(Cont. from Part 1) Another fan of Confederate pseudohistory from Flowood writes that Robert E. Lee "did not support slavery, secession, or civil war."
Well, except for abandoning his duty as an American citizen and his oath as an Army officer of the United States to support the Confederate government that defended slavery, and agreeing to head the Army of Northern Viriginia to support secession and prosecute civil war by armed force and killing on a massive scale. No, other than that, he didn't support slavery, secession or civil war.
He did say once before the war in a private letter to his wife that he thought slavery in general was a bad idea and that someday, at some unspecified time in the future, it would fade away. A sentiment common to the gentry in Virginia, whose slave business by the 1850s was mainly breeding new slave stock for sale to other Southern states. And then he became one of the main military leaders in a rebellion that defended slavery as a permanent, divinely sanctioned, highly desirable institution.
Another fan of the holy Confederacy from Stringer tells us that 75% of Southern whites owned no slaves (I guess he reads different neo-Confederate pamphlets than the guy from Pearl). He also tells us that Lee was "anti-slavery" and that "the war was not fought to free slaves." This is a favorite rhetorical device of neo-Confederates, arguing that because emancipation wasn't an official Union war aim from day one that the war was not about slavery. It's an argument that will persuade only those who want to believe, although it might confuse some others. It was the seceeding states of the South that started the war, and their leaders at the time made it very clear that slavery was the issue over which they were revolting to destroy America and the Constitution.
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