Praise For Lee And Jackson
January is often referred to as “Generals Month” as no less than four famous Confederate Generals claimed January as their birth month: James Longstreet (Jan. 8, 1821), Robert E. Lee (Jan. 19, 1807), Thomas Jonathan Jackson (Jan. 21, 1824), and George Pickett (Jan. 28, 1825). Two of these men, Lee and Jackson, are particularly noteworthy. This is especially true, as this year will mark General Lee’s two hundredth birthday.
Without question, Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson were two of the greatest military leaders of all time. Even more, the Lee and Jackson tandem is regarded by many military historians as having formed perhaps the greatest battlefield duo in the history of warfare. If Jackson had survived the battle of Chancellorsville, it is very possible that the South would have prevailed at Gettysburg and perhaps would even have won the War Between The States.
In fact, it was Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the British armies in the early Twentieth Century, who said, “In my opinion, Stonewall Jackson was one of the greatest natural military geniuses the world ever saw. I will go even further than that-as a campaigner in the field, he never had a superior. In some respects, I doubt whether he ever had an equal.”
While the strategies and circumstances of the War Of Northern Aggression can (and will) be debated by professionals and laymen alike, one fact is undeniable: Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson were two of the finest Christian gentlemen this country has ever produced. Both their character and their conduct were beyond reproach.
Unlike his northern counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, General Lee never sanctioned or condoned slavery. Upon inheriting slaves from his deceased father-in-law, Lee immediately freed them. And according to historians, Jackson enjoyed a familial relationship with those few slaves which were in his home. In addition, unlike Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, neither Lee nor Jackson ever spoke disparagingly of the black race.
As those who are familiar with history know, General Grant and his wife held personal slaves before and during the War Between The States, and even Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free them. They were not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed after the conclusion of the war. Grant’s excuse for not freeing his slaves was that “good help is so hard to come by these days.”
Furthermore, it is well established that Jackson regularly conducted a Sunday School class for black children. This was a ministry he took very seriously. As a result, he was dearly loved and appreciated by the children and their parents.
In addition, both Jackson and Lee emphatically supported the abolition of slavery. In fact, Lee called slavery “a moral and political evil.” He also said “the best men in the South” opposed it and welcomed its demise. Jackson said he wished to see “the shackles struck from every slave.”
To think that Lee and Jackson (and the vast majority of Confederate soldiers) would fight and die to preserve an institution they considered evil and abhorrent is the height of absurdity. It is equally repugnant to impugn and denigrate the memory of these remarkable Christian gentlemen.
In fact, after refusing Abraham Lincoln’s offer to command the Union Army in 1861, Robert E. Lee wrote to his sister on April 20 of that year to explain his decision. In the letter he wrote, “With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the army and save in defense of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed . . .”
Lee’s decision to resign his commission with the Union Army must have been the most difficult decision of his life. Remember that Lee’s direct ancestors had fought in America’s War For Independence. His father, “Light Horse Harry” Henry Lee, was a Revolutionary War hero, Governor of Virginia, and member of Congress. In addition, members of his family were signatories to the Declaration of Independence.
Remember, too, that not only did Robert E. Lee graduate from West Point at the top of his class, he is yet today the only cadet to graduate from that prestigious academy without a single demerit.
However, Lee knew that what Lincoln was about to do was both immoral and unconstitutional. As a man of honor and integrity, the only thing Lee could do was that which his father had done: fight for freedom and independence. And that is exactly what he did.
Instead of allowing a politically correct culture to sully the memory of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson, all Americans should hold them in a place of highest honor and respect. Anything less is a disservice to history and a disgrace to the principles of truth and integrity.
Accordingly, it was more than appropriate that the late President Gerald Ford, on August 5, 1975, signed Senate Joint Resolution 23, “restoring posthumously the long overdue, full rights of citizenship to General Robert E. Lee.” According to President Ford, “This legislation corrects a 110-year oversight of American history.” He further said, “General Lee’s character has been an example to succeeding generations . . .”
The significance of General Lee’s (and Thomas Jackson’s) life cannot be overvalued. While the character and influence of most of us will barely be remembered two hundred days after our departure, the sterling character of these men has endured for two hundred years. What a shame that so many of America’s youth are being robbed of knowing and studying the virtue and integrity of the great General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.
(c) Chuck Baldwin
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January 17th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Thank you.
January 17th, 2007 at 11:34 am
“Unlike his northern counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, General Lee never sanctioned or condoned slavery.”
General Lee, after having renounced his oath to support, protect, and defend the United States Constitution, swore to support, protect, and defend the Confederate States Constitution.
Some excerpts:
Article I Section 9 clause 1:
“The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.”
It looks like to me that while negro slaves from those slaveholding states that have not seceded from the Union are welcome if brought in by their masters or sold to slaveholders within the CSA, no free negro is welcome from anywhere outside the CSA.
Article I Section 9 clause 2:
“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it. No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed.”
Thus the Confederate Congress was specifically prohibited from abolishing slavery and recognizing any right of the slave as a human being if such right could be said to be in derogation of the right of his or her master.
If Mohammed lived in the CSA and owned a nine year old girl named Aisha, he could have his way with her and no one could legally do squat to protect her or rescue her, of even assist her in running away.
Article IV Section 2 clause 1:
“The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States, and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in such slaves shall not be impaired.”
Article IV Section 2 clause 3
“No slave or Person held to Service or Labour in any State or Territory of the Confederate Slates under the Laws thereof, escaping or unlawfully carried into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such slave belongs, or to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”
Probably identical in application as the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution as interpreted by Prigg v. Pennsylvania. Specifying the word “slave” was no doubt motivated by the intent to remove any doubt as to what is being talked about here. This is also a provision for the interstate enforcement of peonage contracts and court orders imposing peonage.
The ratification of the 13th Amendment was intended to render the Fugitive Slave Clause surplusage, although we seem to have resurrected the FSC in the interstate enforcement of alimony and child support. We cannot blame that on Lincoln and Grant. President Grant enforced the Antipeonage Act, more recent presidents have not.
Article IV Section 3 clause 3:
“The Confederate States may acquire new territory, and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States lying without the limits of the several States, and may permit them, at such times and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the territorial government, and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and territories shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
So while General Lee did not personally approve of slavery, he swore an oath to a Constitution that specifically enshrined it into law and protected it from abolition short of a new revolution within the CSA or defeat of the CSA on the battlefield.
As for calling the Civil War the “War of Northern Aggression” Fort Sumter did not fire first. The decision to start the war came from President Davis and not from President Lincoln. Essentially President Davis reassured the Governor of South Carolina that South Carolina would not be alone in taking on the power of the United States.
And thus the Confederate cannons commenced firing.
While we are admiring the brilliance of General Lee I must state that the only reason the CSA survived Lee’s disasterous order to charge the Union Line across a mile of open ground sloping upward at Gettysburg is General Meade’s failure to follow up the victory and give chase to the rapidly fleeing Confederate Army.
Had Stonewall Jackson survived his brilliance as a commander I don’t think he would have had more success in changing Lee’s mind about the charge of July 3, 1863 than General Longstreet.
Grant won. Lee lost. And Longstreet was not in charge. For this we are forever grateful.
For at least we have the 13th Amendment and the Antipeonage Act with which to argue against the Child Support Crusade!
January 17th, 2007 at 11:58 am
It looks like to me that while negro slaves from those slaveholding states that have not seceded from the Union are welcome if brought in by their masters or sold to slaveholders within the CSA, no free negro is welcome from anywhere outside the CSA.
The importation of negroes …
It seems to me that one does not IMPORT free men, only property.
US Constitution: Article IV, Section II, Paragraph 3
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
And the USA recognized slavery as well. Further, check the violations of this clause by all northern states in the 60 years preceding the War. Even Lincoln mentionied it in his Innaugural Address and sidestepped the enforcement. But, there are provissions for changing a Constitution, aren’t there?
So while General Lee did not personally approve of slavery, he swore an oath to a Constitution that specifically enshrined it into law … twice. At least he did his duty to enforce the laws rather than ignore them.
Remember, even when the law is bad, it is the law. Change the law or abide.
When an agreement is made, one is expected to uphold one’s end of the bargain. Otherwise, the deal’s off. And after 60 years of the North refusing to uphold its end, something had to happen.
As for Fort Sumpter, It was a foriegn post, unlawfully situated on soverien soil. Lincoln knew what he was doing when he sent in supplies and reinforcements. Try holding an Embassy open in a country that has told you to close it. Send in troops and see what happens.
You can’t learn from History if you can’t know the truth. Ignoring it is not helpful.
January 17th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Lurk, the southern States ratified the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Fugitive Slave Clause was included as a means to get them to agree to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution.
If you read Article I Section 10 clause 1 real carefully, you will notice that it prohibits the States from forming a confederation without the permission of Congress.
So by walking out of the Union and forming their own Confederation, these states violated the United States Constitution they ratified and agreed to.
Fort Sumter was and is lawfully situated on the sovereign soil of the United States. Those who attacked it committed TREASON, for which they were forgiven after the war ended.
After President Davis ordered the commencement of the war with the UNPROVOKED attack on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln then enforced the Constitution.
The legal way that the southern states could have achieved their goal of protecting slavery against the lawful election of Lincoln as President would have been to call for a Second Constitutional Convention, which is provided for in Article V. Enough northern states might well have gone for it considering the alternative might be war.
Or they could have accepted Lincoln’s election and had their Senators and Representatives work politically to protect their right to own slaves.
Or they could have given up the institution of slavery and accepted the black folk as equal citizens.
In which case there would have been no need to secede.
Had the secession been successfully defended on the battlefield, the only way that the CSA could have abolished slavery was with the wholesale replacement of its Constitution. They would have been practicing their inhumane institution while sharing a continent with a Canada (British Empire), a reduced United States, and a Mexico, all of whom would’ve been hostile to the institution of chattel slavery.
January 17th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
RK, the northern States ratified the Constitution, including the fugitive slave clause.
If you examine any agreement, you will notice that the agreement is disolved upon one parties failure to uphold their end of the bargain. Further, VA and NY only conditionally ratified the Constitution based on their RIGHTS to resume their powers at their own discression. Other states had tried to conditionally ratify, but were turned down. Madison wrote a letter to the committe stating that the conditions of VA and NY were NOT in disagreement with the Constitution. All states are equal. All states had the right secession. Pick a clause in the Constitution that states that they cannot leave.
You want a violation of the Constitution? Check on West Virginia, formed within the boundaries of Virginia. Article 4, section 3. All they did was declare they were holding a new election and win, then declare they weren’t part of VA. Lincoln decided to recognize this illegality to his own benefit. Maybe the UP of Michigan should do the same thing.
Members of the USA did not form a Confederacy. The declared themselves out of the USA, much the same as the colonies declared themselves separate from England. And England had more rights to the colonies they established that the Union had to its members that joined. Nothing states that joiners could not quit. Nothing states that joiners relenquished their rights to their lands, properties or soveriegnty. They just agreed to share rights under the constitution.
I wonder how Article 4, Section 4 plays out when the President sends troops into States he claims are protected under the Constitution. I wonder how Article 4, section 4 can garauntee a republican form of government to the States and then ingnore that republican form of government.
Consider, the ground that the Capital sits upon was ceeded by Maryland, not taken from it. Virginia ceeded Arlington and it was later returned to VA. The precedent is clear. The states control their own territories, not the Union. Further, VA ceeded the lands of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota for the formation of new states. Again, it was not the property of the Union. As a small side note, you may not have heard that VA placed a condition on the lands that they NOT be used to form slave states.
So, clearly Sumpter sits on the ground belonging to Sout Carolina and South Carolina was within its rights to resume its powers and authorities.
If Lincoln wanted to enforce the Constitution, he would have invoked the Judiciary. This was a disagreement between the States and the Union and that is not the Executive’s purvue. You’ll also note that Lincoln references this in his innagural Address, but deigns not to involve them in such a trivial matter. On the other hand, you may wish to refer to Article 3, Section 2 to see who is in charge of dispute resolution.
The south chose a legal way. But, history books are written by the winners and the truth has little to do with it.
The testimony to this fact is that you, like most Americans are quite sure that the Civil War was fought over slavery. However, the facts have never agreed with this view.
Fact: Maryland did not seceed and slavery was legal. Same for DC, New Jersey and Kentucky. However, Kentucky wanted to, but was quelled before it could… before the war.
Fact: The Emancipation Proclamation did NOT free the slaves in the United States. If it had, there would have been no need for the 13th Ammendment, nor the extortion used to get it passed. Check out what a State had to do in order for its people to be represented in Congress after the war, directly inviolation of the Constitution.
Fact: The end of the Civil War was not the end of slavery. The ratification of the 13th Ammendment was and occured after the end of the Civil War. What happened at the end of the Civil War was the conquering of the southern States and their recollection back to the Union without representation in the government.
Had the secession been successfully defended on the battlefield, the only way that the CSA could have abolished slavery was with the wholesale replacement of its Constitution.
Much the same as the Confederacy of American States did. Not an impossible task. Further, it seems that it was also possible to accomplish such a task without the wholesale replacement of the Constition, though perhaps Lincoln’s tendancy to ignore it is a defacto replacement. It seems to have become an ongoing habit since those times.
January 17th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
He-he! I always wondered about that West Virginia secession! But then again, as Virginia walked out of the United States and joined the war against them it was hardly in a position to claim the protection of the United States Constitution!
The reason the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in the states and counties of states still in rebellion (note its exclusion of the counties of Virginia that became West Virginia) is that President Lincoln can claim the enemy property as the spoils of war. The Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause and the Bill of Attainder Clause he considered prohibited him from declaring the slave owned by those still in the United States free. And the federal government at war did not have the funds to buy the slaves and free them.
Of course, slavery itself was deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
But then Confederate apologists never seem to see it that way.
Black folks as human beings with full and equal citizenship? That is NOT what General Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought for!
After wqinning the Civil War, Congress settled on Amendments to the Constitution to free the slaves, to abolish forever slavery and involuntary servitude, to require equal protection of the laws to all persons formerly slave or free, and to prohibit compensation to the former slaveowners.
As far as ratification of the 13th Amendment being coerced, Mississippi refused to ratify it until shamed into it by Michael Moore in 1995.
The other 10 former Confederate States ratified it along with all of the states that did not secede.
January 17th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Of course, slavery itself was deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
Not at issue. Slavery is wrong. However, a man is worth no more than his word and if a man gives his word (especially in the form of a Constitution), then he is obliged to keep it. See Article 4, Section 2, Paragraph 3. Check the ratification. The norther states were obliged to comply.
The Fugitive Slave Act was made law 10 years before the Civil War. Why? Because the agreement made in the Constitution was not being upheld. There is also a Fugitive Slave Law signed by George Washington in 1793. The ink was barely dry on the Constitution before the norther states were trying to back out.
Black folks as human beings with full and equal citizenship? That is NOT what General Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought for!Nor is it what Lincoln or the norther States stood for. Lincoln was suggesting that they should leave the country as that would better suit them. http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n5p-4_Morgan.html for a little light reading.
After winning the Civil War, Congress settled on Amendments to the Constitution to free the slaves, to abolish forever slavery and involuntary servitude, to require equal protection of the laws to all persons formerly slave or free, and to prohibit compensation to the former slaveowners.
Compensation to former slave owners was a part of Lincoln’s plan, even beyond the Emmancipation Proclamation. Congress however, in the process of passing the ammendment, forced each State to ratify the Ammendment before its people could be represented in the government. Remember “No taxation without representation”? Well, Congress was not above such petty things. Also, a review of Article 4, Section 2, Paragraph 1 shows that Congress was in violation of the Constitution of the US. But then, it was a northern Congress and violation of the Constitution was nothing new.
The reason the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in the states and counties of states still in rebellion (note its exclusion of the counties of Virginia that became West Virginia) is that President Lincoln can claim the enemy property as the spoils of war.
One typically waits to conquer another nation prior to claiming the spoils of war. However, Lincoln was already taking what was not due him or the USA. He took Robert E. Lee’s home at Arlington. Lee attempted to send a draft for the property taxes, but it was rejected because he didn’t pay in person. The rest of the nation was not required to do this. They then turned it into a cemetery. Some 20 to 50 years later (I don’t have the specific date), his family finally received restitution for this war crime. But that is a bit of a digression. The reason that Lincoln declared only the slaves in Confederate States free and not all slaves was simply that he knew that he could not personally change the Constitution. Besides, his idea was that they would be freed by joining the Union Army. So, he only freed slaves that were not under his jurisdiction. Yet to this day he is credited with freeing the slaves.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/lincolnandproclamation.htm Alittle heftier, but the answer is in the first few paragraphs.
Lincoln said “If I could end this war by freeing all the slaves, I would do so. If I could end it by freeing none of the slaves, I would do that.” Lincoln didn’t care about the Black man.
On WVa, I have always maintained that VA staged the entire war just to get rid of them. But, I have no evidence to support it.