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Originally Posted by Oerets
The white supremacists went spoiling for a fight. Dressed with shields and goggles helmets mace guns.... The counter protesters fell for the baiting, fought back. Maybe now those who march for the alt right will be a little more afraid. I bet they put the hoods back on next time!
Take our country back BS?? How about give the country back?
Protesting for a statue of a traitor, brave maybe but still one who fought to overthrow and destroy our country. For what? The ability to subjugate, own another. That is the states right they were up in arms over.
Are there statues to the fallen Tories from the Revolution? The Mexican's who died in our expansion? Those I would agree with BTW, for they were fighting for an established country against and aggressor.
Barney
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Part of the problem is that there was no monolithic belief in the institution of slavery in the South at that time, just like there was no monolithic support for abolition in the North. For example, the Corwin Amendment - though never adopted - was proposed by an Ohio Senator and ratified by three states. The Amendment was supposed to act as a lure for seceded states and border states by promising to protect slaveholders from federal interference. Its mere existence shows that there was support in the North for a level of "pragmatism" regarding slavery by some in the North in order to keep the Union intact.
Likewise, there were men who fought for the Confederacy that never owned slaves (the vast majority, in fact), who didn’t wish to, and who believed in the inherent equality of all men. In fact, Robert E Lee whose statute is at the center of the recent controversy recognized that slavery was "a moral & political evil in any Country". Lee was also not in favor of secession and the establishment of the Confederacy.
And, how times have changed in recent years. It was only about 40 years ago that Senator Byrd proposed and Gerald Ford signed Senate Joint Resolution 23, which "restores posthumously full rights of citizenship to General R. E. Lee, effective June 13, 1865."
Tearing down Civil War statues today, whether by gov't decree or by the actions of anarchists, seems to me an effort that is short-sited and misplaced.