Discussion: University: Robert E. Lee Statue Outside Duke Chapel Vandalized

They don’t think to much of General William T. Sherman either.

Lee was a decorated member of the US Army before the Civil War.

It is vandalism. Question. Do you think it will help Dems win in NC in 2018 or 2020?

Who is to the left and right of Bob?

But that is not why he was venerated in North Carolina in the 1920s.

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Not so much. Lee got stuck in Mexico and then in horrible Texas. Came back to Virginia expecting to resign.

Such as macing people or hitting them with baseball bats.

I think it was secretly a false-flag operation by Alex Jones in order to make people angry at the left so they can infiltrate the secret Martian pedo-brothels.

AND YOU CAN’T PROVE IT WASN’T

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Is that a “yes” or a “no”?

Will it will help Dems win in NC in 2018 or 2020?

Will it will help Dems win in Wisconsin,Michigan,Pennsylvania or Florida in 2018 or 2020?

I didn’t say it was.

But it explains why an Italian sculptor might put US on the belt buckle.

Like all men (and women) Lee was a complex and imperfect person.
He adored being at West Point, loved being in the US Army, and was not a secessionist.

But like a lot of men of his generation (and the generation before him) he felt a stronger loyalty to his state and its sovereignty than he did to the US.
This is neither good nor bad—just a statement of fact, and not unique to Lee.

By the way, US Grant had a great deal of respect for Lee, and refused to accept his sword at Appomattox Courthouse when Lee surrendered . This was an overt act of respect from Grant.

It bothers me a lot to see people dismiss Lee and some others just because they acted on their deeply held beliefs (whether we agree with those beliefs or not.)
Lee worked after the war to ameliorate the bad feelings toward the North that were so common after the war—not unlike the way the US treated our European enemies after WWII in some ways.

And when the US appropriated his home—without compensation—and made it a cemetery, he never complained . It was done as an insult, and Lee was very stoic about it. He’s not an altogether un-admirable man.

All these people should be seen with more thought and less emotion—especially now that all this foofaraw is happening.

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Ten statues at Duke Chapel:

The statues marking the entrance to Duke University Chapel are a mixture
of important religious figures and individuals important to the culture of the American South. Wesley, Asbury, and Coke were all prominent figures in the Methodist Church and although non-denominational, Duke Chapel nevertheless displays heavy Methodist influences because the Duke family was Methodist. John Wesley, whose statue stands above the doors of the Chapel, was the founder of the Methodist Church. Whitefield was a member of the Anglican Church, but joined the Wesley brothers on their mission to Georgia. Savonarola, a Dominican friar in Renaissance. Florence, and Wycliffe, an English theologian during the 14th century, spoke out against various aspects of the Catholic Church. Luther split from the Catholic Church to launch the Protestant reformation. Alongside these religious figures stand figures significant to the
history of the American South. Thomas Jefferson was a founder of the Democratic Party and the third president of the United States. Confederate General Robert E. Lee was held up by many white southerners as the epitome of a white southern gentleman. Lanier was the most distinguished southern poet of the nineteenth century and died in North Carolina.

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He was a deeply religious man.

And Julia Grant and Varina Davis became very good friends after war,as did Gen. William T. Sherman and Gen. John Bell Hood.

And none of that kumbahyah has anything to do with these statues, but you knew that.

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Lee had many admirable and redemptive traits. He was also spared a public trial and execution for treason because Grant (and Lincoln) wanted the kind of inclusive Reconstruction that Johnson (and Congress) explicitly rejected. And no, Lee was not a secessionist. Neither was he by any means an abolitionist.

Ultimately, the problem here is: statues are not erected to complexity. They are erected to the streamlined, public-facing facets of an individual that form the basis for what we see reflected in the metal or stone. In Lee’s case, these monuments were largely erected to the memory of a proud son of the South, and a General who fought for a way of life that included involuntary bondage and labor.

He was also opposed to the building of these monuments:

In a 1866 letter to fellow Confederate Gen. Thomas L. Rosser, Lee wrote, “As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated, my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt … would have the effect of … continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour.”

Three years later, Lee was invited to a meeting of Union and Confederate officers to mark the placing of a memorial honoring those who took part in the battle of Gettysburg.

“I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered,” he wrote in a letter declining the invitation.

There is a more fitting memorial to the complexity of Robert E. Lee, scion of the house of Lee, son of Light-Horse Harry Lee, cousin to Richard Henry Lee, loyal to his State, but proud of the nation his family helped to win, and which he fought to reject, and a career officer who felt the responsibility for the casualties under his command. It’s Arlington. In the face of Arlington, and all that it is and all that it houses, and the truth it represents… monuments are facile, incomplete, and almost offensive—regardless of what other offense they give—merely by their shallow lionization.

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It has to do with the postwar attitude of the combatants and their families towards each other vs. the attitudes towards them by people,such as yourself,now.

Why is a statue of Lee at the Duke Chapel? Did I miss that page in the Bible where his name came up?

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Your entire comment is liked 100 billion times.

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