VA: Gen. Robert E. Lee Statue in Richmond Has Been Taken Down

[KaiserDave]

In the winter of '65
We were hungry, just barely alive
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell
It's a time I remember, oh so well

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see,
There goes Robert E. Lee!"

Now ah don't mind choppin' wood
And ah don't care if the money's no good!
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should NEVER have taken the VERY BEEEEEESSSSSSST!

This was my grandfather's (yes, the same one who stormed Normandy on D-Day) favorite song by the way. HIS grandfather fought for the Confederacy as a rural Appalachian North Carolina man who probably never saw a black person in person his entire life, let alone owned a slave or approved of such a thing.

Turns out people and massive wars are complicated and not as black and white as commonly portrayed! Who would have thought???

And before anyone takes this as a defense of slavery or the Confederacy, no it absolutely is not. The plantation system of chattel slavery was abhorrent, reprehensible, one of the greatest moral evils of all-time. It and the rebellion ABSOLUTELY deserved to be put down.

HOWEVER... My point, and the point of the song, is that the people who suffered and died in the name of the Confederacy were in 99%+ cases NOT slave owners. These people were barely literate if at all. Many didn't own f--king shoes. They literally had no access to any information about the outside world besides what they were spoonfed by their state governments (ESPECIALLY in particularly isolated places like Western North Carolina). And they certainly didn't own slaves, and couldn't afford to even if they wanted to. THEY were nonetheless the ones used as cannon fodder in the Confederacy's "lost cause." Blame the plantation class, not my ancestors. And while it is true Robert E. Lee was part of that plantation class, and in most cases I agree his likeness has no business on the streets of modern America... To deny just how powerful an influence the image (if not the reality) of this man was on generations of Southerners is just to deny reality and history. And if it's going to be preserved anywhere, it absolutely should be Richmond, Virginia.

The 99%+ number you postulate is entirely fictitious. It’s very much not the case.  In fact it’s thought that over a third of the Army of Northern Virginia owned slaves themselves or were part of families that did. It wasn't just the absurdly rich who owned slaves, and it certainly wasn't just them who reaped its benefits and profited from it. This post is malarkey folks.

As for ordinary Southern folk not approving of slavery? Well...I've got bad news to break to you...

[KaiserDave]

In the winter of '65
We were hungry, just barely alive
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell
It's a time I remember, oh so well

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see,
There goes Robert E. Lee!"

Now ah don't mind choppin' wood
And ah don't care if the money's no good!
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should NEVER have taken the VERY BEEEEEESSSSSSST!

This was my grandfather's (yes, the same one who stormed Normandy on D-Day) favorite song by the way. HIS grandfather fought for the Confederacy as a rural Appalachian North Carolina man who probably never saw a black person in person his entire life, let alone owned a slave or approved of such a thing.

Turns out people and massive wars are complicated and not as black and white as commonly portrayed! Who would have thought???

And before anyone takes this as a defense of slavery or the Confederacy, no it absolutely is not. The plantation system of chattel slavery was abhorrent, reprehensible, one of the greatest moral evils of all-time. It and the rebellion ABSOLUTELY deserved to be put down.

HOWEVER... My point, and the point of the song, is that the people who suffered and died in the name of the Confederacy were in 99%+ cases NOT slave owners. These people were barely literate if at all. Many didn't own f--king shoes. They literally had no access to any information about the outside world besides what they were spoonfed by their state governments (ESPECIALLY in particularly isolated places like Western North Carolina). And they certainly didn't own slaves, and couldn't afford to even if they wanted to. THEY were nonetheless the ones used as cannon fodder in the Confederacy's "lost cause." Blame the plantation class, not my ancestors. And while it is true Robert E. Lee was part of that plantation class, and in most cases I agree his likeness has no business on the streets of modern America... To deny just how powerful an influence the image (if not the reality) of this man was on generations of Southerners is just to deny reality and history. And if it's going to be preserved anywhere, it absolutely should be Richmond, Virginia.

The 99%+ number you postulate is entirely fictitious. It’s very much not the case.  In fact it’s thought that over a third of the Army of Northern Virginia owned slaves themselves or were part of families that did. It wasn't just the absurdly rich who owned slaves, and it certainly wasn't just them who reaped its benefits and profited from it. This post is malarkey folks.

As for ordinary Southern folk not approving of slavery? Well...I've got bad news to break to you...

Slavery functioned by the mid to late 1850s the way anti-mask stuff or CRT now does. It was an emotional us v. them issue.

In fact, the more slaves someone owned in the South, the more Unionist/moderate on the slavery issue they tended to be. Why? They had skin in the game and therefore had to look at this whole thing not as a game, but as a real one where they would lose.

The largest slaveholder in MS was future Republican governor James Alcorn. The large slaveholders overwelmingly backed John Bell in 1860, and Unionist/American Party candidates in the late 1850s.

After them came the well off merchants.

Basically it was

Big Slaveholders = Whig/American/Unionist
Professional Classes = Douglas Ds, see Mobile or other places where Douglas maintained some Southern support.

Old Jacksonian populist poor white base = Breckinridge, base of the fire eaters.


It was the poorer, slave-less whites who had nothing else but their identity and culture who forced a war over slavery, and thereby caused slaveholders to lose everything

This is comically ahistorical gobbledygook. The comparison to masks and CRT is hilariously absurd, but you're right it was an extremely emotional issue (hence why the comparison to the petty nothingness of masks and CRT is strange), but it was also very much a calculated decision for many of the chief secessionists and fire-eaters.

As for the bigger slaveowners being more "moderate"? I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. The chief secessionists drew much of their support from the planter oligarchs, who rather go to war then risk their bottom line with a President who staunchly opposed the expansion of slavery. They were the ones who got behind the border ruffians, and supported imperial adventures into Latin America to spread slavery. James Alcorn supported the Confederacy entirely, and became a Republican for the purposes of political power.

As for John Bell. John Bell was a secessionist! Up until 1861, he was a "conditional unionist" which is to say he was for the union so long as slavery existed. That's not real Unionism, that's holding the country at gunpoint. John Bell defected to the Confederacy during the secession crisis. All of these people you mention as "Unionist/American/moderate" all supported secession! Stephen Duncan at least was a very prominent slaveowner who supported the Union, but he was shunned by the elite class for these views.

You are seemingly blaming the average southerner for forcing a war against the interests of the large slaveowners, who wanted no such thing. I have no idea where you got that idea, because it is completely made up. It was the planter elite who were behind the secessionist chiefs and among them themselves. Alexander Stephens held 37 people in bondage and owned thousand of acres, Jefferson Davis held 113 people in bondage, Judah P. Benjamin held 140, and so on.

Your breakdown of the 1860 election demographics might be accurate, I don't know, but the rest of your comments aren't. At the very least you acknowledge the average southerner (often enthusiastically) supported slavery, which Alben did not.

[KaiserDave]

In the winter of '65
We were hungry, just barely alive
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell
It's a time I remember, oh so well

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, la"

Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see,
There goes Robert E. Lee!"

Now ah don't mind choppin' wood
And ah don't care if the money's no good!
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should NEVER have taken the VERY BEEEEEESSSSSSST!

This was my grandfather's (yes, the same one who stormed Normandy on D-Day) favorite song by the way. HIS grandfather fought for the Confederacy as a rural Appalachian North Carolina man who probably never saw a black person in person his entire life, let alone owned a slave or approved of such a thing.

Turns out people and massive wars are complicated and not as black and white as commonly portrayed! Who would have thought???

And before anyone takes this as a defense of slavery or the Confederacy, no it absolutely is not. The plantation system of chattel slavery was abhorrent, reprehensible, one of the greatest moral evils of all-time. It and the rebellion ABSOLUTELY deserved to be put down.

HOWEVER... My point, and the point of the song, is that the people who suffered and died in the name of the Confederacy were in 99%+ cases NOT slave owners. These people were barely literate if at all. Many didn't own f--king shoes. They literally had no access to any information about the outside world besides what they were spoonfed by their state governments (ESPECIALLY in particularly isolated places like Western North Carolina). And they certainly didn't own slaves, and couldn't afford to even if they wanted to. THEY were nonetheless the ones used as cannon fodder in the Confederacy's "lost cause." Blame the plantation class, not my ancestors. And while it is true Robert E. Lee was part of that plantation class, and in most cases I agree his likeness has no business on the streets of modern America... To deny just how powerful an influence the image (if not the reality) of this man was on generations of Southerners is just to deny reality and history. And if it's going to be preserved anywhere, it absolutely should be Richmond, Virginia.

The 99%+ number you postulate is entirely fictitious. It’s very much not the case.  In fact it’s thought that over a third of the Army of Northern Virginia owned slaves themselves or were part of families that did. It wasn't just the absurdly rich who owned slaves, and it certainly wasn't just them who reaped its benefits and profited from it. This post is malarkey folks.

As for ordinary Southern folk not approving of slavery? Well...I've got bad news to break to you...

Slavery functioned by the mid to late 1850s the way anti-mask stuff or CRT now does. It was an emotional us v. them issue.

In fact, the more slaves someone owned in the South, the more Unionist/moderate on the slavery issue they tended to be. Why? They had skin in the game and therefore had to look at this whole thing not as a game, but as a real one where they would lose.

The largest slaveholder in MS was future Republican governor James Alcorn. The large slaveholders overwelmingly backed John Bell in 1860, and Unionist/American Party candidates in the late 1850s.

After them came the well off merchants.

Basically it was

Big Slaveholders = Whig/American/Unionist
Professional Classes = Douglas Ds, see Mobile or other places where Douglas maintained some Southern support.

Old Jacksonian populist poor white base = Breckinridge, base of the fire eaters.


It was the poorer, slave-less whites who had nothing else but their identity and culture who forced a war over slavery, and thereby caused slaveholders to lose everything

This is comically ahistorical gobbledygook. The comparison to masks and CRT is hilariously absurd, but you're right it was an extremely emotional issue (hence why the comparison to the petty nothingness of masks and CRT is strange), but it was also very much a calculated decision for many of the chief secessionists and fire-eaters.

As for the bigger slaveowners being more "moderate"? I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. The chief secessionists drew much of their support from the planter oligarchs, who rather go to war then risk their bottom line with a President who staunchly opposed the expansion of slavery. They were the ones who got behind the border ruffians, and supported imperial adventures into Latin America to spread slavery. James Alcorn supported the Confederacy entirely, and became a Republican for the purposes of political power.

As for John Bell. John Bell was a secessionist! Up until 1861, he was a "conditional unionist" which is to say he was for the union so long as slavery existed. That's not real Unionism, that's holding the country at gunpoint. John Bell defected to the Confederacy during the secession crisis. All of these people you mention as "Unionist/American/moderate" all supported secession! Stephen Duncan at least was a very prominent slaveowner who supported the Union, but he was shunned by the elite class for these views.

You are seemingly blaming the average southerner for forcing a war against the interests of the large slaveowners, who wanted no such thing. I have no idea where you got that idea, because it is completely made up. It was the planter elite who were behind the secessionist chiefs and among them themselves. Alexander Stephens held 37 people in bondage and owned thousand of acres, Jefferson Davis held 113 people in bondage, Judah P. Benjamin held 140, and so on.

Your breakdown of the 1860 election demographics might be accurate, I don't know, but the rest of your comments aren't. At the very least you acknowledge the average southerner (often enthusiastically) supported slavery, which Alben did not.

I can't speak for everything Dan the Roman wrote, but it is interesting to mention that, of the largest slaveholders recorded in the 1860 census, most of the ones concentrated at the very top were thoroughly Unionist. Dr. Stephen Duncan of Mississippi, who owned 858 slaves, was ostracized for his refusal to support the Confederacy and ended up moving to New York City. William Aiken Jr. of South Carolina, who was an antebellum governor of that state who owned 700 slaves, was also a loyal Unionist. Joseph Acklen of Louisiana, who owned 659 slaves and six cotton plantations, is known to have expressed his pleasure for the North in the Civil War in his personal letters. The list (literally) goes on and on, and while no doubt there are many Confederates to be found among the very largest slaveholders, there is nevertheless at least some truth in his point.

I ended up editing in Duncan. Maybe there is a grain of truth to it, but all of these folks were ostracized from the planter society, and his overall point of the Southern population forcing the unwilling slaveholders to go to war is just absurd.