Here is an exchange on something called Quora. The question below was (IMHO) quite stupid, but the answer was excellent. I’m quoting the whole thing becuase I don’t know how to just put in a link.
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Silly rabbit, no one is “denying” that.
Donald Trump is saying Robert E. Lee and George Washington are the same. That’s just silly. Who is dumb enough to fall for that?
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are historically notable for many reasons, most of them positive. Robert E. Lee is known for just one thing.
We could all write blocks of text about how silly this is, but who really has the patience for that?
Trump is known to prefer graphics in his memos and briefings so maybe we can use some simple Venn Diagrams to help explain it. Please excuse my crude graphics design…
Maybe you don’t like that characterization? Perhaps you object to me doing your thinking for you?
If that’s the case, let’s put it another way and you can draw your own conclusions:
Does that clear it up? Maybe that’s too simple?
Okay, fine. We can add slightly more detail, but I don’t want us to lose sight of the fundamental facts, so we’re still going to keep it pretty high level.
At the end of the day, the United States wants to honor people who made laudable contributions to the United States. With that in mind, let’s look again:
Are these individuals equally deserving of monuments honoring them?
Just as there aren’t national monuments honoring Adolf Hitler in England, France, Australia, or any of the other nations he fought against (or Germany for that matter), there should not be monuments honoring the defeated leaders of other bloody wars, and obviously not in the very nations that lost so many lives defeating them.
Washington is not being honored because he was a slave holder, but for the major contributions he is remembered for. What major achievements should Robert E. Lee be honored for?
If not for his notorious act of treason betraying the United States, how many would think he deserves statues?
What about Thomas Jefferson? Is he honored for much compared to Lee?
If you want to take issue with this, you surely can. I mean I left out so much from Jefferson’s list. He was also the US Minister to France, the founder of the University of Virginia, and the inventor of the swivel chair, but there’s only so much room.
But what would we add to Robert E. Lee’s list? He did serve the U.S. Army before he inflicted more than 160,000 casualties upon its American soldiers, right?
He did command West Point before his betrayal, but then again so did Benedict Arnold. Are either of them deserving of veneration by the nation they betrayed?
The truth is that Benedict Arnold is the closer comparison:
That “THEN” section is the only reason the average person knows either of their names, because that was the most noteworthy aspect of their life. Everything else is irrelevancy when it comes to deciding who is worthy of veneration and who is not. Anyone focusing on other details is just trying obscure the most important ones: They betrayed the United States of America and waged war against their former country.
All this, and we’re not even getting into the fact that Robert E. Lee chose the side specifically fighting to continue slavery, or that most of the confederate monuments were erected during the Jim Crow era, as symbols of white supremacy. What lesson does honoring them teach?
In a way, comparing Robert E. Lee to George Washington makes the point better than any one opposing the public monuments ever could. It implies these men are equally worthy of veneration, even though one’s major contribution was to build the country and the other’s was to break it.
Putting up monuments to confederate leaders during the Jim Crow era was not done to send the message, “We love history.” It was to send the message, “We may have lost the war to keep you in chains, but it was a most worthy cause, we’re proud we tried, and we’re still in charge so don’t you dare get uppity.” That’s the shameful message it sends and that’s the message that taking them down repudiates. Washington and Lee are not equally worthy of places of honor in our public squares.
Germans are ashamed of what was done in their name, so they don’t put up monuments to the Nazis. They haven’t forgotten their history just because there isn’t a monument honoring Goebbels. There are photos of him in museums and history books, not statues in every town square in Germany.
Jewish children don’t have to look up to giant statues of Hitler, should black children have to look up at giant statues of Robert E. Lee, the man who fought a war to keep them enslaved?
Only Donald Trump and the white supremacists equate Robert E. Lee with George Washington. It’s a red herring meant to distract you.
Well, there is the point that George Washington betrayed his country and his sovereign but a key point was that he won.
Treason doth neuer prosper? What’s the Reason?
for if it prosper none dare call it treason
John Harington
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The Founding Fathers were quite aware that if they lost, they would be hanged (or worse). The Declaration of Independence was their attempt to explain to the world why their revolt was justified.
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So? It’s nice to know why you are betraying your country?
My impression is the US Declaration of Independence is a rationalization for their behaviour, possibly justified to some extent, but still a rationalization.
From a British Empire point of view the revolutionaries in the American colonies were “traitors”—actually I would not classify the revolutionaries or the Confederates as “real” traitors since neither group were betraying their country to a foreign power.
My point was just that the term “traitor” is in the eye of the beholder.
The American revolution was just a family dispute or as one person has put it, the was a coup d’état. It was not a revolution like the French or Russian revolutions.
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[…] Thanks to G.F. Brandenburg for bringing this post to my attention. […]
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