Robert E. Lee was no gentleman.

I agree. He should have thought about the consequences of his actions.

What you mean states rights?

States’ rights to do what? To practice slavery.

Even if the Civil War were just about “states’ rights” only, which I think is BS, it wasn’t worth killing hundreds of thousands over.

Pretty sure Lincoln beat him in the death count category, both by sending them to die and to kill. And not just the Civil War, mind you, but in campaigns against Native Americans as well.

Boy, if you wanna get into the Native American issue... you could say that pretty much every American President was either directly responsible for or tacitly permitted the slaughter of Native Americans on their watch, right up m until the American frontier was closed in the late-1800’s.

What we did there is horrible, and I’d say pretty much tantamount to genocide... but, that’s pretty much how colonizing the New World went everywhere. And now that all these modern, multiracial countries exist on top of formerly-native occupied lands, there’s no going back.

At least we created some reservations (mostly on land that wasn’t productive for anything other use), but living conditions there are generally atrocious. We have a ton of work to do with respect to Native equality and this issue is almost never talked about.

"Washington Monthly
January/February 2013

Lincoln: No Hero to Native Americans
by Sherry Salway BlackMAGAZINE



The Emancipation Proclamation was in many ways a tremendous step forward for human rights, but it didn’t bring any new rights to Native Americans.

In fact, Abraham Lincoln is not seen as much of a hero at all among many American Indian tribes and Native peoples of the United States, as the majority of his policies proved to be detrimental to them. For instance, the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 helped precipitate the construction of the transcontinental railroad, which led to the significant loss of land and natural resources, as well as the loss of lifestyle and culture, for many tribal people. In addition, rampant corruption in the Indian Office, the precursor of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, continued unabated throughout Lincoln’s term and well beyond. In many cases, government-appointed Indian agents outright stole resources that were supposed to go to the tribes.

In other cases, the Lincoln administration simply continued to implement discriminatory and damaging policies, like placing Indians on reservations. Beginning in 1863, the Lincoln administration oversaw the removal of the Navajos and the Mescalero Apaches from the New Mexico Territory, forcing the Navajo to march 450 miles to Bosque Redondo—a brutal journey. Eventually, more than 2,000 died before a treaty was signed.

Several massacres of Indians also occurred under Lincoln’s watch. For example, the Dakota War in Minnesota in 1862 led to the hanging of thirty-eight Indian men—303 Indian men had been sentenced to hang, but the others were spared by Lincoln’s pardon. The Sand Creek Massacre in southeastern Colorado in 1864 also resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho."

3hrs sleep, been sick, running on fumes here, so a copypaste will have to do.

Note: Despite the pardons, 38 were still hung despite no Confederates hung for the same.

Lincoln saw Africans and Native Americans as inferiors. He ultimately stood behind emancipation, but he did not stand for equality.
Burning down the South through Shermans's march and the brutality visited upon citizens that came with that hardly qualified him for egalitarian of the century either.

I can't let this revisionist crap stand. The Indians were a stone age people warring against a numerically and technological superior group; this ended badly for every group in history. The so-called genocide occurred from diseases long before anyone knew how they were passed from person to person. After that, studies have shown that the ratio of Indians killed vs. settlers killed isn't that different. This article fails to mention that the 38 men hung had left the reservation and killed settlers; men, women, and children. Sand Creek was a massacre, but the civilians were up in arms because of Indian attacks. The transcontinental railroad united the country, ending any chance of an outside entity festering a takeover. Quit looking at history through Americabad-tinted glasses and put yourself (honestly) in their shoes.

What's revisionist about 38 Dakota leaders hung for rebellion but 0 Confederate officials & generals hung for doing the same?
What's revisionist about the Dakota War it mentioned for which they were hung?
What's revisionist about the Sand Creek Massacre massacring hundreds of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho supposedly under Army protection?

I'll tell you what is - in terms of what that article excluded as you went about it - the causes of those uprisings: Starvation, treaty violations, settlers makng incursions into their land, and the usual rape, theft, and murder by barbaric invaders on the wrong damn contineXX, 'scuse, HEMISPHERE.

Occupying two continents in an entire side of the World only to get shoved onto exceedingly small useless bits of land short of anything to eat so they can be turned into wards of the state yet deprived of rights because they are supposedly sovereign and thus foreign is hardly "Gee sorry, you died from the smallpox blankets we gave..." level nothing.

I'd rather not put myself in their shoes - oh, wait, my Taino ancestor that was raped by Spanish invaders diluting that chunk of DNA into whitewashed Caucasoid does kinda put me in their shoes - or should I say, moccasins?

Medievel penal colony filth dumped here so that England can rid themselves of their hereditary criminal class is hardly that much of a superiority qualifier.
That 70% of agricultural species the ENTIRE planet depends on came from the indigenous farmers of the Americas is kinda slightly a tad bit beyond stone age.
That they didn't get their writing, math, sciences, technology, hell, even religion and their bloo'y flippin language, mate, from Asia Minor (that's the Middle East to you, Europe from back when Celts and Teutons where still hiding in caves 2000 years ago lest the Romans kill 'em) all the way to China did not 'bless' them with that that the Europeans did get from the East.

I mean, sheesh, even the words we type here came from Central Asian invaders that domesticated Europe.
Those people - barbarians themselves, really, are now worshipped as near Gods by NW Euros who lack a history other than being the hinterlands that took Rome a thousand years to conquer because they were so savage.

Speaking of conquering, you are aware that the guerilla tactics the colonists used to fight their British overlords for independence came from whom again? Or is that bit of history faded into the non-revionist pages in the back of your coffee table book of memes?

Not revisionist- more like who needed who. The North needed the South back peacefully, and didn't need the Dakotas. But then, the other tribes of the Sioux didn't seem to need each other either. The Lakota and the Cheyenne had pushed other tribes off the plains (except for the Comanches, who with greater numbers would have ruled the Midwest). They all fought against each other, and those hatreds led members of different tribes to help the Americans fight other tribes.
As for r*pe, the Western tribes started that. The Eastern Indians might burn or torture women, but r*pe was off limits. When the Texans first ran into the Comanches they found that off limits didn't apply to the plains tribes. The French and the trappers didn't need to take women, they could rent them for cheap. But the Plains tribes (and the Apaches, etc) r*ped white women whenever they got their hands on them.
Your penal colony line should mean Australia, not America.
Yes, you can be very good at agriculture and still be stone age. They had no metal weapons, no wheels, no sturdy pack animals until the Spanish showed up. As for their religion, ask the Aztec neighbors how great that was. How else did the Spanish conquer them if not for the aid of their victims.
I guess I missed that chapter where Central Asian invaders domesticated Europe- here all this time I thought is was the Greco-Roman plus Christianity that did that.
Also, the American colonial army beat the English with regular tactics, the militias being nothing more than a footnote. Plus the French helping (just as everywhere- the enemy of my enemy is my friend).

The North took back the South not exactly peacefully.

Talk about revisionist, rape was not 'discovered' as a 'tool' of war by the West in the 20th Century.

As like with Alaska now, men seeking fortune in far flung lands tended to not find that many women already there. Months or longer alone in them thar hills meant no saloon & w**rehouses they hung out in all day like in the movies. Those require towns. Miners and trappers aren't next to them because getting shot at makes such ventures short lived. That criminal class imported from England, remember? Yes, guns DID NOT sire our propensity for violence, culture did.

It is not accidental that Australia as a penal colonly began after it was clear Britain lost that option in America with the Revolution. Google?

Never heard of Aryans? They really DID exist and yes, they did introduce domesticated species to Europe, as well as language. It's Called Indo-European for a reason. The last remnant of original pre-invasion Euro language is Basque. Google?

European metalurgy came from Asia (first was the Hittites, maybe in what is now Iran). The bellows came from what is now Thailand.
Gunpowder, cannons, guns... came from China.

The Aztecs use of Obsidian made for a far better cuttting tool, as the Spanish can attest.
As you pointed out, how did the Spanish conquer them without the assist (and disease)?

Incas used copper & bronze maces, lined helmets, chest plates, and in lock holes to hold together some blocks.

The wheel in Europe arrived with the Aryans.
Aztecs and whatnot DID have the wheel, only it was used for toys since they had no draft animals to drag plows and wagons with.
In SA, llamas are somewhat insufficient in that regard, and tapirs being the largest animal there and Bison in the North proving rather undomesticable after 5 centuries of colonials trying, not happening.

This is getting repititious because I've said some here and to another the other day.

The colonists lacked a professional standing army. Their adavantage against - what's that word again? oh, yes, SUPERIOR British forces was Native American styles guerilla tactics, PERIOD.

The French's assistance to the Revolution was monetary, not fighting.

Anyways, this correcting you on fun trivia gets boring?
WHAT does this all have to do with fine Christians from Europe slaughtering, raping, stealing? Sheesh, Thanksiving Day that forgotten already? The 2nd Amendement, right to self defense - oh, that's right, not for them damn Injuns.

Put away your Howard Zinn history and wikipedia nonsense, find a history textbook from back in the day of 'history as history' not 'history as sociology'

My wha? Go read book or two and stop trying to deny something by justifying it.
You can't even see the stupdity in your hypocrisy.

"They didn't do it, but here's why and how they did"

How stupid are you?

Go ahead, you halfbreed Neanderthal, name an animal domesticated in Europe.
HINT: It rhymes with "rabbit"
And that was by French Monks as pets a mere 500 years ago.
Plants? Leafy greens related to the cabbage. CABBAGE. Try raising a sizable population with that. There's a reason the population of Europe north of the Pyranees boomed after the introduction of the potato. Do you know where the potato comes from?

Inbred backwards white trash cretin. Why do you think the British in Britain have significantly higher IQs than their brethren on the other side of the Atlantic? They dumped their half-wit criminal garbage element here, removing it from the genetic stream there.
You can look that up also - White Trash has literally BEEN White Trash since colonial days - the same people, shiftless terminally unemployed violent prone failures who found their glory in a celebrity reality show almost as stupid and addled in the head as you lot are. You are their descendents. That's YOUR contribution to America, being the filth of England shat upon these shores.

#whitetrashpower!

Well, no one forced the Confederacy to turn traitorous and secede, or to fight as long as they did when it became clear the war would be lost. I don’t think it really and truly makes sense to pin these deaths on Lincoln. He could have let the Confederacy go, but that would have been a horrible outcome. And may not have ultimately avoided eventual war between the Union and Confederacy anyway.

The one good thing Lee did was surrender.

No one forced the Colonies to revolt against English rule either, or us to fight in WWII against the Japanese and Nazis, or against Al Queda and the Taliban in Afganistan...

I am not justifying the Confederacy's desire to maintain the institution of slavery, just pointing to the issue of States Rights vs Federal control.

Lee was about defending his people, his fellow Virginians.
Lincoln was about preserving the Union and expanding the role of centralized goverment at the expense of the ability of States to govern themselves. He was more concerened about consolidating power than the lives of Southern whites, slaves, and American Indians.

Agree for the most part, but there is zero evidence that Lincoln made his choices to preserve centralized power. England was de-facto supporting the Confederacy, and Lincoln was worried about a divided continent being easier to destablize and conquer than any power trip.

True, but his trending after the war towards identifying the US as a nation instead of composed of multiples plus his increasing subjugation of Native Americans may point to consolidation. Then again, it also applies to what you stated as well.

Another ignorant amateur historian using today's morality to judge people from another time period. Had you been a southern boy in 1861, I guarantee you your views would have been more in line with Lee's than you would want to admit now.

Nah plenty of Tennesseans fought on the side of the Union

I do have an ancestor buried in Franklin, TN on the Confederate side though, so you never know

But I personally hail from East TN which had few if any plantations and was quite pro-Union

The Civil War divided some families right down the middle. I can’t say what I would have done, of course, but the idea that geography determines which side you fought on is wrong.