Thread: Robert E.Lee overrated?

Originally Posted by Albany Rifles

All of what you say is true...however, I believe (not "know") the Confederates were mistaken. The Founding Fathers set up a government so that differences could be worked out. I truly believe that they NEVER believed that they were establishing a framework in which there could be a justifiable reason for disolving that government. Not even Tom Jefferson believed the country should be torn apart.

If the system doesn't work, you break it... which is the situation the southerners believed they were in. And once again, looking at the perspective of the time I think they had some justification for that view.

Now, as for the founding fathers. While they did establish a framework in which disputes could be resolved without secession, a critical part of that framework was checks and balances within the federal government (Legislative, Executive, Judicial), however it was also embodied with checks to the federal government at the state level and at the personal level with the promise of a Bill of Rights to follow. The checks to the federal government from the states were being slowly eroded prior to the civil war, rather more quickly afterwards, and were finally removed by the interventionist interpretation of the interstate commerce clause by the supreme court... to the extent that today we have no check to the federal government outside of the federal government... and while the Civil War might have sped that process up a bit, it was only a matter of time anyways. That was the problem that sparked secession. The North and the South were voting against one another, and since the North had a lot more voters, it was winning... and beginning to override the checks that were built into the system against the federal government. Now what could the South do about that? Working within the system wasn't effective because they were outnumbered substantially and with the way immigration patterns were working it was becoming even more imbalanced over time. The judiciary is either voted for locally, or appointed over the long term, so that worked against them too. The only remaining check in their arsenal was states rights (something that as contemporary Americans we don't even seriously consider because they were done away with two lifetimes ago), and those were being eroded as the federal government gathered more power to itself.

To put it shortly, the founding fathers never dreamed that the government would become as powerful as it has through extremely tenuous interpretations of the interstate commerce clause (while I agree with the objectives, the means set a very bad precedent of twisting the constitution to mean what people in high places want it to mean) in combination with a national income tax (which gave the government unprecedented resources).

And since it is the founding father's framework and the intents within we are talking about, I'd even go so far to say that many of them (namely that very sizable faction that was against a strong federal government) would have advocated secession (rather than allow a narrow majority rule) at several points in our history were they alive to pass judgment on the various ways that we have changed the government structure as set up by them.

I guess we can agree to disagree.

I don;t think we can know what the Founders were thinking. And whiel judges are not perfect they certainly have a deeper understanding of the law than I do (of course, since my brother is a judge, maybe I have the wrong view!)

Originally Posted by Albany Rifles

I guess we can agree to disagree.

I don;t think we can know what the Founders were thinking. And whiel judges are not perfect they certainly have a deeper understanding of the law than I do (of course, since my brother is a judge, maybe I have the wrong view!)

Oh come on! It is your God given right as an American to not only speculate, but pass off your speculations as fact! )

On a more serious note, the beauty of our constitution is that it is easy to read, and fairly easy to understand (unlike that monstrosity the EU tried to put over on its citizens a few years ago). You don't have to be a judge to read it and get a good understanding of the intent behind it... and you certainly don't have to be a judge to understand that a clause designed to prevent internal tariffs (so harmful to an economy) was never intended to be used as an excuse to remove the relevance of state governments (it wasn't just a method of desegregating, it also was used to extend the federal government into administering local affairs and setting up government structures parallel and superior to existing state structures... thus usurping many of the roles that state government had filled up until that time).

Originally Posted by Albany Rifles

:P My view of Lee (and any other Confederate who had been a Federal official) has less to do with the right of secession (in which I say see Shek’s post…spot on) and more to do with what OMOGS said…it centers on the oath of office. Lee, Longstreet, Jeff Davis, Joe Johnston and so on had all taken, numerous times, the oath of an officer to support and defend the Constitution. NONE of them took an oath to the Commonwealth of Virginia, state of Tennessee, etc. they violated that oath by taking up arms against their country.

When I teach my Civil War survey class, I start out my class after talking about the syllabus with the statement “R.E. Lee was a traitor.” Now, living in the Old Dominion, that always ensures class participation!!! After the final exam, I ask it as a question and spend the last hour of the course, ungraded in leading a discussion on the topic. Since Marse Robert was never tried for treason, there is no right answer. But in my opinion? Well, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…..

On to the rest.

Bluesman,

First of all, I blush when you call me master….doesn’t really apply. As I said to a good friend of mine (who IS a master) I am kind of a remora in the school of Civil War history. If I did not have my real job I could put more time into it and maybe make it.

Anyway, in this whole realm of who was better, who was worse, etc…I gotta tell you, I have this vision of Joshua Chamberlain and Pete Longstreet looking out across the fields of Gettysburg (one of my least favorite battlefields) while sitting on a wall and one turning to other and saying “Ya know, in about 150 years, a whole bunch of people are going to look back and argue over whether we fed our troops the right food for breakfast!” Those poor guys have been second guessed to the nth degree. Hell, I think of one charge I made 21 years ago as a company commander at NTC and realize I screwed up. These poor SOBs have had every one of their decisions over analyzed worse than any ex-wife could do (and I know of what I speak in THAT department!)

I did do my graduate work on Grant…mostly because that was what was available in the day. If I could do it differently and in today’s world I would go a different route (how’s THIS for a pretentious title of a master thesis “JFC Fuller’s Nine Principles of War and an Evaluation of U.S Grant’s Generalship at Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga”) I have learned since that was published 15 years ago to take myself a lot less seriously!

As for reinterpretation of history... As historians it is unavoidable. In fact there is a term for it…historicism. It means we reinterpret history based on the values and experiences of our time. Anyone who takes a graduate degree in history must take a class in historiography (methods and practices of research) and historicism is a big part of it. I know you are familiar with the term of Schools of thought. Well, the study of our Civil War falls into that perfectly. And each is about 20 – 25 years old. Immediately following the war was the Devil Theory.ie. The war was caused by evil men doing bad things. It gave rise to the Lost Cause view in which those in vogue in the Confederacy got to trash those who were considered “questionable” (Jubal Early and Pete Longstreet anyone?) It also was the period covered by the autobiographies, etc. (Hence my warning on depending on them as a source of info). After that was the period covered by the first professional historians (signified by Woodrow Wilson, the first PhD in history in the US) which was the first analytical view of the war. That reinterpretation continues to this day. So my interpretation of the Civil War is different today than it was 18 years ago in grad school because we are in a different period of interpretation since then.

Oh, and why does this occur? A HUGE reason is we are coming across new original sources of materiel, which coupled with improved secondary sources, force us to get it right…until the next school of thought comes along/

So, backing into your question about Bruce Catton. Mr. Catton was a wonderful story teller…much like Shelby Foote and Ken Burns. He and they are to be lauded for bringing great stories to a wider audience. I own Catton’s Trilogy of the AOP in a signed original addition as well as on tape and love listening to it while driving long distances. But I would go to the works of Will Greene, Ken Noe, Brooks Simpson, Jeff Wert, Gordon Rhea, Wiley Sword, Gary Gallagher or Allan Nolan if I wanted some serious discussion of the Civil War.

Thus endeth the lesson!

And I would have replied sooner but I was too wrapped up in my beloved Patriots forgoing their way to the Super Bowl!!! :P

GREAT post...I wish I had the day off.

But just a drive-by comment: does it irritate YOU the way it irritates ME when somebody SETS OUT to find that 'new' interpretation, that it's obvious that there was no impartial search for objective Truth, following wherever the facts lead, without regard for making a name by refuting those that came before and made their own name? To me, it's more than just a question of historicism, or even new-found material; it's almost a commercial decision, taken to make sure that a knowledgable reviewer doesn't trash your life's work by saying, 'No new ground broken; Shirer said it better, anyway.'

THAT is what I constantly find myself fighting: my own backlash prejudice against those smart-asses in the front row at the Civil War Roundtable's lectures, that just can't WAIT for the opportunity to publicly point out the true but probably meaningless trivial factoid that would serve to buttress their own pet prejudice against what just EVERYbody believes, but which is, in their reality, just WRONGWRONGWRONG.

So, forgive me if I tend to see that tendency, even if it's not there. 'ACTUALLY, Dr. McPherson, I believe you'll find...' makes me think that this guy is just another of the tiresome attention-starved experts that needs to be validated in his own beliefs, even if he has to swim against the tide that runs the way it does for very good reasons.

And it IRRITATES me.

Oh, and GO PATS!!!

We always have to deal with people and their pet rocks. So long as it doesn't take us on the Road to Abilene, it doesn't bother me much. If they try to take over the event, then it gets annoying but I try not to let it bother me.

As for conducting "research" to "prove" a preselected outcome? Tripe...and I don't read it. That is not to say I don't enjoy reading reinterpretations of history. And I will ALWAYS read multiple sources about an event. For instance, a lot of people have believed that Meade was delitorious after Gettysburg for not pursuing Lee (that included Lincoln). But Kent Masterson Brown's Retreat from Gettysburg gives an entirely fresh and new look of the events of 3 - 14 July. However, for me, the jury is still out. I await the publishing of J.D. Petruzzi,Eric J. Wittenberg & Michael F. Nugent's One Continuous Fight whcih covers the same topic. All four gents are relooking the original source material as well as some newly discovered archival items which really talk about how badly torn up the Unon lines of logistics were which precluded a full scale attack. Also the terrain did not favor it. All that said I am waiting on the full reading before I "set" my opinion.

I think as an historian you HAVE to be willing and ready to have your views challenged and changed. It promotes rigorous research and a careful consideration of what ultimately is revealed as the truth.

However, remember, truth often comeswith a date time group.

Lovely discussion, gentlemen. Thanks for the interesting read.

Originally Posted by S-2

Lovely discussion, gentlemen. Thanks for the interesting read.

It WAS, wasn't it?

DANG, I just LOVE history!!!