I said at the start, to disagree and dislike Robert E. Lee’s actions is one thing; he can not be called ‘a traitor’.

    1. What is a traitor? A person who betrays his or her country.

      By that definition, Lee and all that fought with the Confederacy or who were involved in the government of the Confederacy were traitors.

      We know they were traitors because they accepted pardons for their actions against the United States.

      1. Incorrect.

        If none of the three preceding had ever had any legal consequences put to them for treason, then the matter can not be legally put to the Confederates.

        To state that the other three had not committed actions that met all prima facie elements for the offence of treason, per the definition of it in the said US constitution, is utterly indefensible in every capacity.

        The acceptance of the pardons is not proof of treason in any manner; any President can issue such a pardon on any pre-emptive grounds they choose, regardless of the likelihood of a conviction.

        Johnson dictated the said pardons as he was utterly desperate to achieve some manner of assigning this to the Confederates as the likelihood of a legal conviction diminished ever smaller with Jefferson Davis in custody. The challenge of being able to gain a conviction upon him of all Confederates rendered attempting to prove such in court too massive and unviable a chance.

        Confederates were in the legal position of being able to accept this w/o admission of anything: They were no more legally guilty of anything than the said three precedents had been and as President Jefferson had instructed Lewis and Clark to beware any mammoth that may yet roam the area they were to explore.

        The President could issue any dictum they liked: That did not mean in reality the parties it was issued to were in the position it connotated.

      2. If you continue to answer against, I put it to you thus-

        You are a nationalist.

        You are viewing history in a nepotistic, spurious, punitive and arbitrary manner.

        You are not against treason at all, whatsoever the question!

        You are ONLY against ALLEGED incident La of treason against the USA when it advantages your contemporary American political, social and cultural cleft.

        For YOU condone and refuse to so much as even acknowledge the clear treason of others that the evidence would compel you to.

        You can not have it both ways: You must be willing to condemn all four in just as strong terms alike as traitors, OR, accept that none of the above can be held as traitors due to a clear American tradition.

        If you attempt any other reply, your hypocrisy and nationalism are proven outright and I absolutely dismiss all you might ever posit!

        And I don’t need you to admit a thing to know the facts and the whole truth.

  12. Calling the Confederates ‘traitors’ as a historical argument was given high prestige and coverage in the works of Frederick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant, (and some others like George Thomas to a lesser extent).

    These arguments and writings collected into what Howard K. Beale described as, ‘the Devil Theory’ in his essay, “What Historians Have Said about the Causes of the Civil War,”, ‘Theory and Practice in Historical Study; A Report of the Committee on Historiography’, Social Science Research Council Bulletin 54 (1946): 53–102. That the war occurred because some, “conspiracy of selfish or wicked men” against the Union prevailed. The particular resurgence of this historical perspective and its refinement and addendums ‘False Storyism’ by some in contemporary times.

  13. WRONG!

    By nature of accepting a pardon, one is acknowledging their guilt. Innocent people don’t take pardons.

    Those who had fought for or supported the Confederacy in any way were a bit tense in the years following the end of the Civil War. They simply did not know what the US government planned to do with them, so it was a challenge for them to make any plans for their futures or those of their families. The pardon of all Confederates that President Johnson issued on Christmas Day in 1868 gave a final and unconditional forgiveness to them, including the formerly exempt groups, and allowed the country to move forward as one united nation.

    This blanket pardon was a mistake. “He did more to extend the period of national strife than he did to heal the wounds of war.” And his determined opposition of equal rights kept Black Americans in poverty and kept racist politics alive to plague future generations.

  14. “Abraham Lincoln did veritably the same as when he countermanded the emancipation orders of Generals’ Butler, Fremont and Hunter and remanded the Black Americans affected back into bondage.”

    This comment shows a lack of understanding of the American Civil War and the founding documents of the United States. . Lincoln countermanded the orders of Fremont in order to keep a loyal border state from leaving the Union and joining the Confederacy.

    As Lincoln took an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution, and since slavery was legal in the United States, Lincoln had a right to protect property. He knew that the only way to abolish slavery was by an Amendment to the US Constitution.

    1. That answer is to admit you care not for those Black Americans whom were remanded straight back into the barns, fields, whips, chains, bills of sale and bedrooms of slavery.

      It would seem you try to condemn the institution by some when it suits you, and you hide from the reality of it when it is disadvantageous.

      I ask you outright now: Are you denying that barns, fields, whips, chains, bills of sale and bedrooms were the reality of slavery?

      Do you deny that? If you would put forth the claim that slavery was a major factor in the war occurring, which I never would, I would wonder if you have an accurate understanding of the institution at all.

      And I await your attempt to show in the passage above the ‘documentation’ as to how my answer is rendered moot.

      1. Correction: Above comment is to read, ‘If you would put forth the claim that slavery was NOT a major factor in the war occurring, which I would never…’

      2. No, it means that I understand the US Constitution, and the fact that slavery is referred to in it. And that to abolish slavery, one needed to pass an Amendment tot he US Constitution….like the 13th Amendment.

      3. I dispute that you understand the US Constitution. You posit an argument from it that is deliberately crafted to advantage one historical side and is dishonest in how it deliberately hides or hides from other historical evidence that challenges it.

        And if you are positing that about the US Constitution, then I question why?

        So you’re saying that slavery could not have been abolished w/o say, every state, then and in future, abolishing it in its own state constitution which Maryland did in November of 1864, Missouri did in January of 1865 and West Virginia did in February of that same year?

        Nothing of that takes away from the greatness of the 13th Amendment.

        And nothing in your answer above successfully challenges any of the points I’ve made in the posts I’ve put in this thread!

        Matter of fact, I see this most recent answer you’ve put as an attempt again to ‘shift’.

        I take from that that you can’t successfully challenge the historical arguments that I’ve put.

  15. WRONG!!!

    The Confederates could take them on, satisfied in the knowledge that American tradition pre-empted them being guilty of anything!!!

    They took them as they realised that it was the only means of ever being able to participate in American politics ever again, despite the contradictory position of the North which held that the South had never/could never have been out of the Union, but now it could be rendered out of it at will once the war was over.

    Am I saying the North had no reason to be angry at the situation it faced in 1865? Certainly not.

    Am I saying, in effect, ‘the South was right’? I am not putting that position by any necessary means.

    Am I saying that due to the opaque legal/constitutional position of America before the war, rendering a redress after it was bound to be imperfect and unsatisfactory in some way/shape/form? Quite so.

    In saying that, am I saying that how Black Americans having their civil liberties and status as Americans was justifiably sacrificed or set aside? I absolutely stand AGAINST THIS by EVERY conceivable means!!!!

    You tell me…how did that situation ever come to pass?

    The North had won the war; the South was in no position to do anything in regards to that above w/o, ONCE AGAIN, the North’s enablement! The North enabled the disenfranchisement and wrongful treatment of Black Americans in the South and throughout the land.

    President Johnson had tried and tried to have Davis convicted and the situation was becoming increasingly embarrassing for him and the government! The pardons were a desperate attempt for him to save face in what had seemed to be a legal slam dunk.

    He would have been wise to have carried on the policy and taken the hint from Abraham Lincoln in the latter’s 11 April 1865 speech wherein he had stated that the position of the then-militarily defeated Confederate states-

    “…We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper relation with the Union; and that the sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those States is to again get them into that proper practical relation. I believe it is not only possible, but in fact, easier to do this, without deciding, or even considering, whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these States and the Union; and each forever after, innocently indulge his own opinion whether, in doing the acts, he brought the States from without, into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it.”

    Lincoln, as a lawyer, surely had the reality of the three precedents of prima facie treason/constitutional treason having been essentially rendered a dead letter law by 1865.

    I put it to you one last time: IF you continue in the stance you have made already here, you are demonstrating that your position is essentially you condone treason by some, and condemn it by others. That is a historically indefensible position to take and reveals hypocrisy, favourtism, nepotism and arbitrary principles which are dependent upon convening advantage to yourself.

  16. WRONG again! In no instance the Hartford Convention or the nullification Crisis, did anyone take up arms and fight against the lawfully elected Government. These people were NOT traitors.

    So, there was NO tradition of allowing traitors to go free.

    “The North enabled the disenfranchisement and wrongful treatment of Black Americans in the South and throughout the land.”

    Again, this statement doesn’t stand up to the facts. In 1883, there were 5 Civil Rights cases before the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court mis-interpreted the 14th and 15th Amendments tot he US Constitution. The court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to be unconstitutional and thus spurred Jim Crow laws.

    Pesky thing those pesky facts

    1. Ah ha!!!

      The New Englanders directly ENABLED those who DID!!!!

      The South Carolinians took all actions to fight the US government and explicitly announced this as their intention!!!

      This STILL MET all prima facie elements for treason per the Constitution’s definition of it!!

      Your answer shows AGAIN you are ‘going soft and blind’ on the historical reality!!! The North AGAIN directly took part in the system that victimised Black Americans and you do nothing but try to minimise blame!!!!

      Facts would be pesky if you ever cited any! Instead you hide from historical evidence!

      1. Last I checked, the men of Massachusetts defended Boston against British attack. 4,000 troops marched to Boston at once and the state militia was to be ready to march to Boston at a moment’s notice.
        I guess the British didn’t get the memo that New England was against the war.

        Facts are, neither NE nor SC took up arms against the standing Government, nor aided adn abetted the enemy.

        Nice try though.

        On the other had, Southerners who fought for the Confederacy were traitors. Hence, the pardon.

        pesky thing those pesky facts.

  17. Disliking and disagreeing with what the Confederates did is a right to the historian and Under God.

    Citing the evidence in the historical record that a high number of persons at the time and since were of the sentiment and opinion that the Confederates had committed treason is only being honest about what the historical record actually possesses.

    But to cite that the Confederates were guilty of treason in point of fact is a legal and historical argument that can not be successfully made in light of all the pertinent evidence.

    1. The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion,”. “It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution.” General Milley.

      Nice try though, Hughie.

      1. Then General Milley has to own up, Under God, on the fact he’s laying in bed with traitors he’s enabling in history to get away with it by his silence.

  18. Calling you out for your dishonesty and aggressive ignorance, Little Man, for one and all to see, starting on the War of 1812 and what I’ve put-

    https://historyofmassachusetts.org/war-of-1812/

    Want to know how to lose a history debate folks?

    LittleGiant can teach you that. And I’m putting it to him right here, right now!

  19. If you dare to state in lieu of these facts that the New Englanders didn’t aid and abet the foreign enemy in the War of 1812 then I am claiming victory in absolute terms.

    Your dishonesty is in full view.

    The facts have fled you utterly.

    Ditto the South Carolinians; they assembled an army for the explicit purpose of killing any American troops that entered their state to stand against what the constitution stipulated as the right of a federal American government.

    That was convening a state of war upon the American states.

    And I’ve no doubt that you’re aggressively ignorant enough to claim that shots fired are the ONLY actions that stipulate a state of hostilities is in fact in effect.

    I didn’t just win this; I destroyed the ‘best’ you tried to bring.

    Was so easy…

  20. At this time General
    Fessenden introduced the following resolution into the Massachusetts legislature:
    “And therefore be it resolved, that we recommend to his Excellency,
    Caleb Strong, [Mass. state Governor] to take the revenue of the State into his own hands, arm and
    equip the militia, and declare us independent of the Union.”

      1. Lol!!!

        And this is how he tries to get out of the fact that a secession movement was alive and well in New England during the war of 1812?!

        Technicalities that don’t add up to/prove/disprove anything, constantly attempting to shift the focus of a point or argument, trying to lie and deny in plain sight!!!

        ‘Not buying a farthing,
        Of the propaganda he sells!
        ‘Cuz his mouth can’t fight,
        What the evidence tells!’

        Give up and go home! Because History has given up on you!

  21. Hugh, since you did not object to my definition of a traitor, you must agree with it. Right? RIGHT!

    And since the Confederates received Presidential pardons, they must be guilty of a Federal crime. Right? RIGHT!

    Now in American Jurisprudence, there is a principle of precedent. Please refer to the Supreme Court case, Burdick v United States. In it, the Court said that acceptance of a pardon implies acceptance of guilt.

    Look at it as an If-then proposition from Logic 101.
    If a Confederate accepts a pardon, then that implies an acceptance of guilt.

    1. Nah, mate…

      I can’t trust a word of what you say, really.

      You’ve committed hara kiri to your historical credibility so often that frankly, I wouldn’t trust or believe at face value if you said the sky was blue.

      So everything you just put to me in that comment above is the same as putting nothing to me.

      There’s no point in you putting anything to me. You’ve no historical credibility.

      I suggest you begin the long road to re-building that.

      1. Pesky things those pesky facts. Don’t you just hate them when I bring them up.

        For instance, just because some in Massachusetts advocated secession, that doesn’t mean it would have passed the legislature. And as I have pointed out…the resolution did NOT pass.

        I see you avoided anything to do with the SC and the Law.

        Thank your your suggestion. I suggest you read a book on the Civil War.

  22. No you don’t bring up ‘facts’.

    That’s why I don’t feel the slightest bit taken aback with anything you reply.

    You constantly ignore evidences such as South Carolina and the statement of secession uttered in the Mass. legislature and the attempt by Gov. Strong there to convene a separate peace treaty for Mass. alone in the War of 1812…

    That means I’ve won this debate hands down.

    That means your comments are contemptible.

    That’s why I’ve proven you a hypocrite, an aggressive nationalist and discredited.

    And I sit back, hands behind my head, feet up, content with my total win.

    Follow Shayne Hunter’s advice-

    https://youtu.be/pmIlA-llDrg

  23. Not buying a farthing,
    Of the garbage he sells-
    ‘Cuz his mouth can’t fight,
    What the evidence tells!

      1. Such nationalism!

        We’re your views the only ones I was aware of, I would lament the loss of American patriotism.

    1. Mets and Giants and the US Constitution?!! You are a brother by another mother. As for “you’ve committed hara kiri to your historical credibility,” I would be obliged to bring my sword and chop off your head.

      1. Ralphie….is there anything I can educate you on regarding the Mets, the Giants, the US Constitution, or the American Civil War? I saw games at the Polo Grounds.

      2. Polo grounds??!! In that case, no. But I did see the Clash at Shea Stadium and the retired Gary Gentry was in our row.

      3. Ralph….Let me educate you a bit.

        Hara-kiri is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment.
        What you are referring to is the practice of a kaishakunin (idiomatically, his “second”). With his selected kaishakunin standing by, he would open his kimono, take up his tant? – which the samurai held by the blade with a cloth wrapped around so that it would not cut his hand and cause him to lose his grip – and plunge it into his abdomen, making a left-to-right cut. The kaishakunin would then perform kaishaku, a cut in which the warrior was partially decapitated. Because of the precision necessary for such a maneuver, the second was a skilled swordsman.

        So, you are wrong on 3 points. You are incorrect since you would never be my kaishakunin, and the jury is still out on your skill with a knife. Plus, it’s a partial decapitation, and NOT a head being chopped off.

        Next time, please be a bit more precise with your words. Another one of my skills is elocution. I can help you with that.

  24. Used to sit in the front row at Shea Stadium, between the visitors dugout and home plate for games against the Yankees. Seeing the two NYC teams play each other, now that’s baseball. The sportswriter Mike Lucia was in our row.

    Also sat in centerfield at the Polo Grounds. I loved that place

    1. Then by that standard, all Americans from 1789 to the bare minimum of 1865 are absolute racists and defenders of slavery, (willingness in these regards is of no bearing).

      Per Frederick Douglass in the 8 June 1849 ‘Liberator’, he correctly assessed the situation that any and all Americans whom chose to live in America, with its constitutional sanctions of slavery, was in effect enabling slavery.

      Again, you return to the ‘WE were LESS GUILTY than THEM!’, ‘THOSE PEOPLE were MORE RACIST than WHAT WE WERE!’

      As Abraham Lincoln rejoined the message of Douglass’ speech in his 2nd Inagural Address, there was no minimising this reality: ALL OF AMERICA was to bear the blame for slavery and the racism which underpinned it.

  25. Hughie, you said above….”the American Union from which he had lived and served his entire life and career was itself founded upon racism and genocide!”

    That’s not true. The American Union was based on the rule of law and opposition the oppression of the British Government, recall taxation without representation.

    Evidently, you must have forgotten that it was the English settlers, starting with the Pilgrims, and seafarers bringing disease and pestilence to the New World which decimated the Indian tribes, who had never built up an immunity to these diseases.

    Regarding our Declaration of Independence, in his initial draft, Jefferson blamed Britain’s King George for his role in creating and perpetuating the transatlantic slave trade—which he describes, in so many words, as a crime against humanity.

    pesky thing those pesky facts.

    1. Wha…?!!!!!!

      LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      This is historical denialism in the extreme!!!

      So you’re saying that all Aboriginal nation tribes were wiped off the face of the face of the continent, specifically east of the Miss. River, by the Puritans?!

      You’re saying that they were all gone by 1776?!

      You’re saying that the American colonists were not angered that the British didn’t ‘reward’ them for service in the 7 Years’ War by allowing them to simply appropriate the lands of the Indians when and as they liked?!

      What would that have entailed?! ‘Dispersal by force’. What did that mean?!

      That would have meant that if Indians, whom the American colonists in overview, (with individual exceptions), as a savage and less than human collection of races, felt they had the right to forcibly take over the Indians lands for themselves and kill any whom did not freely yield it!

      The 1763 RP was passed by the British for political and military security reasons, granted, but it legally recognised that the Indians had been as sovereign “nations” as those of Europe, and that before and under Crown law, they retained at least key markers of this both explicitly and implicitly.

      In return for giving up their ‘sovereignty in isolation’ and agreeing to live under the laws of the Crown, the Crown in turn recognised that Aboriginal sovereignty existed and continued to exist.

      The Indians and the Crown were thus placed in ‘a special relationship’, meaning in big part that they were viewed as the legitimate possessors of their lands they occupied.

      All this meant that if the Americans wanted use of/to buy/etc, Aboriginal lands, it had to go through the Colonial Office in London to get approval of the British government and the symbolic approval of the King; this was to recognise in due process that His Majesty’s Government was dealing with sovereign nations: The Indian nations!

      The Americans refused to accept this and demanded the right to simply take up lands and refused to recognise that the Indians validly owned the lands they occupied! They wanted the Indians gone, period!!

      LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      I don’t say that the American colonists didn’t have other arguments to put to the Crown as grivevances, (these are mirrored by the Irish in the 1921 Anglo Irish negotiations).

      But to deny the racism and genocidal sentiments of the founding of America is denialism of history at its worst!

      1. You seem to forget the devastation from diseases . Recall the blankets laced with small pox that Native Americans went home with after the capture of Fort William Henry.

        Pesky thing these pesky facts.

  26. Royal Proclamation of 1763
    1763, OCTOBER 7.

    BY THE KING.

    A Proclamation

    George r.

    Whereas We have taken into Our Royal Consideration the extensive and valuable Acquisitions in America, secured to Our Crown by the late Definitive Treaty of Peace, concluded at Paris the Tenth Day of February last, and being desirous, that all Our loving Subjects, as well of Our Kingdoms as of Our Colonies in America, may avail themselves, with all convenient Speed, of the great Benefits and Advantages which must accrue therefrom to their Commerce, Manufactures, and Navigation; We have thought fit, with the Advice of Our Privy Council, to issue this Our Royal Proclamation, hereby to publish and declare to all Our loving Subjects, that We have, with the Advice of Our said Privy Council, granted Our Letters Patent under Our Great Seal of Great Britain, to erect within the Countries and Islands ceded and confirmed to Us by the said Treaty…

    …And whereas it is just and reasonable, and essential to Our Interest and the Security of Our Colonies, that the several Nations or Tribes of Indians, with whom We are connected, and who live under Our Protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories as, not having been ceded to, or purchased by Us, are reserved to them, or any of them, as their Hunting Grounds; We do therefore, with the Advice of Our Privy Council, declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of Our Colonies of Quebec, East Florida, or West Florida, do presume, upon any Pretence whatever, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass any Patents for Lands beyond the Bounds of their respective Governments, as described in their Commissions; as also, that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of Our other Colonies or Plantations in America, do presume, for the present, and until Our further Pleasure be known, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass Patents for any Lands beyond the Heads or Sources of any of the Rivers which fall into the Atlantick Ocean from the West and North-West, or upon any Lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to, or purchased by Us as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them.

    And We do further declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, for the present as aforesaid, to reserve under Our Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion, for the Use of the said Indians, all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three New Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West, as aforesaid; and We do hereby strictly forbid, on Pain of Our Displeasure, all Our loving Subjects from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever, or taking Possession of any of the Lands above reserved, without Our especial Leave and Licence for that Purpose first obtained.

    And We do further strictly enjoin and require all Persons whatever, who have either wilfully or inadvertently seated themselves upon any Lands within the Countries above described, or upon any other Lands, which, not having been ceded to, or purchased by Us, are still reserved to the said Indians as aforesaid, forthwith to remove themselves from such Settlements.

    And whereas great Frauds and Abuses have been committed in the purchasing Lands of the Indians, to the great Prejudice of Our Interests, and to the great Dissatisfaction of the said Indians; in order therefore to prevent such Irregularities for the future, and to the End that the Indians may be convinced of Our Justice, and determined Resolution to remove all reasonable Cause of Discontent, We do, with the Advice of Our Privy Council, strictly enjoin and require, that no private Person do presume to make any Purchase from the said Indians of any Lands reserved to the said Indians, within those Parts of Our Colonies where We have thought proper to allow Settlement; but that if, at any Time, any of the said Indians should be inclined to dispose of the said Lands, that same shall be purchased only for Us, in Our Name, at some publick Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians to be held for that Purpose by the Governor or Commander in Chief of Our Colonies respectively, within which they shall lie: and in case they shall lie within the Limits of any Proprietary Government, they shall be purchased only for the Use and in the Name of such Proprietaries, conformable to such Directions and Instructions as We or they shall think proper to give for that Purpose: And We do, by the Advice of Our Privy Council, declare and enjoin, that the Trade with the said Indians shall be free and open to all our Subjects whatever; provided that every Person, who may incline to trade with the said Indians, do take out a Licence for carrying on such Trade from the Governor or Commander in Chief of any of Our Colonies respectively, where such Person shall reside; and also give Security to observe such Regulations as We shall at any Time think fit, by Ourselves or by Our Commissaries to be appointed for this Purpose, to direct and appoint for the Benefit of the said Trade; And We do hereby authorize, enjoin, and require the Governors and Commanders in Chief of all Our Colonies respectively, as well Those under Our immediate Government as those under the Government and Direction of Proprietaries, to grant such Licences without Fee or Reward, taking especial Care to insert therein a Condition, that such Licence shall be void, and the Security forfeited, in Case the Person, to whom the same is granted, shall refuse or neglect to observe such Regulations as We shall think proper to prescribe as aforesaid.

    And We do further expressly enjoin and require all Officers whatever, as well Military as those employed in the Management and Direction of Indian Affairs within the Territories reserved as aforesaid for the Use of the said Indians, to seize and apprehend all Persons whatever, who, standing charged with Treasons, Misprisions of Treason, Murders, or other Felonies or Misdemeanours, shall fly from Justice, and take Refuge in the said Territory, and to send them under a proper Guard to the Colony where the Crime was committed of which they stand accused, in order to take their Tryal for the same.

    Given at Our Court at St. James’s, the Seventh Day of October, One thousand seven hundred and sixty three, in the Third Year of Our Reign.

    God Save the King

    London: Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King’s most Excellent Majesty; and by the Assigns of Robert Baskett. 1763.

  27. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

    “…a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism…”

    The Indians were about to cite the long list of usurpations, abuses and Despotism that was about to engulf them by seeing their very existence as problem to be solved; unlike the British whom had convened at least a legal process for recognition of their sovereignty and land possession.

    “…The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States…

    The Monarch themselves had had nothing to do in any context PERSONALLY with the administration of the colonies or the British Isles since Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians had won the English Civil War, thereby creating the provision of ‘Supremacy of Parliament’. The DOI tried to wrongly depict the British Monarchy as a Russian Czarship, an Absolute Monarchy. This had not been true for 130 years. The restoration of the Monarchy about 1660 ensured that the British Parliament was the law-making body of Britain. This aspect of the DOI is absolute dishonesty.

    “…He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only…”

    Yeah; the Royal Proclamation refused to simply let settlers walk onto the Indians lands and take them over, which is what this section is citing as a complaint. This section also complains of the governmental structure of the new Quebec Act, which would accomodate much of the western territory.

    But…such an appointed Governor is exactly the sort of government that the majority of Quebecois were used to and wanted…and which even Americans in the Revolution came to understand and respect.

    “…He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands…”

    Again, this section cites that any and all would-be American colonists whom wanted to possess/occupy/utilise/etc, the lands of the Indians must first acquire permission from the British Government, whom itself would negotiate with the involved Indian nation as a sovereignty. If the given Indian nation refused, then that was that.

    The American colonists hated the provisions of the Royal Proclamation and how it protected the Indians.

    “…He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation…

    This cites both the Quebec Act and RP. This is complains how both the laws of Quebec and the laws of the Indian nations apply to American colonists within their borders.

    “…For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies…”

    This cites the Quebec Act. The American colonists are enraged that the British would cement in law the rights of a people (French Canadians), which they viewed as an inferior race with their repugnant laws, etc. They don’t want to concede the right of the Quebecois to exist at all! It was a remaining chore to ‘finish the work’ of the 7 Years War and expunge them from the continent for good.

    “…He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions…”

    Yeah; that’s what the Colonists thought of the Indians defending their nations and homes!

  28. (Shrug)

    Want to see all the evidences of racism by the American colonists against Indians and the French Canadians?

    Shall we start with George Washington with the former, and Benjamin Franklin with the latter?

    I’d be very happy to post them all in here.

  29. ****”You seem to forget the devastation from diseases . Recall the blankets laced with small pox that Native Americans went home with after the capture of Fort William Henry.

    Pesky thing these pesky facts.”****

    Who is denying either of these?

    I put it to you now, do you deny this-

    https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2018/08/02/george-washingtons-tortuous-relationship-native-americans/ideas/essay/

    The proof is there: The Americans were not going to deal with the Indians from the same place of guarantee of recognition/acommodation of their sovereignty, rights, land ownership, culture, etc, as were the British.

    The Americans wanted possession of the Indians’ lands and were going to do anything to get it, no matter how racist it was.

    The Indians wept over these ‘pesky facts’…

    1. Please study the Cherry Valley massacre, and the countless attacks by Indians against isolated farms in the Mohawk Valley.

      You know the reason there were so few Iroquois was the fact that many died of disease brought to North America by the British.

      1. Lol!!!!

        Please study the primary sources on the Iroquois, the Cherokee, the Creeks, the Seminoles, the Sioux, etc, etc!!!

        He ACTUALLY tried to deflect the genocidal practices of the Americans upon the Indians!

  30. “…On the same page Colonel Henderson *** [biographer of Stonewall Jackson] *** quotes from the lips of Mrs. Jackson like opinions held by her husband. ***[Emancipationist views that Robert E. Lee wrote in his famed 27 December 1856 letter from Texas about slavery, etc] *** These are opinions expressed before the war. Do they indicate…Jackson fought to preserve slave property? I myself know…that Stonewall Jackson, while believing in the Scriptural right to own slaves, thought it would be politic in the white people to free them.”

    -McGuire, Hunter Holmes, ‘The Confederate Cause & Conduct’, L.H. Jenkins, Publisher: Richmond, Virginia, 1907, 22.

    https://archive.org/details/confederatecause00mcgu/page/n7/mode/2up?q=lee&view=theater

    I simply do not understand two things: The one whom hagiograph the past for manipulation in the present and to claim the future.

    Thereby, I will be the first to stand back and as objectively as is possible with empathy to put a critical reflection to this aspect on SWJ’s part. That will necessarily entail putting a measure of fair and balanced criticism to him and his life when and where such is warranted.

    But also, I can not and will not stand by and concede by silence and acquiescence to those whom would wrongly demonise the figures/events/etc, of the past where it is not warranted.

    Many Americans changed their views about slavery and racism to varying extents during the era of the Civil War/War Between The States. I will examine and cite this where and when it is found.

    If we take that any and all connection to slavery results in instantaneous and irreversible damnation and to even raise questions otherwise is to enable it, then those such as Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman are absolutely so Hiterlised and rightly so.

    Those who would put this to Lee and Jackson must put same to Grant and Sherman.

    To dislike and disagree/praise and laud the former/latter, or in the reverse order, or to dislike them all or praise them all, or to balance praise with criticism in any combination upon them all or in select, is one thing.

    NYGiant1952, I’ve already set above successful reply to you about Grant’s involvement with slavery and how he and his biographers and historians have likewise omitted this from open critical reflection. Don’t even bother trying to irritate on that one. I’m very happy to put same on Sherman, too.

      1. Lol!!!

        I’ve already proven Jackson turned to believing in emancipation and Grant admitted in his own words he was fighting for the preservation of slavery as it existed in 1860.

        They both changed.

        That argument of yours has long ago been destroyed.

        Do I post the primary sources yet again?

  31. The case is made: Stonewall Jackson can indeed receive validly as any other American of his era a measure of fair and balanced criticism with regards of slavery.

    At the same time…in human, but heroic terms, he lived to challenge, question and re-consider the views of his times about this. And he became open to Emancipationism.

    Let that to be the verdict of history: The reclamation of Stonewall Jackson’s humanity. A man whom had the courage to change.

      1. The verdict of history is clear as can be-

        NYGiant1952 condones that ALL American troops did EXACTLY what he puts against SWJ up through 1865 by fighting for a government that recognised slavery.

        He is convinced if he simply refuses to admit the obvious then he’s convinced the whole world of different despite the truth being plain to see.

        NYGiant1952 is playing the game of the Emperor’s New Clothes taken to the extreme and his naked errs and indefensible biases are plain for all to see.

        If he had any historical honesty, he’d admit openly that the very foundation of the USA in its DOI opens the door to legitimising what SWJ did in fighting against the Union, but not necessarily against America.

        The verdict of history is that NYGiant1952 knows they can’t deny or defend the racism inherent to America’s foundation as a sovereign nation so what do they do? ‘Go quiet’ and pretend like it was never brought up.

        The verdict of history is that NYGiant1952’s historical arguments are indefensible.

      1. LOL!!!

        Bring it up!!!!

        I dare you!!!

        Alright, mister, as the Clark Gillies said to any and all Rangers-

        ‘BRING IT!’

        Gloves to the ice, figuratively.

    1. Once again, I catch you red-handed lying about history!

      I’ve already shown you this and now you try to pretend like you weren’t aware of it before.

      On Grant, the case is beyond debate…

      https://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/glc04501013

      Do I have to re-post all the other things here again, too?

      Like his Memoirs on the Mexican American War? The White House and White Haven pages? What his West Point oath conferred him to do?

      What he did do to Confederate slaves at Ft. Donelson?

      Jackson and Grant both began their fight with each a connection to slavery. For both, their convictions changed as did the causes they fought for.

      And your comments about Indians above is again trying to shift rather than square up to the reality.

      I think you’ve had a pretty good lesson about history from me to date!

      BTW, CS Speech! Let’s do this. Throw it down!!

      …if you do, you’ll have to eat 50 pieces of primary evidence that FORCE a swallowing of the CS Speech in front of one and all here that prove no matter what was said at that time by that one historical agent about a cause, that cause indisputably changed!

      1. 1. This should correct your mid-conceptions regarding Grant…
        “Whether or not Grant wasn’t a “slavery man” by inclination, we know he briefly owned William Jones. He does not mention Jones in his memoirs or other writings, so the exact nature of their relationship remains a mystery. We do know that in March 1859 Grant filed the following manumission document.

        “I Ulysses S Grant of the City and County of St. Louis in the State of Missouri, for diverse good and valuable considerations me hereunto moving, do hereby emancipate and set free from Slavery my negro man William, sometimes called William Jones(Jones)of Mullatto complexion, aged about thirty-five years, and about five feet seven inches in height and being the same slave purchased by me of Frederick Dent-And I do hereby manumit, emancipate & set free said William from slavery forever.”

        It is notable that Grant did not sell or work out a plan with Jones to purchase his freedom, but simply freed him.”

        2. You seem not be be able to understand, that slavery was legal in the US in 1860.

        3.No matter what he thought, Jackson cast his lot with the Government based on slavery.

        4, No matter what he thought regarding slavery, Grant fought to preserve the Union.

        The South voted to leave the Union…so at least more that 50 people wanted t defend slavery.

        Nice try though.

        Anything else I can help you with? Any questions I can help you with ?

  32. nygiant52, the phrase “Let me educate you a bit” ought not be used with folks you do not know. Unlike me, others might take offense. I shall give the benefit of the doubt since you are heavily engaged with you-dah-man. Point of fact, I have studied iaido for many years. The tanto knife is no longer included in Japanese swordsmanship and is considered anachronistic. Good luck there with Jeff Davis’ lawyer.

    1. Hiya Ralphie,

      Thank you for for such a kind and considerate response. You are a gentleman.

      1. I don’t take offense either!

      2. I’ve always been of the opinion that boxing is a more effective means of self defense, . My Mom, bless her heart, insisted that I take boxing lessons at the YMCA to make me a bit more tougher (it didn’t work). Perhaps Chris can have a question about the effectiveness of a boxer defending himself against a martial arts expert?

      3. Are you referring to a tant? knife?

      4. Thank you for telling me I am up against a lawyer. I guess I’ll just pound the table.

      5. Thanks, I need all the luck I can muster.

  33. Yet again, you demonstrate in full view your historical dishonesty by deliberately trying to evade the primary evidence and what it says in full and in context.

    I’ve no problem whatsoever putting it to you again and again.

    No matter how often you try this ‘Circle in the Sand’ business, I’m going to keep relentlessly putting the 360 degrees of evidence to you. You can keep trying to ignore and you’re not doing damage to me, but to yourself and to the school you adhere to.

    ****1. This should correct your mid-conceptions regarding Grant…
    “Whether or not Grant wasn’t a “slavery man” by inclination, we know he briefly owned William Jones. He does not mention Jones in his memoirs or other writings, so the exact nature of their relationship remains a mystery. We do know that in March 1859 Grant filed the following manumission document.

    “I Ulysses S Grant of the City and County of St. Louis in the State of Missouri, for diverse good and valuable considerations me hereunto moving, do hereby emancipate and set free from Slavery my negro man William, sometimes called William Jones(Jones)of Mullatto complexion, aged about thirty-five years, and about five feet seven inches in height and being the same slave purchased by me of Frederick Dent-And I do hereby manumit, emancipate & set free said William from slavery forever.”

    It is notable that Grant did not sell or work out a plan with Jones to purchase his freedom, but simply freed him.”*****

    -Grant not openly disclosing his ownership of William Jones is a detriment to his credibility. If he had nothing to hide about this, then why did he try to hide it?

    To say that he gained ownership of Jones by being way of gift and to attempt to put that as a sufficient explanation is a double-edged sword: SWJ ALSO gained three slaves by the same manner, as a wedding gift. Not to mention, the first slave that Jackson ever owned approached him and asked SWJ to buy him!

    If you try to put that explanation to Grant in that manner, you must also concede such to SWJ. Otherwise you’re a total hypocrite whom doesn’t care for a logical explanation of the historical evidence, or for the historic plight of Black Americans in the institution of slavery.

    Instead, you’re 100% willing to see some Black Americans be relegated into this historically and you’re using the circumstances to legitimise wrongly prestige for yourself.

    You think slavery wrong or you don’t. If you want to say that there is nuance involved in the overall scheme of who/how/where/when, etc, etc, then that is something you are bound to apply in all manner of ways, not just the way you’d opportune yourself by a phoney historical argument.

    I could just as easily and quickly put questions to this: WHEN DID GRANT FREE JONES?!!!!!!!!!!!!

    IF it was not ‘instantaneously’, ‘immediately’, at the demonstrably soonest point after which he became the legal owner of Jones, then I can say with your own logic that he benefitted himself with Jones’ ownership, (such as his labour as the accounts of Hard Scrabble would very easily bear circumstantial evidence to!) At any rate, if he felt slavery wrong then why did he not take ‘instant’ action to free Jones ‘immediately’?!

    I put to you what Grant told the Confederates to their faces in December of 1861 on the war and slavery and what he would/would not fight for. The fact that you simply try to pretend that this evidence doesn’t exist shows you hide from it-

    https://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/glc04501013

    Randall Lee Gibson – Tobias Gibson, (son – father), 9 December 1861, Confederate/Union POW exchange, Columbus, Kentucky:

    “…Gen’l Grant had somewhat the appearance of a Southerner…Gen’l Grant – even saying he would resign his commission if war should be made against slavery…”

    Very happy to post the manumission papers and letters of those such as Robert E. Lee here, along with his Emancipationist views. You’ve already been shown the primary source that Jackson also came to be open to Emancipationism.

    2. You seem not be be able to understand, that slavery was legal in the US in 1860.

    ****OMG…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    This is TRULY the new low!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    NYGiant1952 for weeks now has been going on and on about how wrong slavery was, which I fully agree with to the hilt. But then he simply tries to euphemise the actions of Grant and the rest of the North and the Union by making this statement!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    So with this little statement, you can magically wave away the reality of history?! You need not consider what Abraham Lincoln stated in his 2nd Inaugural Address?!

    “…God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword…”

    You have demonstrated that you will excuse slavery itself and all the racism that underpinned it by contradicting all you have said to date by putting this euphemistic liner here.

    You demonstrated you were unforgiving about slavery, but it turned out you meant only the slavery that directly affected the Confederates. All that could be said to affect the Union, which was THE SAME!, you excuse now. This is proof you are using history not for study in its own time and place, but as a means and vehicle to legitimise the contemporary American culture, politics, etc, that you feel gives you a cudgel of power.

    That is the essence of nationalism and achieving it through history.

    3.No matter what he thought, Jackson cast his lot with the Government based on slavery.

    ****HEADSHAKE…!!!!

    You contradict yourself AGAIN!!!!

    The grounds that BOTH Union and Confederacy had a base of connection to slavery and yet, both turned to emancipation, I have proven beyond any and all credible response from you!

    That attack is long and truly defeated utterly.

    For one simple rebuttal, I quote again from the same Lincoln speech as above:

    “…One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it…”

    Don’t bring that up again: There is no getting out of the evidence.

    4, No matter what he thought regarding slavery, Grant fought to preserve the Union.

    ****AND NOW HE HAS TO CONCEDE THAT GRANT DID NOT HAVE AT ALL POINT IN HIS LIFE WHAT GALLAGHER, MCPHERSON, NOLAN, ETC, ETC, WOULD TRY TO POSIT AS THE ‘HIGH ROAD’ OPINIONS ABOUT SLAVERY!

    Well, boy! Mark the day!

    That Grant had the same notion of the American nation, constitution and federalism that Washington, Jackson, Taylor and Lincoln did and he was willing to fight for it has been disputed by absolutely no one and disparaged by absolutely no one, as well, least of all, by me!

    Headshake…and what does the Declaration of Independence say, in essence, of what a people are entitled to do when they feel a government becomes in Americans’ minds oppressive and no longer represents their interests?

    Hmmmm…?

    What did Grant say about this in his very Memoirs?

    He said as long as you win, nothing is your problem!

    Was that how he tried to extricate, along with Douglass, the need to explain his actions and America’s actions up to that point in time?! Is that he justified to himself his break with the open admission of Lincoln in the 2nd Inaugral Address that slavery was the fault of both North and South?

    Well that is NOT an adequate historical explanation!

    That does NOT excuse anyone, least of all himself, from the scope of historical critical reflection!!

    You really don’t get it, do you?

    What do you think is the next likely thing to happen if your views of the war, of slavery, etc, etc, are accepted at face value and continue to be promulgated?

    It means Grant’s statue that was toppled for being a ‘SLAVEOWNER’ as the graffiti told is only the beginning. It will mean that his statue recently placed at West Point, and all those elsewhere, will be removed to disgrace him.

    No one is going to buy the weak excuses you put for long, as soon as they sense that there is more power to gain for their own surging political/cultural/etc, nationalism in America.

    Nationalism devours its own children.

    Frederick Douglass will be next after that…

    *****The South voted to leave the Union…so at least more that 50 people wanted t defend slavery.

    Nice try though.

    Anything else I can help you with? Any questions I can help you with ?

    *****What is the point of pulling the arbitrary number of 50 people into this?!

    The North voted on a policy of retaining slavery as it already existed at that time, forever.

    So when the North goes to war to restore the Union as it was, the Union is fighting for slavery!

    You’re going to have to see that if the war and the Union can be rendered as an analogy to the Titanic, where the South bow disappears under the waves of demonisation, the North bow is sure to follow.

    You can help me by coming clean on history, for starters. You’ve shown me you can be anything but forthright, truthful and nuanced.

    1. 1. Pesky thing that pesky fact that Grant freed his slaves. Lee went to court to continue his slaves bondage.

      2. Pesky thing that pesky US Constitution.

      3. Pesky thing that pesky Cornerstone Speech.

      4. Pesky thing that pesky fact that Grant fought to preserve the Union.

      5.You brought up the pesky number 50.

      Anything else I can help you with?

      Pesky thing that pesky Romanization.

  34. ****1. Pesky thing that pesky fact that Grant freed his slaves. Lee went to court to continue his slaves bondage.

    -BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I was hoping you’d give me the chance to demolish the recent fabrications about Robert E. Lee and the manumission of his father in law’s slaves!!!

    You’re going to wish you’d NEVER said that one!!!!

    Now, you obviously, as promulgated by the likes of Serwer, Foner, Seidule et al…!

    Aggressively go out of your way to know the full placement of facts surrounding this.

    Well, you can’t claim ignorance any more. If you try, I accuse you of further dishonesty, exactly as I held Eric Foner to correction and he can’t claim what he used to, no more!!!

    In the state of Virginia when it came to manumission of slaves from a deceased’s estate, there were a huge number of factors that were absolutely necessary for the courts to uphold the willed manumission. In this case, with Robert E. Lee’s father in law, the terms of the will were that the slaves had to be freed within five calendar years of his father in law’s death, (there was some flexibility on this given wartime conditions and the fact that Lee, as Executor, had to be physically present at the court house with all the slaves to be lawfully manumitted for legal identification and procedural matters. That’s why the manumission took place in December, rather than October, of 1862). Adding to this was the enormously legally significant fact that at the time of his death, the estate was in debt!!!!

    That meant that all legal assets of the estate were frozen for a bare minimum of five calendar years, to absolutely ensure that any and all possible would-be creditors would have adequate legal opportunity to bring a lawsuit against the estate for assets they felt they were legally entitled to and could win in a suit.

    That meant that not only would the estate have to be able to provide the monies and inheritance resources stipulated within it to any named parties for the court to uphold it and effect the slaves manumission; it meant that it was instantly legally impossible for the slaves to be freed for a bare minimum of five calendar years, no matter what its terms were.

    That meant that the situation for Lee, as the Executor, had no choice but to ensure the slaves would be manumitted in the end, was to ensure they were enslaved for the entire five year period. If he tried to free them before this, the manumission would be instantly quashed by the courts if any creditors brought forth a lawsuit for the slaves specifically, or any other value of the estate.

    He had to go to court, ironically, to ensure the slaves were recognised as legally enslaved before and under the law to ensure they could be freed w/o any dispute whatsoever the question in five years. By that threshold, all legal claims to them would be extinguished and their manumission could not be prevented.

    It was short and medium term pain, for long term gain!!! And it was the only legal way to ensure their freedom would be guaranteed.

    KEEP THIS LINE UP!!!!!!

    YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tearing apart accusations about Lee and his Father in law’s estate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Hey!! Bring up the accusation by Wesley Norris that he was whipped!!!! Let’s explore that!!!!

    Do it…and I’ll tear your historical credibility apart in front of everyone on here all the more…!

    *****2. Pesky thing that pesky US Constitution.

    -Yeah…that ALL whom swore an Oath to uphold it, (such as Grant and Sherman upon graduation from West Point, Lincoln to take up the Office of President, Thaddeus Stevens to take his seat in Congress, etc, etc), swore to uphold the institution of slavery within the Constitution.

    As Frederick Douglass told his Boston, Mass., audience in 1849, that they all had a connection to slavery, regardless of their personal sentiments, that they could not disavow?

    Such a connection that completely shatters the claim of Stonewall Jackson’s descendants from their appearance of ‘Democracy Now’, that SWJ’s sister, ‘chose to stand against White supremacy and slavery’?

    How?! LOL!!! By sticking with the Union which until 1865 constitutionally sanctioned slavery?! By continuing to live in West Virginia?! Which was the last created slave state?!!!!

    So what are you saying now?! That the people of the North can’t be blamed for slavery?! That the Union wasn’t fighting for it?!

    LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Two strikes in a row!

    *****3. Pesky thing that pesky Cornerstone Speech.

    -Last warning…!

    Actually…do it!!!

    You bring up the CS Speech one more time in ANY context, even by implication, and I lay down the law with the evidence that PROVES whatever the contents of the CS Speech as regards slavery and the Confederacy, that that cause of the Confederacy changed to include emancipation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Do it!

    *****4. Pesky thing that pesky fact that Grant fought to preserve the Union.

    -Pesky thing that Grant also vindicated the right of secession in his Memoirs!!!!!!

    *****5.You brought up the pesky number 50.

    -************The South voted to leave the Union…so at least more that 50 people wanted t defend slavery.***********************

    More dishonesty!

    **********Anything else I can help you with?

    -Yeah…BRING UP THE CS SPEECH!!!!

    **********Pesky thing that pesky Romanization.

    -(Smile, Shrug!)

    Who’s romanticizing?

    If you mean accepting at face value how Grant, Douglass, Nolan, etc, all tried to frame the war, then I think I have effectively ended that for you.

    1. 1. According to historians, not only did Lee own slaves, but he also fought in court to keep working slaves from his father-in-law’s estate. Claims casting Lee as an anti-slavery figure are tied to a false narrative known as the Lost Cause, which says the Confederate experience in the Civil War was not about slavery, but state’s rights. …Wesley Norris was born a slave on the plantation that Lee managed after his father-in-law died. Norris testified during the court fight that Lee beat him when he tried to run away. “Every one of the facts in Wesley Norris’ account has been shown to be true,” Reeves noted. …Defenders of Lee point to a portion of a letter he wrote to his wife where he refers to slavery as a “moral & political evil.” But it is taken out of context. In the rest of the letter, Lee underscores that the “subjugation” of the slaves needs to go on longer and only God can free them.

      https://apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-9009420680

      Nice try though. Pesky facts get in the pesky way again.

      2. Jackson’s sister seeded with the Union the duly elected Government.

      3. The Cornerstone Speech says that the Confederacy was based on the slave.

      4. Grant was utterly contemptuous of their cause—“the worst for which a people ever fought,” he observed.

      5. your comment of August 17, 2022, 2:03AM (What are you doing up at 2:03 AM?)

      If you do, I will post one after the other every single one of the ballpark 50 pieces of primary evidence to show it is true!!!

      Nice try though.

  35. Ready or not, here I come, Ed Hospodar!!!!

    It’s the end of your credibility, and Reeves, too, for that matter!

    I’ll roll you up like I did Alan T. Nolan!!!!

      1. And you goan’ be remembered like ‘Boxcar, (figuratively speaking)!

        ‘Cuz (figuratively speaking) here comes Train No. 9, the Gillies Railroad!

    1. So, since you didn’t dispute my facts, , you must agree with my assessment.

      Let me know when you want to debate again. I’m off to walk the Chancellorsville battlefield.

      1. It is fitting you’re off to the graveyard of historical reputations!!!

        And I don’t need you to concede or admit anything!

        YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  36. Well, now…!!!

    I will start off by addressing your last post, (‘your challenge’).

    Challenge…accepted!

    You can talk back after this point, NYGiant1952. I know you will and that means nothing in and of itself.

    But…after this point, there is no coming back in terms of historical credibility for you…

    Nolan, Gallagher, McPherson, etc, all produced some good work. But their work was flawed in that they overtly encouraged people to read Confederate arguments/evidence cynically, yet accept Union such at face value.

    That’s not historical methodology: That’s indoctrination and propaganda.

    That is not to say that was the whole of their work by any means and again, they do produce good works and arguments.

    But the net result has been to legitimise those whom DO then internalise indoctrination and see historical evidence as one and the same as propaganda.

    It’s the end of the line and here comes the Gillies Railroad, Train No. 9!

  37. ******1. According to historians, not only did Lee own slaves, but he also fought in court to keep working slaves from his father-in-law’s estate. Claims casting Lee as an anti-slavery figure are tied to a false narrative known as the Lost Cause, which says the Confederate experience in the Civil War was not about slavery, but state’s rights. …Wesley Norris was born a slave on the plantation that Lee managed after his father-in-law died. Norris testified during the court fight that Lee beat him when he tried to run away. “Every one of the facts in Wesley Norris’ account has been shown to be true,” Reeves noted. …Defenders of Lee point to a portion of a letter he wrote to his wife where he refers to slavery as a “moral & political evil.” But it is taken out of context. In the rest of the letter, Lee underscores that the “subjugation” of the slaves needs to go on longer and only God can free them.

    https://apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-9009420680

    Nice try though. Pesky facts get in the pesky way again.

    -LOL! Big mistake! Now you expose Reeves’ shoddy work to light as well!

    Here it comes…!

    For starters, Reeves is not taking into account the legal circumstances that pertained to the manumission of slaves and about estates, (particularly those in debt), in the State of Virginia before the war, and Lee’s position as Executor of his FIL’s will.

    Reeves is then lying as is any historian whom says Lee ‘owned’ these slaves! They are hoping to capitalise on the swell of emotion that they do not have to honestly relay the facts of the matter.

    Lee did not ‘own’ his FIL’s slaves after the latter’s death. He was legally responsible for them until their manumission could be lawfully effected and recognised by the State of Virginia.

    Anyone who says that he did own them is either ignorant or lying.

    That’s why Robert E. Lee could not sell any of the slaves; if he owned them, he would have been able to do so. It’s like calling Abraham Lincoln a slave trader for how he agreed to the sale of his own FIL’s slaves that were part of that deceased individual’s estate. Does that make Lincoln a slave trader?

    LOL!!! NO!

    Due to the legal complexities of freeing the slaves whom were part of an estate in Virginia at the time, I have already explained how ALL of the accounts of the estate and ALL inheritors had to demonstrably be able to paid out of the estate’s finances for the courts to uphold the slave’s manumission. If this wasn’t so, then they weren’t freed, period.

    Robert E. Lee also used some of his own money to ‘make up the last bit of difference’ to pay off the balances of the estate in December of 1862 so that the slaves’ manumission would be upheld by the courts.

    What ALSO had to happen for the courts to uphold the slaves’ manumission was the dirty little secret that Elizabeth Brown Pryor lied about…!!!!!!!

    Due to the estate being in debt and all assets of the estate thereby frozen for a minimum of five calendar years, as the courts would stipulate this so as all POSSIBLE creditors whom could bring a lawsuit against the estate to sue for assets/resources they felt they were entitled to, (which slaves counted as part of), if this didn’t happen, then the slaves wouldn’t/couldn’t be freed as the courts would say there hadn’t been a fair opportunity for ALL POTENTIAL CREDITORS to have the opportunity they were entitled to, to sue for the estate’s assets!!!!!

    That’s the dirty secret that Pryor and Reeves lied about. And now you have made yourself part of! YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Let us continue-

    So, as Executor, legally responsible for the slaves, Robert E. Lee could not sell them. He had to ensure the estate’s finances could meet all stated and possible financial obligations in order to free the slaves, as he was determined to do. But the reality was, the only way he could effect this was to get the estate productive again.

    Lee’s father in law had not done this, and the result was Lee had to make the difference. Regardless of one’s personal sentiments, at the time of his death, no matter what the FIL had told the slaves about them being freed upon his death, that wasn’t in the will and even if it was, it was overridden in the circumstances.

    Lee had no choice but to make the estate productive. He appears to have gathered the slaves together and told them the unhappy reality they were all tied together in.

    Some slaves appear to have been very understandably unhappy with this. Some applied themselves to make the estate productive in light of the circumstances. Lee made it clear the faster and better they all worked together for the five years, the more absolutely unshakeable their freedom would be.

    But the OTHER THING that Pryor and Reeves, et al, lied about was this: Due to the circumstances, Lee had to keep all the assets together; that meant he had to be able to prove to the courts’ satisfaction that he had kept careful and scrupulous tabs on the whereabouts of all the estate’s assets at all times. He could rent slaves out, but not sell them.

    If ANY slaves were not physically present come Manumission Day at the Court House without reasonable excuse, guess what? NONE COULD OR WOULD BE FREED!!!!

    Because the courts would then posit that Lee as Executor had failed in his lawful duty to keep the assets frozen and then, since there were missing slaves, the courts would view it as that would-be creditors had been denied the chance to apply for these assets in a lawsuit.

    This created an ‘all or nothing’ aspect: Either ALL the Estate slaves were freed, or none could be.

    See? That’s how Pryor lied by saying the account books of the estate that related the slaves show the cold nature of Lee: THESE WERE THE VITAL EVIDENCE THAT WOULD BE PRESENTED AT COURT TO MEET THIS LEGAL REQUIREMENT THAT ALL ASSETS OF THE ESTATE (SLAVES) HAD BEEN DOCUMENTED AND ACCOUNTED FOR AT ALL TIMES IN THE PREV. FIVE YEARS TO THE COURT”S SATISFACTION!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS “THE” LEGAL EVIDENCE THAT WOULD ENSURE THEY”D BE FREED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    PRYOR AND REEVES GO DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    If a chicken died, that was a reasonable excuse for it not being present, as long as it was documented in the books. Lee could rent out slaves, and thereby show their location to the court’s satisfaction, but he could not sell them.

    So when Philip Meredith was not present that day in December of 1862, (he was seized and freed by the Union Army under the First Confiscation Act of 1861, he had been rented out in Washington DC, want to see his ticket?), that was a reasonable excuse to the court’s satisfaction for his non-presence; due to wartime conditions, swaths of people had had property seized beyond their control and the courts were satisfied.

    SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT begs the question, if Lee had known the war was coming and we know for a fact from the implication in his papers, etc, that he knew the Union was going to do something to seize property of Southerners, then…why didn’t he bring Meredith back before he was ‘confiscated’? The only explanation that squares is that he knew that Meredith’s emancipation could be effected sooner this way!!!!!

    BTW…that ain’t the end of the story between Meredith and the General!!!! You’re going to see soon enough, and it tears a new hole in Pryor/Reeves’ credibility!!!!!!

    So, when the slaves of the estate ran away, who could blame them?! But at the same time, there is a reckoning by the historian that HAS to be put and it’s this-

    In running away, due to the legal ground, they would be creating the situation whereby they very realistically condemned those whom remained to live in slavery, forever!!!

    To effect the manumission of ALL the slaves in unchallengeable legality, including those whom ran away, Lee had no choice but to bring them back!!!!! And the evidence shows that Wesley Norris was included in the manumission paperwork on 29 December 1862 by name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    About the whipping…!

    I am of the opinion that IF the whipping DID occur, there is a radically different explanation for it than what Pryor, Serwer, Seidule, Reeves, etc, lied about!!!

    Phil Leigh and Brion McClanahan both did a superb job of exposing that Norris was at the locations that he attested to, but there was no evidence to show that the whipping necessarily took place. Pryor cited eight pieces of contemporary evidence and argued these ‘proved’ that the whipping occurred, but on examination, none of these prove that the whipping occurred at all. Not to mention, she completely eschewed the contemporaneous evidence that challenges that it ever happened.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJk7z2BiWzI&t=4s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QpRjHByq-Y&t=1s

    Now, IF the whipping did occur, then the explanation that can be put to it is this: Lee HAD to ensure they would never attempt to run away again, because he had to consider the freedom of ALL the slaves!!!!!

    If any had successfully run away, the rest were doomed to slavery because of legal technicalities forever.

    He resolved to not let that happen.

    I am not condoning whipping: But I will posit that that was a practice that was common at the time. The Union Army desisted it about 1861, (the alleged whipping took place in 1859). The Confederate Army continued flogging as a punishment for the duration of the war. We know for a fact that during this latter, Stonewall Jackson ordered White, Rebel soldiers to be whipped for various offences.

    The French and British Armies continued flogging to the about the end of the 1860s and I personally have sketches of White male convicts being whipped in Australia as punishment in the 1860s.

    No one is condoning the action of flogging. No one is blaming the three slaves for fleeing. But we as historians must recognize that there is more to the account than simply that; if they succeeded, then the rest of the slaves were condemned to permanent slavery. Robert E. Lee did what he reckoned essential to ensure the freedom for all and he did what he was prepared to do to White soldiers. The US Army Manual had been amended in 1833 to give Commissioned Officers the right to whip soldiers for desertion!!

    That is, of course…IF we accept the account of the whipping to be true. We must consider some things that challenge significantly that it ever did happen!

    -Lee’s wife wrote that the accusations printed in the NY press that the whippings had happened were lies and libels.
    -Lee wrote his son that the same above “had not a word of truth in it”.
    -After the war, Lee said to another son when Norris’ account was published, words to the effect of, ‘No one will ever be able to say I was not as good or fair to them [the slaves] as any.’
    -No sketches were ever made of Norris’ back.
    -The timing of his published account coincided with the anniversary of Lincoln’s death. This, along with the anonymous publishings in the NY Press, has given some credit to the argument that Abolitionists were attempting to discredit Lee.
    -In the ‘Liberator’, 29 May 1863, one of Lee’s friends before the war, William G. Webster, who had family killed for the North by the ANV in the war, and whom was a devout Abolitionist published a letter stating that despite his falling out with Lee over politics, (for which he spared the General no criticism), he had visited and stayed with Lee and his family on the various estates for prolonged and numerous visits before the war and seen ‘up close’ the manner in which they treated the slaves on scores of occasions. Webster was adamant that he had never seen the slightest evidence of mistreatment or suggestion of it, by the Lee family to any of the slaves on any occasion!
    -There were 8 letters in the Lee Family Papers, (all now digitised on the Lee Family Digital Archive), that contradict Pryor’s arguments in ‘Reading The Man’, that she DIDN”T include!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who wants to know, ask me at any point.
    -I point to Selina Gray. She was married in the same parlour as the Lees’ had been with the General and Mrs proudly looking on! See the article about her here-

    https://www.historynet.com/arlingtons-enslaved-savior-selina-gray/

    -The Lees defied Virginia state law to teach the Estate’s slaves to read and write. I’ve already destroyed the article you put forth last time by ACWM. Per Frederick Douglass, (btw, he and Grant WERE and ARE heroes. Their works definitely have merit and relevance, but they must be read CRITICALLY, like any other evidence), once slaves and Black Americans could read and write, this power could not be controlled, regardless of how it had been imparted. Literacy was destructive to slavery and Lee knew what he was doing, like Jackson, in teaching them so: Helping to end slavery.
    -How Amanda Parks attempted to meet with him in February of 1866 when he was in Washington DC. She visited his hotel, but he was out. Yet, she left him a letter with her contact details. While this has not survived, his written reply to her has. It is full of warmth. See here-

    ‘Recollections & Letters of Robert E. Lee’, by his son.

    General Lee – Amanda Parks, 9 March 1866, pages 222-23

    https://archive.org/details/recollectionslet00inleer/page/222/mode/2up?q=amanda+parks&view=theater

    Now…why is this attempted meeting and corro sOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO significant…?

    BECAUSE SHE WAS THE SISTER OF ONE OF THE ALLEGEDLY WHIPPED SLAVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Who is going to attempt to voluntarily meet with, then write!!!!!!!!!!!!, the man whom whipped a sibling to an alleged near corpse?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! REEVES AND PRYOR GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    -But that ain’t the end of it…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Lookee here…

    New Zealand Evening Post, 5 October 1929

    https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19291005.2.155.4.1?items_per_page=10&query=%22general+lee%22+%22jim+parks%22&snippet=true

    YEP!!!!!!!!!!! ANOTHER RELATIVE OF ONE OF THE ALLEGEDLY WHIPPED SLAVES IN THE NORRIS INCIDENT HAD OBVIOUSLY VERY FOND MEMORIES OF GENERAL LEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    And…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    tell me…what did Reeves make of Robert E. Lee’s claim in ‘The Century’ magazine, in the Generals’ interview with John Leyburn, that he had kept in touch with the freed Arlington slaves…?

    Did he, like Pryor, interpret that as simply hagiographing through the years…/

    (PLEASE say ‘yes’!)

    Guess what?!!!!

    The evidence PROVES that was true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Read it and weep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/liberia/educators/history/voices.html

    Letter from Mrs. Burke*
    Before the Civil War, Robert E. Lee freed his slaves and paid for the passage of many to Liberia. The following letter was written by one of these emigrants to Lee’s wife, Martha Custis Lee, some time between 1853 and 1859.

    My Dear Madam — William has written you quite a long letter, yet I thought I could not let this opportunity pass without writing you a few lines to inform you something in regard to myself and family.

    I am at this time, and nearly at all times, in the enjoyment of most excellent health. My children are as fat as pigs: Granderson is nearly as broad as he is long; Cornelia is not tall for her age, but is quite stout; Alexander has begun to grow a little, though he is quite small for his age. They are all going to school, and seem to be learning quite fast. Little Martha does not go to day school, but is very fond of going to Sunday school; she can say some of her A, B, C’s; she has got entirely over all of her sickness, and is now fat and growing very fast.

    You could hardly believe how cool it is in Africa — it is equal to the coolest October nights and mornings in America; we can hardly keep warm in bed at night.

    In the morning I get up early to milk my cow, feed my chickens &c. The last time I churned I had to put warm water in the churn to make the butter come.

    I have thought and dreamt much about you lately. I hope you have got over your rheumatism, and the many troubles of which you spoke in your last letter.

    Please remember me particularly to all of your children, and to Mr. Lee. I often think of them all. Please give my love to Mary Ann, and tell her for me that she must try and behave herself, that it will be for her good in the end. When you write please let me know something about Catharine and Agnes. Remember me kindly to Aunt Elleanor; tell her that I love Africa, and would not exchange it for America. What has become of Julian? When you write, please tell me all you know about father; he never will write to me. I would write more, but have no room.

    Yours humbly,
    Rosebell Burke

    Well, NYGiant1952…!!!!

    The arguments you put about Robert E. Lee and the whipping have been by any measure, disproven!

    And I’m just getting started!!!!

  38. ****2. Jackson’s sister seeded with the Union the duly elected Government.

    -I notice you no longer try to put that her siding with the Union in any way ought be interpreted to mean she was not racist or pro-slavery in any way!!!

    If she chose to side with the Union, as did George Thomas, both being Southerners; or, Pemberton and Slidell both being Northerners whom fought for/supported the Confederacy; or Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis both being born in Kentucky and yet one supported the Union and the other, the Confederacy, what does this prove other than each fought as they were convinced of the meaning of the Constitution and American federalism.

    Know what else it proves that they all had in common, no matter what all the above did? They were Americans.

    *****3. The Cornerstone Speech says that the Confederacy was based on the slave.

    -…and the Union was not…?

    The 3/5 and Fugitive Slave tenets in the Constitution had enabled ALL that unfolded from 1789-1865 re. slavery to happen.

    I’ll return to the CS Speech when I have finished the ‘other things’ I’m going to post, shortly…!

    ****4. Grant was utterly contemptuous of their cause—“the worst for which a people ever fought,” he observed.

    -He did say that. That’s true. Grant was a hero and his evidence is a key source of information about the war. But!!! It must be read critically, not merely accepted at face value! Such as-

    He also ignored the racism and genocide that was incumbent in the fight to establish the Union against Aboriginals and French Canadians, (I know a school of historians whom WILL NOT let that and the first group about him, and his conduct after the war, go at all!)
    He also said in his Memoirs that the right of secession was true; but winning negates having to provide any explanation.
    He also said in them that he freely participated in the fight to expand and protect slavery by fighting to acquire more territory for slave states in the MA War of 1846-48.
    He also swore to return all presumed fugitive slaves to bondage by his Constitutional Oath he swore when he graduated from West Point.
    He honoured the above by returning 12 Confederate slaves to bondage after his capture of Ft. Donelson, despite the options given to him by the Confiscation Act.
    He married into a slave owning family and directly benefitted by their labour in his daily life.
    If there is no need to consider anything whatsoever the question beyond being involved in slavery, (ie. kindness, etc, etc, etc), then the above damns him utterly by the logic of your own, and Coates’, Serwer’s, Pryor’s, Seidule’s, etc, etc, etc, arguments.
    His ownership of a slave, well, see above.
    If the above can be at least partly explained by complex legalities of the time, no matter how much we hold them distasteful today, then such HAS to be extended to the likes of SWJ, etc.
    Grant stated in his own words he would not fight for emancipation; and by his statement, if he was fighting simply to restore the Union as it had been, then he was fighting to reconvene all the rights to slavery that had already been granted! So he states he was fighting for slavery. Now, why he said this is worthy of a huge critical reflection, I’d say. But on YOUR terms, this condemns him.

    ******5. your comment of August 17, 2022, 2:03AM (What are you doing up at 2:03 AM?)

    If you do, I will post one after the other every single one of the ballpark 50 pieces of primary evidence to show it is true!!!

    Nice try though.

    -Here it comes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  39. 1. I see you are no longer disputing that Lee owned slaves and beat them.

    2.Recall that the soldiers wrote that they joined the Union Army to preserve the Union.

    3. No. The Union was based on a wage-labor economy. The Confederacy was based on slave-labor economy.
    Also recall that the 3/5ths rule was a compromise between the non-slave holding states and the slave-holding states. This was made so that the South would agree that slavery would be illegal in the Northwest Territories.
    I learned this in the 8th grade.

    4. Another agreement with me! I am making progress in explaining to you the Civil War.

    5. I’ll try and get up at 2:30AM tomorrow to comment.

    So now, since you agree with me on 1 & 4, we can remove them from the discussion.

    And I am correct about point. 2 and 3.

    Anything else I can help you with?

  40. ******1. According to historians, not only did Lee own slaves, but he also fought in court to keep working slaves from his father-in-law’s estate. Claims casting Lee as an anti-slavery figure are tied to a false narrative known as the Lost Cause, which says the Confederate experience in the Civil War was not about slavery, but state’s rights. …Wesley Norris was born a slave on the plantation that Lee managed after his father-in-law died. Norris testified during the court fight that Lee beat him when he tried to run away. “Every one of the facts in Wesley Norris’ account has been shown to be true,” Reeves noted. …Defenders of Lee point to a portion of a letter he wrote to his wife where he refers to slavery as a “moral & political evil.” But it is taken out of context. In the rest of the letter, Lee underscores that the “subjugation” of the slaves needs to go on longer and only God can free them.

    https://apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-9009420680

    Nice try though. Pesky facts get in the pesky way again.

    -LOL! Big mistake! Now you expose Reeves’ shoddy work to light as well!

    Here it comes…!

  41. For starters, Reeves is not taking into account the legal circumstances that pertained to the manumission of slaves and about estates, (particularly those in debt), in the State of Virginia before the war, and Lee’s position as Executor of his FIL’s will.

    Reeves is then lying as is any historian whom says Lee ‘owned’ these slaves! They are hoping to capitalise on the swell of emotion that they do not have to honestly relay the facts of the matter.

    Lee did not ‘own’ his FIL’s slaves after the latter’s death. He was legally responsible for them until their manumission could be lawfully effected and recognised by the State of Virginia.

    Anyone who says that he did own them is either ignorant or lying.

    That’s why Robert E. Lee could not sell any of the slaves; if he owned them, he would have been able to do so. It’s like calling Abraham Lincoln a slave trader for how he agreed to the sale of his own FIL’s slaves that were part of that deceased individual’s estate. Does that make Lincoln a slave trader?

  42. LOL!!! NO!

    Due to the legal complexities of freeing the slaves whom were part of an estate in Virginia at the time, I have already explained how ALL of the accounts of the estate and ALL inheritors had to demonstrably be able to paid out of the estate’s finances for the courts to uphold the slave’s manumission. If this wasn’t so, then they weren’t freed, period.

    Robert E. Lee also used some of his own money to ‘make up the last bit of difference’ to pay off the balances of the estate in December of 1862 so that the slaves’ manumission would be upheld by the courts.

    What ALSO had to happen for the courts to uphold the slaves’ manumission was the dirty little secret that Elizabeth Brown Pryor lied about…!!!!!!!

  43. Due to the estate being in debt and all assets of the estate thereby frozen for a minimum of five calendar years, as the courts would stipulate this so as all POSSIBLE creditors whom could bring a lawsuit against the estate to sue for assets/resources they felt they were entitled to, (which slaves counted as part of), if this didn’t happen, then the slaves wouldn’t/couldn’t be freed as the courts would say there hadn’t been a fair opportunity for ALL POTENTIAL CREDITORS to have the opportunity they were entitled to, to sue for the estate’s assets!!!!!

    That’s the dirty secret that Pryor and Reeves lied about. And now you have made yourself part of!

    Let us continue-

    So, as Executor, legally responsible for the slaves, Robert E. Lee could not sell them. He had to ensure the estate’s finances could meet all stated and possible financial obligations in order to free the slaves, as he was determined to do. But the reality was, the only way he could effect this was to get the estate productive again.

    Lee’s father in law had not done this, and the result was Lee had to make the difference. Regardless of one’s personal sentiments, at the time of his death, no matter what the FIL had told the slaves about them being freed upon his death, that wasn’t in the will and even if it was, it was overridden in the circumstances.

  44. Lee had no choice but to make the estate productive. He appears to have gathered the slaves together and told them the unhappy reality they were all tied together in.

    Some slaves appear to have been very understandably unhappy with this. Some applied themselves to make the estate productive in light of the circumstances. Lee made it clear the faster and better they all worked together for the five years, the more absolutely unshakeable their freedom would be.

    But the OTHER THING that Pryor and Reeves, et al, lied about was this: Due to the circumstances, Lee had to keep all the assets together; that meant he had to be able to prove to the courts’ satisfaction that he had kept careful and scrupulous tabs on the whereabouts of all the estate’s assets at all times. He could rent slaves out, but not sell them.

    If ANY slaves were not physically present come Manumission Day at the Court House without reasonable excuse, guess what? NONE COULD OR WOULD BE FREED!!!!

  45. Because the courts would then posit that Lee as Executor had failed in his lawful duty to keep the assets frozen and then, since there were missing slaves, the courts would view it as that would-be creditors had been denied the chance to apply for these assets in a lawsuit.

    This created an ‘all or nothing’ aspect: Either ALL the Estate slaves were freed, or none could be.

    See? That’s how Pryor lied by saying the account books of the estate that related the slaves show the cold nature of Lee: THESE WERE THE VITAL EVIDENCE THAT WOULD BE PRESENTED AT COURT TO MEET THIS LEGAL REQUIREMENT THAT ALL ASSETS OF THE ESTATE (SLAVES) HAD BEEN DOCUMENTED AND ACCOUNTED FOR AT ALL TIMES IN THE PREV. FIVE YEARS TO THE COURT”S SATISFACTION!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS “THE” LEGAL EVIDENCE THAT WOULD ENSURE THEY”D BE FREED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  46. PRYOR AND REEVES GO DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    If a chicken died, that was a reasonable excuse for it not being present, as long as it was documented in the books. Lee could rent out slaves, and thereby show their location to the court’s satisfaction, but he could not sell them.

    So when Philip Meredith was not present that day in December of 1862, (he was seized and freed by the Union Army under the First Confiscation Act of 1861, he had been rented out in Washington DC, want to see his ticket?), that was a reasonable excuse to the court’s satisfaction for his non-presence; due to wartime conditions, swaths of people had had property seized beyond their control and the courts were satisfied.

    SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT begs the question, if Lee had known the war was coming and we know for a fact from the implication in his papers, etc, that he knew the Union was going to do something to seize property of Southerners, then…why didn’t he bring Meredith back before he was ‘confiscated’? The only explanation that squares is that he knew that Meredith’s emancipation could be effected sooner this way!!!!!

    BTW…that ain’t the end of the story between Meredith and the General!!!! You’re going to see soon enough, and it tears a new hole in Pryor/Reeves’ credibility!!!!!!

  47. So, when the slaves of the estate ran away, who could blame them?! But at the same time, there is a reckoning by the historian that HAS to be put and it’s this-

    In running away, due to the legal ground, they would be creating the situation whereby they very realistically condemned those whom remained to live in slavery, forever!!!

    To effect the manumission of ALL the slaves in unchallengeable legality, including those whom ran away, Lee had no choice but to bring them back!!!!! And the evidence shows that Wesley Norris was included in the manumission paperwork on 29 December 1862 by name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  48. About the whipping…!

    I am of the opinion that IF the whipping DID occur, there is a radically different explanation for it than what Pryor, Serwer, Seidule, Reeves, etc, lied about!!!

    Phil Leigh and Brion McClanahan both did a superb job of exposing that Norris was at the locations that he attested to, but there was no evidence to show that the whipping necessarily took place. Pryor cited eight pieces of contemporary evidence and argued these ‘proved’ that the whipping occurred, but on examination, none of these prove that the whipping occurred at all. Not to mention, she completely eschewed the contemporaneous evidence that challenges that it ever happened.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJk7z2BiWzI&t=4s

  49. Now, IF the whipping did occur, then the explanation that can be put to it is this: Lee HAD to ensure they would never attempt to run away again, because he had to consider the freedom of ALL the slaves!!!!!

    If any had successfully run away, the rest were doomed to slavery because of legal technicalities forever.

    He resolved to not let that happen.

    I am not condoning whipping: But I will posit that that was a practice that was common at the time. The Union Army desisted it about 1861, (the alleged whipping took place in 1859). The Confederate Army continued flogging as a punishment for the duration of the war. We know for a fact that during this latter, Stonewall Jackson ordered White, Rebel soldiers to be whipped for various offences.

    The French and British Armies continued flogging to the about the end of the 1860s and I personally have sketches of White male convicts being whipped in Australia as punishment in the 1860s.

    No one is condoning the action of flogging. No one is blaming the three slaves for fleeing. But we as historians must recognize that there is more to the account than simply that; if they succeeded, then the rest of the slaves were condemned to permanent slavery. Robert E. Lee did what he reckoned essential to ensure the freedom for all and he did what he was prepared to do to White soldiers. The US Army Manual had been amended in 1833 to give Commissioned Officers the right to whip soldiers for desertion!!

  50. That is, of course…IF we accept the account of the whipping to be true. We must consider some things that challenge significantly that it ever did happen!

    -Lee’s wife wrote that the accusations printed in the NY press that the whippings had happened were lies and libels.
    -Lee wrote his son that the same above “had not a word of truth in it”.
    -After the war, Lee said to another son when Norris’ account was published, words to the effect of, ‘No one will ever be able to say I was not as good or fair to them [the slaves] as any.’
    -No sketches were ever made of Norris’ back.
    -The timing of his published account coincided with the anniversary of Lincoln’s death. This, along with the anonymous publishings in the NY Press, has given some credit to the argument that Abolitionists were attempting to discredit Lee.
    -In the ‘Liberator’, 29 May 1863, one of Lee’s friends before the war, William G. Webster, who had family killed for the North by the ANV in the war, and whom was a devout Abolitionist published a letter stating that despite his falling out with Lee over politics, (for which he spared the General no criticism), he had visited and stayed with Lee and his family on the various estates for prolonged and numerous visits before the war and seen ‘up close’ the manner in which they treated the slaves on scores of occasions. Webster was adamant that he had never seen the slightest evidence of mistreatment or suggestion of it, by the Lee family to any of the slaves on any occasion!
    -There were 8 letters in the Lee Family Papers, (all now digitised on the Lee Family Digital Archive), that contradict Pryor’s arguments in ‘Reading The Man’, that she DIDN”T include!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who wants to know, ask me at any point.
    -I point to Selina Gray. She was married in the same parlour as the Lees’ had been with the General and Mrs proudly looking on! See the article about her here-

  51. https://www.historynet.com/arlingtons-enslaved-savior-selina-gray/

    -The Lees defied Virginia state law to teach the Estate’s slaves to read and write. I’ve already destroyed the article you put forth last time by ACWM. Per Frederick Douglass, (btw, he and Grant WERE and ARE heroes. Their works definitely have merit and relevance, but they must be read CRITICALLY, like any other evidence), once slaves and Black Americans could read and write, this power could not be controlled, regardless of how it had been imparted. Literacy was destructive to slavery and Lee knew what he was doing, like Jackson, in teaching them so: Helping to end slavery.
    -How Amanda Parks attempted to meet with him in February of 1866 when he was in Washington DC. She visited his hotel, but he was out. Yet, she left him a letter with her contact details. While this has not survived, his written reply to her has. It is full of warmth. See here-

    ‘Recollections & Letters of Robert E. Lee’, by his son.

    General Lee – Amanda Parks, 9 March 1866, pages 222-23

    https://archive.org/details/recollectionslet00inleer/page/222/mode/2up?q=amanda+parks&view=theater

    Now…why is this attempted meeting and corro sOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO significant…?

  52. BECAUSE SHE WAS THE SISTER OF ONE OF THE ALLEGEDLY WHIPPED SLAVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Who is going to attempt to voluntarily meet with, then write!!!!!!!!!!!!, the man whom whipped a sibling to an alleged near corpse?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! REEVES AND PRYOR GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    -But that ain’t the end of it…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Lookee here…

    New Zealand Evening Post, 5 October 1929

    https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19291005.2.155.4.1?items_per_page=10&query=%22general+lee%22+%22jim+parks%22&snippet=true

    YEP!!!!!!!!!!! ANOTHER RELATIVE OF ONE OF THE ALLEGEDLY WHIPPED SLAVES IN THE NORRIS INCIDENT HAD OBVIOUSLY VERY FOND MEMORIES OF GENERAL LEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    And…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    tell me…what did Reeves make of Robert E. Lee’s claim in ‘The Century’ magazine, in the Generals’ interview with John Leyburn, that he had kept in touch with the freed Arlington slaves…?

    Did he, like Pryor, interpret that as simply hagiographing through the years…/

    (PLEASE say ‘yes’!)

  53. (PLEASE say ‘yes’!)

    Guess what?!!!!

    The evidence PROVES that was true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Read it and weep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/liberia/educators/history/voices.html

    Letter from Mrs. Burke*
    Before the Civil War, Robert E. Lee freed his slaves and paid for the passage of many to Liberia. The following letter was written by one of these emigrants to Lee’s wife, Martha Custis Lee, some time between 1853 and 1859.

    My Dear Madam — William has written you quite a long letter, yet I thought I could not let this opportunity pass without writing you a few lines to inform you something in regard to myself and family.

    I am at this time, and nearly at all times, in the enjoyment of most excellent health. My children are as fat as pigs: Granderson is nearly as broad as he is long; Cornelia is not tall for her age, but is quite stout; Alexander has begun to grow a little, though he is quite small for his age. They are all going to school, and seem to be learning quite fast. Little Martha does not go to day school, but is very fond of going to Sunday school; she can say some of her A, B, C’s; she has got entirely over all of her sickness, and is now fat and growing very fast.

    You could hardly believe how cool it is in Africa — it is equal to the coolest October nights and mornings in America; we can hardly keep warm in bed at night.

    In the morning I get up early to milk my cow, feed my chickens &c. The last time I churned I had to put warm water in the churn to make the butter come.

    I have thought and dreamt much about you lately. I hope you have got over your rheumatism, and the many troubles of which you spoke in your last letter.

    Please remember me particularly to all of your children, and to Mr. Lee. I often think of them all. Please give my love to Mary Ann, and tell her for me that she must try and behave herself, that it will be for her good in the end. When you write please let me know something about Catharine and Agnes. Remember me kindly to Aunt Elleanor; tell her that I love Africa, and would not exchange it for America. What has become of Julian? When you write, please tell me all you know about father; he never will write to me. I would write more, but have no room.

    Yours humbly,
    Rosebell Burke

    Well, NYGiant1952…!!!!

    The arguments you put about Robert E. Lee and the whipping have been by any measure, disproven!

    And I’m just getting started!!!!

  54. “It is understood, in that indirect but accurate way in which great facts first get abroad, that the Confederacy have offered England and France a price for active support. It jg nothing less than a treaty securing free trade in its broadest sense for fifty years, the complete suppression of the import of slaves, and the emancipation of every negro born after the date of the signature of the treaty. In return they ask, first, the recognition of their independence; and, secondly, such an investigation into the facts of the blockade as must, in their judgment, lead to its disavowal. The bid is one which demands careful examination, if only from the hesitation it seems to produce among the most earnest friends of freedom.”

    -‘UK Spectator, 25 January 1862’

  55. “Slavery is doomed, on any supposition ; and the Confederate authorities are already saying publicly that the power of emancipation is one which rests in their hands ; and that they will use it in the last resort. This is a disclosure full of interest, and full of hope.”

    -UK, ‘Once A Week’, 30 November 1861

    1. Thanks for agreeing with me about Lee.

      Since you did not address #2 and #3, you evidently agree with me.

      #5, I will try and post at 2AM tomorrow morning.

      1. LOL!!!!

        You don’t get it.

        I don’t need you to concede anything here.

        I don’t need you to admit a single thing.

        I WANT you to keep pretending like you’re winning.

        It makes the plain truth all the starker…!

    1. See how Jefferson Davis argued that being allowed to bring slaves into the Western Territories was in his view, however fanciful, a means of enabling emancipation and setting slavery on a gradual road to ending!

      ‘Appendix to the Congressional Globe’, Vol. XXII, Part I, 13 February 1850, pages 152-54.

  56. ” Slavery could not be abolished without a series of preliminary preparations…he slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline, and thus unfit for slavery.”

    -Davis, Varina, ‘Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America’, Vol. I, page 382, https://archive.org/details/jeffersondavisex01davi/page/380/mode/2up?view=theater

    As fanciful as some of these are, they nevertheless prove that Davis could envision the end of slavery and dawn of emancipation!

    1. evidently, since you are no longer discussing points, 2, 3 and 5, I figure you want to now discuss Davis.

      SURE!

      I think we can agree that he was a traitor to the United States. I’ve been in his cell at Fortress Monroe.

      And he was the head of a government based upon slavery and a slave-labor economy.

      1. Smirk from ear to ear…!!!

        Yeah, and this proves Jefferson Davis could foresee and work with a future w/o slavery.

        I’ve barely even started yet…!

  57. “…the war came…must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination, we will have!”

    -Jefferson Davis in 1864 to Northern rep, James R. Gilmore, visiting at Richmond.

    No matter what the contents of the CS Speech outlined, all these from Jefferson Davis show that he clearly did not agree at the time in full in 1861 with Stephens’ statement therein, and that by 1864, the Confederate cause had clearly become different in no contestable form from what Stephens’ had opined on 28 March 1861.

    Need I say it…?

    Failure to openly disclose these mean the credibility of the historian is torn apart; they are lying by omission.

    And I’m only on the opening, NYGiant1952…

    https://archive.org/details/downintennesseeb00ingilm/page/268/mode/2up?q=extermination&view=theater

  58. Awareness in the North that the South was making moves to emancipation and putting this to the Union government, publicly.

    ‘New York Evening Post’, 8 August 1862.

    “To The Hon. Edwin Stanton-

    It is idle gasconade to say, that thus situated, we can defy Europe. Let the South, by conceding emancipation, secure the sympathy and the permanent services of her four millions of laborers, without action of ours; then throw into the scale against us the thirty millions of Eng- land, the forty millions of France, — and who shall say how many tens of millions besides? — and what chance for success, or for reputation, shall we have, struggling for nothing nobler than self-existence, in equivocal attitude before the world, matched against opponents who shall have fore- stalled us and assumed the initiative of progress.”

  59. ‘The Policy of Emancipation in Three Letters’, by Robert Dale Owen, Philadelphia: J. Lippincott & Co., 1863, 15.

    “It is idle gasconade to say, that thus situated, we can defy Europe. Let the South, by conceding emancipation, secure the sympathy and the permanent services of her four millions of laborers, without action of ours; then throw into the scale against us the thirty millions of Eng- land, the forty millions of France, — and who shall say how many tens of millions besides? — and what chance for success, or for reputation, shall we have, struggling for nothing nobler than self-existence, in equivocal attitude before the world, matched against opponents who shall have fore- stalled us and assumed the initiative of progress.”

    -Same message from same original author, bound in public book form.

    https://archive.org/details/policyofemancipa4916owen/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater

  60. You have to wonder if Jeff Davis could see a future without slavery, why did he start a rebellion and lead a government based on slavery and a slave economy?

    He did order a rebel battery to fire upon a Federal military installation, so he did start the Civil War.

  61. Now, all else aside about it, part of the ‘trap’ of accepting the content of the 28 March 1861, ‘Cornerstone Speech’, by Stephens at face value, w/o any critical reflection, is that in order to not be a complete, two-faced, opportunisitic hypocrite and progagandist, (rather than a historian), is this-

    IF you accept the Cornerstone Speech at face value, you MUST accept ALL of what Stephens says at face value!!!!!!!!!!

    Including this very interesting speech he gave after the war, when, though it is clear he has not eschewed 100% of his racial prejudices, he HAS indisputably undergone a significant amount of progressive growth in his views about Black Americans.

    Among other things, he states that the Georgia state legislature has a moral and social obligation to legislate for racial equality before and under the law; for education rights and resources for Black Americans; for their rights in terms of employment; he calls for compensation for slavery in some form/amount be paid to them; he implies support for them to vote and take part in politics, (which I will return to!); and look what he says of most of the Black Americans in the state of Georgia during the war and their stance on the Confederate war effort..!!!

    IF you accept the CS Speech at face value, you must likewise accept this!

    IF you accept reading this 1866 speech critically, you MUST read the CS Speech so!

    You don’t; you’re a hypocrite whose opinion is worthless, save for the most extreme contempt.

    -Alexander Stephens, 22 February 1866, Georgia State Legislature, as cited in,
    ‘Alexander H. Stephens in Private & Public with Letters & Speeches’, Henry Cleveland (Ed.), National Publishing Company, 1866, 804-18.

    https://ia600303.us.archive.org/6/items/alexanderhstephe00clevrich/alexanderhstephe00clevrich.pdf

  62. Now, the language and methodology of this author, Louis Pendleton, is heavily Lost Cause, which is something to consider. The author also quite clearly has a racist bias, of which I stand absolutely opposed to.

    But the factual content that is included is beyond debate, regardless of methodology.

    As I said in the previous post, it can’t be argued that Stephens ever eschewed 100% of his racial prejudices; this fact is further evidence that he did live to challenge, question and re-consider in significant fashion these.

    Stephens opposed the post-war Civil Rights Bill because he said this violated the federalism jurisdiction of the American states; it is just as clear that this DID NOT mean he was opposed to civil rights for Black Americans, as his 22 February 1866 speech in the Georgia legislature shows.

    Just like this…!!!

    On the 4th of July, 1876, the Negro Sunday-schools of Taliaferro and adjacent counties, having assembled in a grove near Crawfordville to celebrate, expressed a wish to march in procession to Liberty Hall [Stephens’ residence], that afternoon and sing for its master. A cordial assent was given, and Stephens, then very feeble, was rolled in his chair out on the long piazza in view of the three thousand Negroes, men, women and children, gathered on the lawn. Having listened with great pleasure to the hymns that were sung, he addressed the sable assemblage. He, “advised them, cautioned them, encouraged them and, told them of the duties they owed themselves, of the duty of educating their children that they might understand the position in which they were placed, the new responsibilities that rested on them, and the all-importance of a faithful and intelligent performance of duty.” Finally, the three thousand Negroes then marched in file past and each touched the feeble hand of the invalid statesman.

    That’s right: In tacit but indisputable words, Stephens supported Black Americans not only voting, but taking part in government.

    Pendleton, Louis, ‘American Crisis Biographies: Alexander H. Stephens’, Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co. Publishers, 1907, 374-75.

    https://archive.org/details/alexanderstephens00pendrich/page/374/mode/2up?view=theater&q=%22adjacent%22

  63. Diary of Charles Francis Adams, 17 February 1862, US Consul to Great Britain.

    “Monday 17th
    London
    A visit from Bishop McIlvaine, who came to tell me the result of a conversation he had held at breakfast with Sir Culling Eardley this morning, that gentlemen had apprised him of the existence of rumors that Mr Mason had brought with him authority to make large offers towards emancipation if Great Britain would come to the aid of the confederates. He even specified their nature, as for example, the establishment of the marriage relation, the restoration of the right of manumission, and the emancipation of all born after a certain time to be designated. He had further intimated that31 these views were received favorably here and were the topic of discussion between the religious classes here and on the continent. I remarked upon the impudent character of this fraud, but yet that it needed to be energetically treated both here and at home. On this side it should be viewed by us with favour as making a basis for a possible pacification, whilst on the other the fact of such an intrigue should be made known far and wide among the deluded population who consider themselves as the champions of the highest type of civilization. I was even willing to go so far as to throw out the probability of a consent to their recognition provided that the emancipation should be made forthwith. The Bishop said that just such has been his sentiment. I added that I should write the information home even though not in any authentic form, and in the mean time should be glad of any thing that could fix the propositions upon Mr Mason or any of his crew, most completely. Quiet enough for most of the day. Long ramble before dinner in a drizzly rain. Evening, a little of the Contemporaine, who is inferior to what I supposed. Mr Weed came in. I had been that Mr Seward had ordered him to London, and sounding me to see what I thought of it. I replied to him kindly and gently. But my patience is gradually oozing out of me at this extraordinary practice of running me down with my own colleagues. This makes the forth full minister who has ranged over this manor just as if he was and I was not responsible for any mistake he might make. Mr Seward was not brought up in the school of refined delicacy of feeling or he would not have continued these inflections from the day of my secretary’s appointment down to this. I had thoughts of writing him a letter on the subject. But knowing how much he was already harassed by greater cares, I decided not to annoy him, but rather to speak confidentially to Mr Weed. So I did, but I found that I had touched the wrong chord, for he confessed he had urged Mr Motley’s coming. But on talking with me, he appeared to see the awkwardness of my position and to regret it.”

    -No matter what the CS Speech had outlined at face value, that cause it articulated had INDISPUTABLY changed!

    https://www.masshist.org/publications/cfa-civil-war/index.php/view/DCA62d048

  64. Yeah, NYGiant1952…

    All of these so far are proof that those who say the CS Speech of 28-03-1861 HAS to be accepted at face value are not only wrong; they are aggressively ignorant, propagandists rather than historians, and not just wrong, but demonstrably wrong in the most proveable manner.

    Go ahead; type off some ‘smark’ remark.

    Nothing changes the evidence that destroys the basis of your arguments.

  65. All to come are references that cite the 1862 Confederate Emancipation Treaty, Confederate emancipation and/or the Duncan F. Kenner Mission.

    Along with all the preceding, these challenge NYGiant1952’s arguments, especially his argument that the 28 March 1861 Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens ought to be accepted at face value, w/o critical reflection, what the Confederacy stood for, forever.

  66. UK, Aberdeen Journal, 18 September 1861.

    Herein, the ‘New York Independent’ is cited, for in that, Harriet Beecher Stowe is cited as saying that the Confederates are likely to attempt to emancipate before the Union and that the Union must ‘come from behind’ on this issue to prevent European recognition of the South.

  67. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916: Border State Congressmen to Abraham Lincoln, Tuesday, July 15, 1862 (Minority response to Lincoln’s proposal for compensated emancipation)

    Washington City. July 15th 1862
    Mr. President,

    The undersigned members of Congress from the border States in response to your address of Saturday last beg leave to say, that they attended a meeting on the same day the address was delivered for the purpose of considering the same; The meeting appointed a committee to report a response to your address. That report was made on yesterday and the action of the majority indicated clearly that the response reported, or one in substance the same would be adopted and presented to you.

    In as much as we cannot consistently with our own sense of duty to the country under the existing perils which surround us, concur in that response, we feel it to be due to you, and to ourselves, to make to you a brief and candid answer over our own signatures. We believe that the whole power of the Government, upheld and sustained by all the influences and means of all loyal men in all sections, and of all parties, is essentially necessary to put down the rebellion and preserve the Union and the Constitution. We understand your appeal to us to have been made for the purpose of securing the result. A very large portion of the people in the Northern States believe that slavery is the “lever power of the rebellion.” It matters not whether this belief be well founded or not. The belief does exist, and we have to deal with things as they are, and not as we would have them be.

    In consequence of the existence of this belief we understand that an immense pressure is brought to bear for the purpose of striking down this institution, through the exercise of military authority. The Government cannot maintain this great struggle if the support and influence of the men who entertain these opinions be withdrawn. Neither can the Government hope for early success if the support of that element called “Conservative” be withdrawn…

    …That in order to carry out these views, we will so far as may be in our power ask the people of the border states, calmly, deliberately, and fairly, to consider your recommendations. We are the more emboldened to assume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the Southern rebellion have offered to abolish slavery amongst them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation.

    If they can give up slavery to destroy the Union; We can surely ask our people to consider the question of Emancipation to save the Union.

    With great respect

    Your obt Servants

    A J Clements3
    3 Andrew Jackson Clements was a Unionist member of the Thirty-seventh Congress
    (1861-63) from Tennessee.
    Wm G Brown4
    4 William G. Brown
    Jacob B Blair5
    Abraham Lincoln papers http://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.1713000
    5 Blair, a Virginia politician and lawyer, was elected to Congress as a Unionist in order to
    fill the vacancy created by the resignation of John S. Carlile. After serving the remainder of
    Carlile’s term (1861-63), Blair was elected to represent the newly admitted state of West
    Virginia in the Thirty-eighth Congress (1863-65).
    W. T. Willey6
    6 William T. Willey was elected to represent Virginia in the U. S. Senate following the
    retirement of James M. Mason in 1861. After completing Mason’s term in 1863, Willey was
    elected to represent the new state of West Virginia in the Senate. He served in the Senate
    until 1871.
    Jno W Noell7
    7 John W. Noell represented Missouri in the U. S. House of Representatives as a Democrat
    (1859-63).
    Saml. L. Casey8
    8 Samuel L. Casey, a Kentucky politician and businessman, was elected to Congress in 1862
    to fill the vacancy created by the expulsion of Henry C. Burnett. Casey remained in Congress
    until 1863.
    Geo. P. Fisher 9
    9 George P. Fisher was a Unionist member of Congress (1861-63) from Delaware

    https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.1713000/?r=-0.279,0.686,1.512,0.62,0

    Now, why did James B. McPherson NOT cite this on page 503 of his, ‘Battle Cry of Freedom’? A historian has an obligation, upon determination of credibility, of citing ALL the relevant evidence, PARTICULARLY the strongest possible evidence against their argument, in order to be able to demonstrate how this does not successfully challenge their stance, at least in the main.

    McPherson, though I respect him, didn’t do this; there’s no excuse for that when it is cited right in the Abraham Lincoln papers at the Library of Congress.

    What I can say that this DOES do is: Destroy YOUR argument that the Cornerstone Speech of Alexander Stephens must be accepted at face value.

    You’ve lost at this point, bar none. Abraham Lincoln himself indisputably was aware that the South was willing to emancipate.

    That successfully challenges the National Narrative.

    But I’m not done with you on this history debate, yet, NYGiant1952-

    Not by a long shot. And no ‘smark’ is going to help your case.

  68. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916: Border State Congressmen to Abraham Lincoln, Tuesday, July 15, 1862 (Minority response to Lincoln’s proposal for compensated emancipation) Library of Congress.

    7 Border States Reps prepare a letter of response and support to Lincoln after his plans for compensated emancipation were not supported, except by Washington DC.

    “Washington City. July 15th 1862,

    Mr. President-

    The undersigned members of Congress from the border States in response to your address of Saturday last beg leave to say…That we, few of us though there may be, will permit no men from the north or from the south to go farther than we, in the accomplishment of the great work before us…We are the more emboldened to assume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the Southern rebellion have offered to abolish slavery amongst them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation.

    If they can give up slavery to destroy the Union; We can surely ask our people to consider the question of Emancipation to save the Union.”

    https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.1713000/?r=-0.279,0.686,1.512,0.62,0

    This, NYGiant1952, destroys utterly the argument that the terms of Stephens’ 28-03-61 CS Speech ought be accepted at face value.

    This, in Abraham Lincoln’s own possession, proves that that can not be successfully made as an argument.

    But I ain’t done yet…

  69. Hughie, a few comments.

    1. NO! One cannot combine what Stephens said in his Cornerstone Speech on March 21, 1861 and what he said after the war was over. The CS was the basis for the Confederate Government. What he said after the war was pure revisionism.

    2. What a racist writes one takes with a grain of salt. More Lost Cause myth.

    3. Show me where the Confederate States freed one slave during the Civil War. I can show you countless cases of Confederates kidnapping free Blacks North of the Mason Dixon Line and sending them back South and into bondage.

    4. The majority of Representatives form the Border States felt other wise.

    The President was disappointed in their response. “Twenty out of the twenty-eight border representatives and senators politely declined to act on his plea. But the result must not have surprised him, because he had already been at work on an alternative,” wrote historian Allen C. Guelzo.27 The majority sent President Lincoln a lengthy response two days after their meeting:

    http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/civil-war/congressional-action-inaction/compensated-emancipation/

    Anything else I can help you with?

  70. I can answer all those…

    But I’m in the midst of the Approximate 50, and you’re going to have every one of them put to you. Nowhere to run.

    I will answer one of your questions for you-

    …David White!

  71. April 8, 1862, “South Australian Register” (Colony of South Australia) reports:
    “A Southern Bait.— It is understood, in that indirect but accurate way in which great facts first get abroad, that the Confederacy have offered to England and France a price for active support. It is nothing less than a treaty securing free trade in its broadest sense for fifty years, the complete suppression of the import of slaves, and the emancipation of every negro born after the date of the signature of the treaty. In return they ask, first, the recognition of their independence; and secondly, such an investigation into the facts of the blockade, as must, in their judgement, lead to its disavowal. — ‘Spectator.’” (South Australian Register, Tuesday, April 8, 1862, page 3, BRITISH AND FOREIGN GLEANINGS)

  72. ‘The Daily British Colonist’, (colony of Vancouver Island) May 29, 1862-

    “The rumors of interference by France and England in American affairs are received, and it is even asserted that the South, in return for the intervention, will guarantee the emancipation of her slaves…The proposition for intervention comes from France…. The ‘Independence Belge’ asserts that the object of Lavulette’s recent visit to England was to induce England to consent to a common intervention in American affairs. England agreed on condition that the Roman question be first settled.”

  73. ‘Dundee Advertiser’, 25 September 1861 (UK)

    Harriet Beecher Stowe on Confederate emancipation again.

  74. ‘London Express’, 12 November 1861 (UK)

    Ooooohhhhhh…better get a copy of this one!

    It cites an 1859 speech by Robert Toombs saying the South always held for itself the power of emancipation and it was prepared to use it.

    Also that pro-Secessionists in Baltimore we’re calling for emancipation rather than permit the North to do so in 1861.

    1. Did the Confederacy adopt a policy of emancipation? Not really, but it was moving toward a decision to do so as it became apparent that only radical measures could save the Confederate nation. However, time ran out on the Stars and Bars before the Confederate government could act on a more broad-based emancipation.

      Maybe 200 slaves were freed to fight…but that amounts to nothing, really.

      Nice try though. Good thing I am here to push back against revisionism.

    1. I’ll take a break for a moment…

      (headshake…)

      So…something that was reported with striking consistency, literally all over the world, that was reported to the American Consul in Great Britain and cause that figure much alarm to say the very least, that the President of the Union was presented with (but in truth, already almost surely knew the substance of, if not the minor details), about the Confederates being willing to abolish slavery on an Emancipationist line is ‘rumours’…?

      ****1. NO! One cannot combine what Stephens said in his Cornerstone Speech on March 21, 1861 and what he said after the war was over. The CS was the basis for the Confederate Government. What he said after the war was pure revisionism.

      -What this collection of evidence so far proves is that to accept the CS Speech by Stephens at face value and as enduring of the Confederacy renders one’s argument instantaneously disproved.

      No matter the text of the CS Speech, that the Confederacy even made a single motion to abolish slavery in any capacity, to even consider doing it, is to disprove the stance you have set for yourself.

      Stephens and the Confederacy changed.

      And YES! Stephens post-war comments are perfectly legitimate to introduce for critical reflection and it is completely unacceptable to argue they are not.

      It’s more historical dishonesty by omission on your part.

      More to the point, reviewing this ‘change of demeanour’ by Stephens is the exact same as examining and acknowledging same or similar in Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Felix Brannigan, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Robert Gould Shaw, etc, etc, etc, etc.

      In other words, it shows that Stephens himself fits in the pattern that White Americans of the CW/WBTS Era whom lived through the conflict had a marked change in their racial outlooks.

      ****2. What a racist writes one takes with a grain of salt. More Lost Cause myth.

      Headshake…then each and every last, single human in America whom lived in this era has to be taken with such a grain of salt.

      That’s not necessarily bad observation at all; what strikes you down is that you obviously are inferring that the Union figures are to be accepted at face value, and the Confederates are to be read cynically.

      If you really followed your own advice, there’d be nobody to cite from in mid-1800s America, North or South.

      Do you think that John Brown himself would escape censure? What would be the likely outcome of enquiring his mind of the LGBTQI community..?

      ******3. Show me where the Confederate States freed one slave during the Civil War. I can show you countless cases of Confederates kidnapping free Blacks North of the Mason Dixon Line and sending them back South and into bondage.

      -Already answered.

      ****4. The majority of Representatives form the Border States felt other wise.

      The President was disappointed in their response. “Twenty out of the twenty-eight border representatives and senators politely declined to act on his plea. But the result must not have surprised him, because he had already been at work on an alternative,” wrote historian Allen C. Guelzo.27 The majority sent President Lincoln a lengthy response two days after their meeting:

      http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/civil-war/congressional-action-inaction/compensated-emancipation/

      Anything else I can help you with?

      -Your comment is pointless; the intell was passed on up to the very Executive Position in the United States that the Confederates were willing to emancipate. Nothing about the Border State majority rejoinder to Lincoln in any way, shape or form takes away from that.

  75. “At last, however, [Davis] was persuaded to favor gradual emancipation, and reluctantly he recommended the arming of the slaves.” In November, 1864, after Davis’s recommendation, the Confederate Congress began a several months’ debate upon the proposition for…emancipating a part of the slaves.”

    -Callahan, James Morton, ‘The Diplomatic History of the Confederacy’, The John Hopkins Press, 1901, 245-46.

    1. Sounds like the idea was tabled. No armed slaves in an organized regiment fought for the South.

      Now, I will admit there may have been an isolated slave who may have picked up a rifle, but as a fighting force, and as emancipation, it never occurred.

      Brown says that about 10,000 African Americans accompanied the ANV during the Gettysburg Campaign, and they were used as teamsters cooks and those who cared for the animals taken back South. Along with the kidnapped free Afro-Americans.

      1. …If I were you, I would be VERY hesitant to start pointing fingers about Black Americans impressed into slavery during the war, or before.

        I can tell you that there is an article coming out soon about that very topic…!

        I have no interest in personally debating the issue of Black Confederates beyond what it can infer about the topic of challenging that the CS Speech of Stephens be accepted at face value and enduring nature of the Confederacy.

        The latter point is what I refer back to, now.

        Shall we continue?

  76. ‘Howell Cobb thought it would be better to’…”concede the demands of England and France for the emancipation of the slaves and to enlist them afterwards.”

    -Callahan, ‘Diplomatic History – Confederacy’, 246.

    1. By that time, Great Britain had no interest in supporting the Confederacy. Fearful of going to war with the United States, Great Britain completely abandoned building ships that the Confederacy intended to use as raiders, and stopped furnishing them with armaments.

      Plus Great Britain never could work around out-lawing slavery and then supporting a state that was entirely based upon slaves and a slave-economy.

      1. It DID conduct relations with the USA since 1783…

        “Ours is a practical knowledge of the peculiar institution, gleaned from the panting lips of the refugees on our shores…”

        -George Brown, 3 February 1863, Canadian Abolitionist Society meeting.

        (Editor of the Toronto Globe/Father of Canadian Confederation/Founder & President of the Abolitionist Society of Canada since 1851)

        https://archive.org/details/cihm_48327

  77. Henry, William Wirt, ‘Kenner’s Mission to Europe’, The William & Mary Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 1, (July 1916), 9-12.

  78. Bauer, Craig A., ‘The Last Effort: The Secret Mission of The Confederate Diplomat, Duncan F. Kenner’, Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association , Vol. 22, No. 1 (Winter, 1981), 67-95.

  79. Duncan F. Kenner’s papers are held in the Louisiana State University’s Special Collections’ Library

  80. Brion McClanahan has also written a succint article on the DFK Mission. It’s available on the Abbeville Inst. webpage, “Jefferson Davis and the Kenner Mission”.

    Chock full of information that can be vetted!

  81. ‘The Confederate Debate Over Arming the Slaves: Views From Macon & Augusta Newspapers’, Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 79, No. 1, by Philip D. Dillard.

    This article is bursting with primary source cites. It very convincingly shows that by war’s end, the citizens of Georgia were completely willing to end slavery in their state for independence.

    It openly says that the outline of the CS Speech by Stephens was disavowed!

    1. Please stop leaving half a dozen single comments, and take the time to condense then into one rather than constantly posting 3-6 single comments each with one source. It clutters the inbox and the comment feed.

      1. My apologies.

        I’ve been trying to do that but my longer posts like that ‘disappear’ and never appear on screen.

        Is there a word count or something I can action?

  82. “…Duncan F. Kenner of Louisiana, the intimate friend of Benjamin…was asked by Mr. Benjamin to go to Europe with general instructions giving him not only full powers as a commissioner to make treaties and bind the Confederate States to the emancipation of slaves…These instructions were based upon the principle that the Confederacy was a de facto Government, and could take extra-constitutional power if necessary to its preservation…”

    -Callahan, ‘Diplomatic History – Confederacy’, 248.

    The apparent issue of the Confederate constitution preventing the federal government from legally in any way interfering with slavery would be bypassed in that all 11 Confederate states would abolish slavery in their state constitutions and to give the federal government a guarantee of this undertaking.

    The federal government in the Confederacy, having jurisdiction over foreign relations.

    1. Thank you Hugh De Mann for introducing this reference to Confederate diplomatic envoy Duncan Kenner. Although we focus on the Civil War, the Confederate States of America could also have achieved “world-recognized status as an Independent Nation” through its diplomatic efforts. For those interested in the full story of Duncan Kenner’s European assignment, here is a link to “The Last Effort: the Secret Mission of the Confederate Diplomat, Duncan F. Kenner” by Craig A. Bauer (1981) available via jstor: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4232057

      1. Via the 1862 near-clinched Confederate Emancipation Treaty and the Duncan F. Kenner Mission, the Confederate Battle Flag stands for the end of American slavery.

      1. And yet by making this offer, by being willing to abolish slavery, the Confederacy proved that the content of the CS Speech by Stephens did not necessarily at all define it.

        Shift, straw man, red herring, move the goal posts, etc.

        It all comes back to the point above that there’s no getting away from based on the evidence.

        I haven’t even yet produced here half of what I can, (or even a fraction of what there potentially is; I haven’t even looked at the French national archives, for example).

        NYGiant1952-

        I don’t need or want you to concede I’m right or something like that. I’m not concerned if you never do: Understand that.

        Rather, I WANT you to keep doing what you’ve done thus far. It’s helping me more when you shift, etc.

        Because each and every time you do that or similar, you’re proving you’re not a historian; you’re a propagandist!

        You’re proving you WONT critically reflect on rational evidence in a manner that square’s emotion and reason together.

        You’re proving with each turn you’ve done that you use and manipulate history and evidence in a nonsensical, ad hoc, nationalistic fashion to fulfil a virulent desperation in you to ‘feel’ like the unit you’ve sunk your individuality into and with is ‘winning’, and that you’ll adhere to that no matter what is brought forth that by any reasonable manner challenges that.

  83. Hugh and Giant … this feels like the Overland Campaign — lots of carnage, but no clear winner.

    how about we call a truce … you are both paroled and may return home with your sidearms, private horses and baggage where you will not be disturbed so long as you observe your paroles and play nice ?

  84. Hugh…you know as well as I do, that the Confederacy would never free the slaves no matter what they said. recall that I said that they were disingenuous in these discussions.

    Recall, we are talking about the entire economy of the South the is based on slave labor.

    Unless you are saying that the South was willing to destroy their economy and way of life.

    Nice try though.

  85. This evidence, even to date, proves they would have and they were not disingenuous.

    The best you can do is endlessly say, ‘nice try…’, to all this evidence is conceding defeat.

    They were willing to free; the fact cheque is in the bank and I’m cashing it.

  86. Hugh…the fact that they never freed the slaves proves they were disingenuous.

    One reason we know it’s false was that the Confederacy by policy flatly did not allow blacks to be soldiers until March of 1865. The Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

    Maybe 200 slaves were freed to fight…maybe.

    But the Confederacy was disingenuous to say that they were going to free their slaves. Never was going to happen.

    1. If the South had been truthful in their comments to free its slaves, then the slaves would have been liberated.

      If the slaves were not liberated, then the South was not truthful in its comments to free the slaves.

      This is basic logic 101 as taught is all Ivy League schools

      Nice try.

  87. You keep moving the goal posts.

    The fact that Confederate emancipation did not occur as an organised scheme en whole, (for lack of a better term), does not at all take away the fact it was willing to do so and that this was attempted.

    You put an argument that essentially said ALL Southerners or essentially all, agreed with the ‘at face value’ points about slavery and race as Stephens put in the CS Speech in a fixed manner.

    As well, you put essentially the argument that the ibid ‘at face value’ content of the CS Speech by him defined the Confederacy in unchanging manner.

    Even a sampling of the evidences I have brought forth disprove both such assertions.

    Your arguments have been disproven. I don’t care if you concede that or not.

    And your ‘logic’ is the same as if to posit, because the Confederates attempted to win their political independence and did not, that must mean they were disingenuous about actually desiring to do so.

    Just because a given outcome does not actually occur, it does not necessarily follow that the professed attempt to action and achieve it we’re not sincere.

    Because Lincoln was not actually able to convene total reconciliation between North and South, that does not necessarily mean he was insincere in the attempt.

  88. The REAL difference between you and me is this-

    I’m the kind of historian whom has been TAUGHT.
    You’re the kind which has been BRED.

      1. If that be so, then you lost on day one.

        My description above is a statement of factual accuracy.

  89. Hughie,
    The South wasn’t telling the. truth when they said they would free the slaves.

    Great Britain certainly didn’t’ believe them!

    I’ll await your next childish insult.

  90. If you want to read a childish insult, you’ll have to type it yourself.

    Your statement about Great Britain not believing the South’s offer to emancipate is completely incorrect.

    I have previously addressed that very point. I’m not repeating it.

    1. I think you are doing a pretty good job with the childish insults, though I was breaded.

      There is no evidence that Great Britain took the confederacy seriously, after the Emancipation Proclamation.

      other wise we would be saying that Davis freed the slaves.

      nice try though

      1. No; from the get go, you have sought to provoke, irritate and insult.

        You made it clear that you were going to goad and cross the line routinely from critical reflection of history to ideologuism and dogma.

        I believed you on that.

        Again, you shift and attempt to re-frame the topic. If the British didn’t take the Confederacy seriously, they would have outright refused to meet with Kenner and expelled Mason and all the latter’s staff from there.

        And Davis personally came to support the Duncan F. Kenner Mission and the abolishing of slavery. I suggest you read the following to gain an accurate understanding of Davis’ conversion to Emancipationism and his willingness to lend his support and efforts to abolish the institution from the South.

        -The Diplomatic History of the Confederacy, by James M. Callahan: Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1901.

        https://archive.org/details/diplomatichist00callrich

  91. How can a country that abolished slavery years before the US did , associate itself with a country whose only pillar is slavery? Recall the CS speech.

    pesky think that pesky CS.

    1. Well, it DID associate itself with a country that had enshrined from coast to coast the institution of slavery in its very constitution, (what Robert E. Lee very accurately described as that country’s “national sins”).

      That country’s flag would be lamented by David Wilmot, in his regret and opposition, but nevertheless, his concession that the argument could well be made that it’s very appearance and presence was synonymous with slavery.

      A country which both two enormously significant figures described in nearly identical terms, 16 years apart, as rendering association, responsibility and guilt to ALL the people of ALL sections of that country.

      Yes, Great Britain had conducted relations with this country even when it invaded a country which set itself completely in opposition to that dreadful institution of fields, barns, whips, chains, bills of sale and bedrooms, to expand and protect that very institution by acquiring lands to create new geo-political units which would enact that institution.

      To minimise that is to enable the historical evil of that system.

      How could Great Britain DO that? Well, lets look further at the history of that very country. Some would deny or minimise these facts to this very day.

      1. Hughie,

        What you don’t like is “push-back”.

        Did Queen Victoria ever meet with Confederate envoys?

        And what happened when Great Britain realized they faced war with the United States for building ships the Confederates used as raiders.

        Please tell us the date the Great Britain recognized the Confederate States of America.

        I can wait.

        Nice try though. And thank you for your comments and support.

    2. You’ve long since lost on the CS Speech debate. You do not have the historical skills to read it like a historian, but rather as a nationalist.

      As for me, I routinely apply myself to reading that speech…

      …AND this one!

      Now, which is the one that is important to read to understand the Confederacy?

      I say BOTH! And all others, along with all other evidence, I can get my hands on.

      A nationalistic, dogmatic ideologue, for whom history serves the purpose of seemingly bolstering the emotional power and prestige for the unit his has sunken his individuality into will dissuade from such an approach.

      29 November 1864, Confederate Senate.

      Gustavus A. Henry, Tennessee.

      “…we are struggling in this war for the right of self- government. These few words cover the whole ground, and elucidate the issue we have joined with our enemies. All others are minor considerations*and are merged in it. The contest about our domestic institutions, the right of the States to legalize, destroy or perpetuate them, as an attribute of their sovereignty, are all embraced under the general idea, and purely an American one, the right of the people to self-government…we hold that governments have no rightful authority over men, except by the consent of the governed… my own noble Tennessee…Thousands of my constituents…They say, ” we do not care for the loss of our property, but give us, oh, give us independence to our country…”

      https://archive.org/details/03704452.4153.emory.edu/page/n1/mode/2up?view=theater

      1. Yawn.

        Still trying to revise history? Realize that “our domestic institutions”,= slavery.

        Nice try though. Good thing I understand the nuances of the English language.

        Anything else I can help you with/? A book to read perhaps?

  92. Yes; notice in the quote above that while he is obviously citing slavery, and its preservation, as a form of states’ rights, he is also citing in the same breath it ABOLITION as same!

    And he makes the point irrefutable in the context I’m putting when he cites that Tennesseans that he represents would be willing to obviously abolish slavery to gain political independence.

    One speech, then another.

    Now which is the historian to examine?

    That’s a trick question: A proper historian will cite and critically reflect on BOTH and every other scrap of evidence that they can get their hands on!

    To make any argument or state any reason to not do so is instantaneously to abandon the position of the historian and occupy that of the nationalistic ideologue.

    1. yawn.

      Talk is cheap.

      Actions speak louder than words.

      And in the Confederacy, there was no action behind any words regarding emancipation of there slaves.

      ergo, they were disingenuous.

      Anything else you need help with understanding the Civil War?

  93. *****Hughie,

    *****What you don’t like is “push-back”.

    -Not at all. I take issue with passing dogma off as historical critical reflection and evidence.

    *****Did Queen Victoria ever meet with Confederate envoys?

    -Headshake…

    Yet again, you prove that you don’t understand the Westminster system.

    Meeting with the Monarch, in and of itself, is not a recognition of sovereignty by Great Britain.

    The Queen met several times with BOTH Tom Thumb and Buffalo Bill Cody; does that mean that she recognized them as American diplomats?

    She also met with Sir John A. MacDonald, Sir George Entiene Cartier and George Brown in 1865 in London; these guys were to be the political leaders of the soon to be Dominion of Canada-

    Does that mean she recognised Canada as a wholly sovereign nation?

    ****And what happened when Great Britain realized they faced war with the United States for building ships the Confederates used as raiders.

    -So? That is not not partial to any point that I’ve made and you keep harping on this as a distraction to the main point.

    This has nothing to do with Confederate emancipation, the CS Speech, etc, etc, etc.

    You can keep trying to red herring this and I’m going to keep pointing out it as a red herring.

    ****Please tell us the date the Great Britain recognized the Confederate States of America.

    I can wait.

    -And again, you are trying to shift and red herring.

    You’re not a historian; you’re an ideologue and a nationalist.

    ****Nice try though. And thank you for your comments and support.

    -No, I didn’t support you on anything. You can thank me for nothing.

    There is practically nothing in any of the views you have ever espoused I can find much merit in.

    That’s another statement of factual accuracy.

    1. Hughie,

      I apologize for pushing back against your trite dogma.

      Thank you for agreeing with me about Queen Victoria never meeting with any Confederate envoys.

      Evidently Great Britain realized the folly of having any relations with the Confederacy, especially if it was going to start a war with eh United States.

      Another pesky fact!

  94. I didn’t ask you to apologise for anything. And I don’t speak in dogma, not now or ever.

    You stating that Queen Victoria never meeting with the Confederate envoys is another red herring that has nothing to do with anything connected to Confederate emancipation, critically reflection on the CS Speech by Stephens or any other substantive point between us.

    I won’t thank you for refraining from that, as I shouldn’t have to point it out in the first place. The fact you’re again going to ‘shift’, etc, as sure as you’re reading this post doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

    The fact that Great Britain did not recognise the Confederacy as a sovereign nation does not mean that it never had ‘relations’ with it.

    Great Britain sold untold amounts of arms to the Confederacy; it was willing to go to war with the Union if Mason and Slidell were not released and the Empire was put on high alert to prepare for war with regards this; Charles Francis Adams was demanded to personally attend on Prime Minister Palmerston about that very fact for an explanation; Great Britain gave the Confederacy belligerent status; Kenner et al had a meeting with Palmerston himself; Disareli and Lord Stanley personally assessed how to get a foreign observer into the Confederacy by way of Mexico, (Col. Arthur Fremantle, as it turned out); the British commented on how Lincoln blockading the ports of the Confederacy was de facto a recognition of it as a sovereign nation; there was a great deal of support/admiration for the Confederacy from Britain/Ireland and around the Empire…

    Not to mention, the Empire nearly went to war with the Confederacy at the end of the war, and again, over a ship, (the reverse of the Trent Affair, that very few know about).

    I could go on.

    And I’m prepared at the drop of a hat to demonstrate in front of everyone on here the evidence of all the above. I want you to deny it and challenge me on it.

    1. The only support the Confederacy got the British were the aristocrats and Lords who were still upset at losing the American Revolution.

      The common wage-earning Brit knew the Civil war was a war between slave-labor and wage -labor.

      The Irish would have revolted when they heard the US invaded Canada.

      Seriously, have you studied anything about the Civil War?

  95. ***The only support the Confederacy got the British were the aristocrats and Lords who were still upset at losing the American Revolution.

    The common wage-earning Brit knew the Civil war was a war between slave-labor and wage -labor.

    The Irish would have revolted when they heard the US invaded Canada.

    Seriously, have you studied anything about the Civil War?***

    ‘Leicester Chronicle’, 11 October 1862:

    “President Lincoln…declares on January 1st, 1863, all slaves within any state or part of a state, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the Federal Government, shall be thenceforward and forever free…It is obvious that this step is taken from other motives than those which a pure and sincere desire to emancipate the negroes would inspire. It is taken “too late in the day” to obtain the respect of the friends of human freedom on those grounds…That the Northerners have all along looked at the question of slavery as one to play “fast and loose with”…For the negro they cared very little…It is extremely difficult then, for any friend of freedom, to “get up” admiration for the Northerners on account of the recent proclamation and utterly impossible to regard their moral position as raised…the continual butchery perpetuated by the Northern authorities, in their persistence in the war, is a wicked sacrifice of life and criminal perversity in bloodshed.’

    I’d like to point out that Leicester was the epicenter of the British working class cotton mill area and the local press reflected true blue British working class views and opinions.

    The 1866 Fenian Risings in America/Canada sparked out; the 1867 Irish Rising was snuffed out by the British forces.

    I’ve already discussed the numbers game with India troops.

    Shrug…

    Well?

    How about you repeat the old empty calls you have all along?

    1. Evidently the editors didn’t realize the political significance of the EP, as you don’t.

      Nice try though.

      Still no facts.

      Let me know when you finally present a fact.

      1. His entire premise of his post above has been completely disproved with the very sort of evidence he as good as stated didn’t exist…

        …it was shown in no uncertain terms to exist and then some!

        Now, for me, do I posit that the above as good as ‘totally answers the entire issue of Britain – working class – The EP’, etc, etc, etc…?

        Not at all. How could I when the Manchester Workingmens Petition of the following year exists, for only one example to cite?

        I couldn’t; I wouldn’t. There’s an OCEAN of evidence to engage with and more questions to put to it than I could ever conceive.

        This is your problem; in all seriousness-

        You don’t know how to engage with evidence that doesn’t advance your arguments.

        You don’t know how to deal with history you disagree with, or at least, are not mainly convinced by.

        That’s why when challenged successfully in part or in whole, all you can do is shift, red herring, etc, or all the more knuckle down with sheer determination on the arguments or evidence you’ve cast your lit with, WILLING it to be true as you conceive it in the most extreme emotional terms.

        That’s the sign of indoctrination.

        That’s the sign of ‘power hunger tempered by self deception’, in Orwell’s words.

        It’s time for you to pick up at least one piece of historical writing you DONT agree with.

        If you’re correct in your views, it cant challenge you. Matter of fact, it STRENGTHENS your arguments for many reasons.

        But if you wont, I’ve proven in front of all here why-

        You fear it! You fear it as deep down you’re scared it has at least some merit.

        That’s why you’ve argued as you do.

        I’ve proven exactly what I set out to do.

  96. Hughie,

    A shame you can’t present the evidence. Perhaps it doesn’t exist?

    Chew on this for a while….Britain’s workers and its radical middle classes, on the other hand, were seen as staunch Unionists who believed the North was a champion of democracy.

    Game set match to the NYGiant 1952.

    Next time come prepared to debate and not just babble.

    1. Again, he takes the position of Santa Claus declaring he doesn’t and won’t believe in the world.

      The evidence has been set out by me a hundred times over and every last person has irrevocably witnessed it.

      Get this straight, Wild Wright; Britain and its working classes, radicals, etc, did not universally regard the CW/WBTS in the manner you set.

      Go ahead and state ‘I won’, ‘Game set match’, etc.

      Everyone on here has seen who won and I don’t need a single person, least of all, yourself, to tell me that.

      It’s time for you to grow up by showing the growth and courage to read history that challenges your world view, as I read Humphrey McQueen, Gerard and Anne Henderson, Bede Nairn, Francis De Groot, Eric Campbell, Stanley Bruce, Sir Earle Page, Dame Enid Lyons, Rodney Cavalier, etc.

      1. Under my dual colours of the American flag and the Confederate Battle flag; they both catching the wind, together, I reassert my position and take not a step back

  97. Hughie…There was no such thing as a “Confederate” battle flag. What you are referring to is the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

    “On November 28, 1861, Confederate soldiers in General Robert E. Lee’s newly reorganized Army of Northern Virginia received the new battle flags in ceremonies at Centreville and Manassas, Virginia, and carried them throughout the Civil War. …From then on, the battle flag grew in its identification with the Confederacy and the South in general….The Army of Northern Virginia battle flag assumed a prominent place post-war when it was adopted as the copyrighted emblem of the United Confederate Veterans. Its continued use by the Southern Army’s post-war veteran’s groups, the United Confederate Veterans (U.C.V.) and the later Sons of Confederate Veterans, (S.C.V.), and elements of the design by related similar female descendants organizations of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, (U.D.C.), led to the assumption that it was, as it has been termed, “the soldier’s flag” or “the Confederate battle flag.”

    The square “battle flag” is also properly known as “the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia”.

    operative word being….assumption

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America

    There, I fixed your comment for you!
    You’re welcome!!
    I am surprised you didn’t know this, being the Civil War expert that you are.(turning off sarcasm font)

    And you do know that the Battle Flag of the ANV has become an enduring symbol of racism.

    1. ***”… the battle flag grew in its identification with the Confederacy and the South in general…”

      In light of this fixation on splitting hairs of irrelevant minutia details that contribute very little, if any and that is doubtful, productive meaning to the issue, I put this to you-

      17 September 1864, ‘Harper’s Weekly’, VOL. VIII.—No. 403:

      The main depiction shows the Confederate Battle Flag, (which it is explicitly called, save for the word ‘Confederate’), at the Battle of Ezra Church, Georgia).

      Thereby, as evidence from contemporary primary sources, it IS accurate to call the flag depicted ‘the Confederate Battle Flag’, which I have, which I will.

      http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1864/rebel-battle-flag.htm

      Headshake…You really DO put that emotion equals historical fact, don’t you…?

      If you will say that the Confederate Battle Flag, (and drop the smark!), is an enduring symbol of racism, rather than standing for the American progression to emancipation and the Southern view of the American constitution and federalism, simply because ‘people feel this’, then you can just stop putting any and all replies to me, PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!

      That would be the absolute justification of Orwellian, emotional nationalism!!! He even cites flags in his famed essay!

      If you will say anything of the essence that, ‘Because people FEEL that it is so, it is so’, then I have to put this sense to you-

      Then how honestly and accurately are people basing their understanding of history with their emotions?

      (Shrug)

      Does the CBF have racism intertwined in its history? Yes.

      Does the American flag? Yes. It also was the flag that championed the genocidal sentiments of the Aboriginals and French Canadians by the American colonists.

      Are you going to even dare to argue that the America did not conduct genocide to its Native people?

      The American flag was also the flag of the 3/5 and Fugitive Slave tenets in the American constitution.

      Thereby, the American flag is just as racist in its history as the CBF: BOTH also represent the challenge to American racism and the triumph of emancipation over slavery.

      Here’s the ultimate test for you; tell me, which does the Irish tri-colour represent?

      Freedom or Terrorism?

      The honest answer is: Both.

      We’ll see just how honest you really are now.

    2. You tell me that the American flag doesn’t have a history of racism.

      I’ll call you out on it!

      You tell me that both the Confederate Battle Flag and the American Flag’s histories do not also include the progressive move from slavery to emancipation: I’ve put that of the former to rest long ago.

      You tell me that emotion equals fact, in and of itself, and must be accepted as such, regardless of objective evidence to challenge: That will mean that Settler Colonialist historians were 100% correct when they said to my face that Ulysses S. Grant was Adolph Hitler incarnate of the 1800s for what he did to Native Americans, (what he did to Jews and Black Americans not even being considered, they said!) And that anyone who in any way, shape or form even considers putting a different interpretation/argument/etc, about that Grant is defending genocide!

      DID Grant engage in genocidal practices against the Native Americans? The answer is yes! But in light of all the circumstances and evidence pertaining to the issue, while he is certainly to be accounted a measure of fair and balanced criticism in his legacy for this, it is WRONG! to aliken him to Hitler, as I put back to them! I will not go on about how I defended him at this time, but part of what THEY did put was that the American Flag, thereby, to Native Americans is exactly the same as the Nazi Swastika and has to be considered such unquestioningly.

      The statement, ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’, is bollocks! That means, you sidestep entirely the rational questions to be answered by simply morally approving of the cause/s that the figure/s in question fight for.

      Terrorism is best understood as a range of tactics and actions designed to achieve control and power through terror that are engaged or considered, such as setting off an explosion to free prisoners from jail, knowing that non-involved civilians can be killed or wounded and doing it anyways.

      What am I describing? The Clerkenwell Explosion in December of 1867.

      Or subjecting persons to torture in order to extract information.

      What am I describing? The bowels of Dublin Castle where Irish Republicans were brought and encouraged to ‘chat’ with the use of creative devices and means.

      1. The battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, today, is seen as a symbol of racism.

        Today, the American Flag is interpreted as representing liberty and freedom. And is still the hope of all peoples as it represents the best hope for humanity

        Nice try though.

  98. Hughie, Hughie, Hughie..your reference says no such thing. The caption never mentions the “Confederate” battle flag of the 30th Louisiana. Presenting it just shows me you are grasping at straws. In fact, you even admit its not the Confederate Battle Flag.
    I’m correct again!

    You really are not that well informed regarding the Civil War.

    Fact is, the ANV Battle Flag…the correct name, is now interpreted along with racism.

    That American Flag is associated with freedom.

    Nice try though.
    Anything else I can help you with?

    1. Nope. Save for the word ‘Confederate’ it does explicitly say ‘Battle Flag’ and as it is perfectly obvious it is was in the possession of the Confederate Army in Georgia, the reference is accurate.

      You win contempt very successfully again.

      If you put that argument out there, regardless of the facts, then again you’ve proven yourself a nationalistic ideologue and a liar.

      See my latest post about the American and Confederate Battle Flags…

      1. You said “Confederate” Battle Flag. There was no such thing. It was the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

        You are assuming that the flag that is drawn, was at the Battle of Ezra Church. You assume too much.

        Scholars don’t assume they deal in facts.

        Nice try .

  99. Now, reading my posts, do you still say emotion equals fact about flags?

    If you do, I’d have to simply shrug and leave you to explain to the historiographical school of Patrick Wolfe, Penny Edmonds, Lorenzo Veracini, Leigh Boucher, Jon Piccini, Margaret D. Jacobs, etc, etc.

    They’ll tell you this about the American Flag-

    “No pride in genocide!”

    What’s your response? Do you deny that Americans conducted genocide against Native Americans? That it was the flag of freedom for Americans to attempt to wipe out the First Nations?

    1. Hugh, Since I out-debated you, you are now moving the goal posts.

      Please stick to the discussion at hand and not wander off. Please try and stay focused.

      1. ***The battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, today, is seen as a symbol of racism.

        Today, the American Flag is interpreted as representing liberty and freedom. And is still the hope of all peoples as it represents the best hope for humanity

        Nice try though.***

        -The Confederate Battle Flag, (cited here as the ‘Rebel’ Battle Flag in the OR), is as much a symbol, based on the historical evidence, as the American flag can claim to be.

        The case of it as much as coming to embrace emancipation is an argument you could not then, and can not now, refute.

        You lost that one, hardcore…

        If you’re saying emotion equals fact…you may want to think again there…

        https://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/08/colin-kaepernick-49ers-national-anthem-sit-explains

  100. ***You said “Confederate” Battle Flag. There was no such thing. It was the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

    You are assuming that the flag that is drawn, was at the Battle of Ezra Church. You assume too much.

    Scholars don’t assume they deal in facts.

    Nice try .****

    -So you’re saying that the artist in question didn’t witness what he drew? Where is your evidence for that? Why would a Northern correspondent want to lie about such a scene and call the Confederate Battle Flag, ‘the Battle Flag’.

    Where is your evidence in assuming it wasn’t?

    Another little ‘desperation drive’…?

    So this is your new little scheme, huh? Trying to make a deal about the title of the Confederate Battle Flag?

    Another shift.

    No Giantly; you don’t have an argument to put. Anything you put about this topic is irrelevant and simply desperation to ‘feel’ you ‘won’ something.

    The Confederate Battle Flag stands for the South deciding to end slavery and embrace emancipation, via the 1862 Confederate Emancipation Treaty and the Duncan F. Kenner Mission.

    The Cause of the Confederacy changed. That’s why I salute it.

    The evidence has long put you to rest on that.

    1. There was no such thing as a “Confederate” Battle flag. You can’t even find a citation that uses the word, “Confederate”.

      The Cause of the Confederacy didn’t change. The Cause became “Lost” when Lee and the rebels surrendered . We call that revisionism.

      Nice try at changing history.

  101. There was no such thing as a “Confederate ” Battle Flag. You saying it does;t make it correct no matter how many time s you write it. It’s the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, and today is considered a symbiol of racism.

    The rest of your comment is just a diversion. Which you brought up since you were losing the debate.

    Nice try though

  102. T”he Confederate Battle Flag stands for the South deciding to end slavery and embrace emancipation, via the 1862 Confederate Emancipation Treaty and the Duncan F. Kenner Mission.”

    This is pure revisionism!! Only a Lost Cause supported could believe this.

    1. *****T”he Confederate Battle Flag stands for the South deciding to end slavery and embrace emancipation, via the 1862 Confederate Emancipation Treaty and the Duncan F. Kenner Mission.”

      This is pure revisionism!! Only a Lost Cause supported could believe this.***

      -No. Only an adherent of what is called ‘Devil Theory’ originally, or ‘False Storyism’, so as I’ve seen it termed on the net these days, would argue it isn’t, based on the evidence I’ve long since levelled you, like the No. 9 Long Island Train, Boxcar.

      1. Sorry….but you comment about the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia is not based on fact but on whimsey and make-believe.

        And the Lost cause.

  103. ***Hugh, Since I out-debated you, you are now moving the goal posts.

    Please stick to the discussion at hand and not wander off. Please try and stay focused.***

    -No, no, actually. If you want to have that discussion about what the American Flag stands for, then I offer you the opportunity now to do so.

    Convince THEM that you’re right about what the American Flag stands for…

    ““I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.”

    -Colin Kaepernick

    https://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/08/colin-kaepernick-49ers-national-anthem-sit-explains

    “Then there were two or three pale-faced…Canadian French gentlemen there…the Canadians here a rather poor-looking race…” Thoreau, Henry David, ‘A Yankee in Canada’, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1881, 9-10.

    Henry David Thoreau on French Canadians being an inferior race.

    https://archive.org/details/cihm_64051/page/n5/mode/2up

    “Grant viewed his policy as an alternative to violence, said Brooks Simpson, a history professor at Arizona State University. As Indians and settlers clashed over a decreasing expanse of land, Grant’s plan to assimilate Indians into white culture came as a “moral” solution to a centuries-old problem.

    “Some historians see it as generous, humane, thoughtful—and that would be part of the story,” Simpson said. “The other part would be that it called on Natives to assimilate, to retreat to reservations and become more like white Americans. You could argue that he was committing cultural genocide.”

    https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/ulysses-s-grant-mass-genocide-through-permanent-peace-policy

    Sitting Bull…

  104. If after all the evidence I have laid out, or rather, that I cared to lay out at that time, that the Confederate Cause changed during the war to embrace emancipation, you refuse to accept it on here, good!

    I want you to refuse to accept it!!!

  105. Gee…even the contemporaneous Northern sources called it, ‘the Confederate Battle Flag’, and other synonymous wording…

    Having settled that, and that the CBF flew over a changed Confederate cause, (shrug), do we have a chat about the American flag?

    ‘[When] Chief Red Cloud…first saw the U.S. Army fly the American flag over Fort Laramie, he asked, “What’s that?” That’s the symbol of the United States, he was told. Red Cloud took an eagle feather and tied it to an arrow. He shot the arrow into the flagpole above the American flag, where the eagle feather flew in the breeze. “The Eagle Feather is the flag of the Lakota Oyate,” Red Cloud said.’

    -Source, https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/we-the-native-peoples

    1. No citation at all calls it the ‘confederate’ battle flag. Even the source you cite, doesn’t call it a Confederate” battle Flag. Or did you forget that?

      The fact is….the Flag is the battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia…Fact.
      Now that YOU understand that, you can see your folly.

      Any mention of Native Americans is a diversion from the discussion that YOU brought up.

      Nice try though.

      Anything else that I can educate you regarding the Civil War?

      1. No citation calls it the Confederate Battle Flag…?

        You are so dishonest, your word is not to be trusted as to what colour the sky is.

        In SCORES of contemporaneous primary sources and secondary sources it is called ‘The Confederate Battle Flag’ and synonymous wording, including the Library of Congress newspapers’ link I put up there that everyone can see.

        YOU are the one whom has had factual history put to him!!

        Next, if you want to debate about flags’ association with racism, you better be prepared to explain about the Stars and Stripes!

        That’s a battle you can’t hide from! You call such out, be prepared to answer for it!!

        Come one, deny and shift!

        I’m ready for it!!

  106. ****”Sorry….but you comment about the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia is not based on fact but on whimsey and make-believe.

    And the Lost cause….Your evidence is non-factual.”****

    -Mmmmmmmm…nah.

    My comments are based on accurate knowledge of the factual, actual, historical evidence.

    Like, you remember the 25 January 1862 ‘UK Spectator’ copy about the Confederate Emancipation Treaty? Or Lincoln’s papers? Charles Francis Adams? The ‘South Australia Register’?

    Or like, the ‘London Express’, 19 November 1861, that cited Toombs from 2 years earlier saying the South had emancipation under its own jurisdiction and it was prepared to use it? Or like those approximate 6 piece of primary evidence showing that Jefferson Davis came to support emancipation? And the one about Stonewall Jackson in McGuire’s Memoirs?

    Like, I never even got to the about 12 pieces of primary evidence about Robert E. Lee being an Emancipationist like this-

    Lee Family Digital Archives, https://leefamilyarchive.org/9-family-papers/827-robert-e-lee-to-mary-anna-randolph-custis-lee-1864-january-24

    Lee to his wife, 24 January 1864,

    “As regards the people at Romancoke, I much prefer their receiving their free papers & seeking their fortune. It has got to be done & it was in accordance with your father’s will. I am unable to attend to them & I am afraid they will suffer or come to some harm. I do not see why they can not be freed & hire themselves out as others do, & think it might be accomplished. I am afraid there is some desire on the part of the community to continue them in slavery, which I must resist.”

    Like, remember me putting all this out there? Remember?

  107. Or like, remember how Howell Cobb Is always quoted one way about slavery at the end of the war-

    BUT!

    I showed the full scope of his words and it proved that he was prepared to accept emancipation and Black American troops for the South.

    Only a nationalistic, dishonest ideologue False Storyite would try to deny or hide or lie about evidence like that…

  108. Go ahead; deny the evidence that I’ve put.

    I want you to because each and every time, Giant, that you do, it’s another slash to YOUR historical credibility.

    Keep on keeping on at it!

    I don’t need you to concede the slightest thing at any point.

    You showed me what you are long ago and I’ve treated you like it.

    1. Never insulted you.

      I told you the plain truth.

      You’re a nationalistic, historically dishonest ideologue; not a historian or even a history buff.

      And no; you haven’t out debated me on a thing, either.

      Another thing you ought realise but now is I’m not going to back down.

      Keep denying, etc. I’m not going anywhere.

      Literally right now, you’re communicating off-screen with your friends about harking to me this or that and they’re all giving you ‘Atta boys!’, ‘yeah, tell him this, that! Do it!’

      …do you notice they’re not getting on here to help you? They’re sticking it to YOU to put your words in permanency here to look like a fool by what you’re posting back.

      Like King Kong, I’ll wrangle three or more to one and I’ll still prevail.

      I’m not going anywhere.

      1. Your continued insults just supports my out-debating you.

        Before continuing, please study the Civil War as I am taking you to school.

  109. Now, about ‘Confederate Battle Flag’ in contemporaneous evidence during the war…

    -13 October 1864, Litchfield Enquirer (Conn.)

    -1 May 1863 & 24 July 1864 Muscatine Weekly Journal (Iowa), (the first one is quite good!)

    -3 May 1863, Sunday Dispatch (NY)

    -14 November 1863, NY Herald (NY)

    -14 May 1863, Hillsborough Highland Weekly News, (my fave!)

    Shall I go in…?

    Seriously? Can we read them together?

    Say, what did Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain say about the Confederate Battle Flag? Something about the courage of the men who fought beneath it.

      1. Yo-

        See above.

        That was pretty stupid to say…

        Better luck with ‘War Between The States’

  110. Tell you what here-

    Chamberlain is a good lead in on this.

    Let me help you with your next shift; why dont you attack the very title of the term ‘War Between The States’?

    Chamberlain made a statement on that in the 1880s, castigating it.

    Go ahead; I’ll give you the first three posts.

  111. Oh…so now you want to make something up after I have out-debated you?

    Why don’t you make the premise a bit more narrower…LOL

    Boy…just ask and I will apologize for out-debating you.

  112. I challenge you to a ‘Loser Leaves Town’ match.

    Now I’ll bet that I can show you something with evidence that proves it, that will melt your mind.

    I’ll bet you I can prove something that you’ll hate SO much, you won’t be able to stand it and there’ll be no denying it!

    Nolan, Gallagher, McPherson, all them guys, lol! They were too scared by it! Lol!!

    And you! Lol!!! You don’t have the courage either. I just know it!!

    YYYYYYEEEEOOOOWWWW!

    Lol!

    1. Cut the bollocks-

      Challenge!

      And nothing in any of the writings of Gary Gallagher, James McPherson, Alan T. Nolan, etc, will help you…!

  113. Ninety-seven pages (as my computer counts after converting this thread to PDF). It is somewhat shorter, so far, than a previous thread in which the two of you were firing volleys (albeit interesting and informative) at each other.
    In my opinion, neither of you have “won” or “lost” this debate. Maybe time to ring the bell and move on to a new topic?.

    1. I can do that. I’ve no problem with it.

      But I can also disclose historical evidence here which will shake the very ground, just by demonstrating that it exists.

      I’ve offered a challenge to NYGiant1952; what’s their response?

    2. I will say though, Taylor, I recognise you are trying to move the topic and webpage forward. I respect the aim of your intervention.

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