Friday, January 20, 2012

A belated birthday nod to Robert E. Lee


Yesterday was his birthday, a date still observed as a holiday in some places.  No, I don't support secession or the Confederacy.  And no I am not one of those revisionists who in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary insist that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War.  But I do recognize that he was a great and honorable man who did his duty, according to the lights that God gave him to discern right from wrong.

That at least commands respect.

1 comment:

James the Thickheaded said...

He was a good general and the movies do make one's heart swoon over the romance of a bygone era. Otherwise, in terms of his lights, I have to remember candlepower gives off far fewer lumens than bright incandescent bulbs. I repsect that he did penance at W&L trying to make up in some way for the perpetuation of slaughter in a lost cause. Pretense to nobility is so often ignoble in result, no matter where...even in my beloved South.