Why Do We Even Honor CSA Leaders, A Country We Defeated?

As if there aren't enough threads discussing this already. You should be banned.

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Why Do We Even Honor CSA Leaders, A Country We Defeated?

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For the same reason we honor RFK.

This has always been my argument. If you go to Germany do you see monuments to great Nazi leaders everywhere? The Confederacy is a shameful part of our nation's history.

Who says we are honoring them?

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The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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Because at one time the Constitution meant something, and then Abe Lincoln became POTUS, and we should never forget that.

Rather than attack you, I'll try and explain it as best that I feel on the subject.

The Confederacy is part of southern heritage. It had a lot of bad elements, true. There are things that the CSA did that should never be repeated in the history of the world.

That said, the beginning of the USA had the same errors, the same malicious deeds. Andrew Jackson still appears on our money, despite being responsible for the Trail of Tears.

Good or bad, it is part of our heritage. The vast majority of men who fought for the South were not trying to "keep their slaves" as most had none. They were fighting for love of their state, and for the ability to self govern. The CSA was, if anything, the end of love of one's home state, at least to the extent it once was. The idea of fighting for Virginia, as opposed to the US, is long gone.

Men like Robert E. Lee disagreed with slavery, but led the soldiers because of his love of Virginia. These men were not Nazis.

I mean, the North still holds up Sherman as a great general, despite the things he did that would be considered war crimes by today's standards.

Check out the bust of this guy at a government facility. This guy was responsible for killing many Jews as well as terrorizing and killing women and children in the UK during WW2 but no one is calling for its removal.

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Why Do We Even Honor CSA Leaders, A Country We Defeated?

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Because of a miscomphrehension of what actually happened. Southern resistance to the lawful government was ineffectual. The opinion in Europe was the rebellion could not be subdued. The insurgent area was actually larger than the loyal area.

The government in Richmond couldn't raise money -- there was very little real capital in the south and almost no industry. It could not arm or supply its armies in the field. At a time when 5,000 rifles a week were being produced in the north in 44 different factories, the south struggled to produce 100 a week.

Even the best rebel officers were only good enough generals to cause a blood bath every time they took the field.

Southern armies, far from being defeated on the field, mostly melted away and went home because the soldiers' families were starving and destitute.

I write this having ancestors of distinguished rebel service. That I know of on my mother's side - in the 25th, 31st and 39th Alabama infantry.

My great-great uncle Wilson Parks Howell was wounded four times and was in every battle of the Army of Tennessee except Franklin as a member of the 25th Alabama Infantry.

Shooting 4 Men For Desertion
Saturday, July 4, 2009

Following the Civil War, efforts were made to collect information pertaining to the war for permanent archive records. Captain Wilson Parks Howell, leader of Company I, 25th Alabama Regiment, of Cleburne County, Al., was chosen to write a history of his regiment which he did and brilliantly so.

Captain Howell was a prominent Methodist minister and a most respected politician who helped formulate the 1901 Alabama Constitution and a charter for the city of Anniston. He also served in the Alabama legislature and was a surveyor for his county. He was the father of 10 children, was born in 1832 and died in 1911. He was the brother of my great-great-grandmother, Malinda Howell Grubbs."

LINK

This article was written by my mother.

My greatgrandfather was in the 154th Senior Tennessee Infantry; he fought at Perryville, KY, Kennesaw Mountain and the battle of Nashville.



James F. Miller 1838-1916

He was wounded twice and captured twice.

Robert E. Lee and E.B.T. Bouregard are commemorated as much, if not more, for their work after the war as for their service in the war. Robert E. Lee faught for full equality for all after the Civil War. He advocated for the education of African Americans, donated his plantation to create Arlington National Cemetery, and founded many schools for blacks. Lee was instrumental in preventing a Vietnam-style war from breaking out after his defeat. He, more so than any other, brought unity to the south and north after the war was over, all of this from the most celebrated and studied military mind who didn't win his war. If you go to West Point or any real military academy the world over, they are studying Robert E. Lee's tactics, not U.S. Grant's.

Bouregard was another advocate for education for all African Americans.

However, the real reason most oppose the taking down of the monuments is that it's white-washing history. We shouldn't be hiding controversy away. It should be front and center, so that we must confront it, learn it, and come away with a better understanding of who we are and what we must do to avoid the mistakes of the past. Few people know the absolutely fascinating and embarrassing history of the Liberty Place monument. That's a shame. People need to know why that monument existed, not just that a bunch of racists paid to put it up, but that there was a time when relations were so tense that the losing side in an election formed a militia and tried to overthrow the government. The monument commemorated the dead who perished in the fighting, when street cars were used as cover for snipers, and manhole covers used as shields from gunfire.

When we remove the controversy, we remove a part of ourselves. We remove the opportunity to grow and learn. And what's the next part of our history to be removed due to its controversial nature? This doctrine is an alziemers of the self, slowly cleansing the mind of everything inconvenient, painful, and inevitably, everything that made us who we are, everything that allowed us to realize the mistakes of our forefathers and learn from them. We learn nothing in victory. We learn nothing from our past if we remove the controversy, because controversy IS the past. Controversy is the crucible which forged us. To tear it down and hide it away is to deny what bore us, to remove a part of ourselves, and to stunt our growth, retard our learning, and condemn ourselves to reliving the follies of our forefathers.

Aren't the statutes simply an overt way of retaining some form of pride in the confederacy (whether you agree with that or not) akin to peaceful protest. I always took it from the mindset that, "yeah, we lost, but that doesn't stop us from acknowledging the history" so to speak.