Mike,

You are most kind. My husband, who is now passed, had a passion for history.
I was dumb and sat at his feet while he made history come alive. Naturally, although I loved him with my entire heart, I still double checked his stories.... Then when I worked at the Smithsonian Institution, I spent my lunch hour and the kill time waiting for the metro at the Archives. That place is a gold mine of info as well as original documents.
I still go every Monday to research stuff..... one day, I will be too old to learn....so I am making hay before my sun goes down.

In the minds of most Yankees, the Civil War was all about Southern slavery. They seldom mention slavery in the North that continued even after the Civil War. As for Robert E. Lee, it is amazing that books have been written with flare and not so subtle idiom about his mistreatment of slaves. For a man who wrote no memoir but did write personal letters that can only be described as a discordant mix of flirtation, joshing, lyrical touches, and stern religious adjuration coupled with official dispatches that are so impersonal and (generally) unselfserving as to seem above the fray, I find it amusing that a 600 page book was concocted to provide a personal inventory of his worth and merit as a human, a southerner, and a general. Of course to do this one must ignore everything else that has been written and indeed his own letters.

When Americans South, and begrudgingly, the North decided to embrace R. E. Lee as a national as well as a Southern hero, he was generally described as antislavery. This conclusion was not based on any public position he shouted in public squares but rather on a very personal letter he wrote to his wife: “In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages.”

That passage would make one believe that he saw slavery and the management of those slaves as wrong and should he have his way, they would be freed immediately. But, he goes on to write: “I think it however a greater evil to the white than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.”

So, does that passage in his personal letter lend evidence that he was a cruel slave holder. Not hardly.

General Lee was a very complicated man and I believe him to have been heat broken about the war. He confided to a friend, “If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.”

Our views are colored by the side one takes. Just as we do with our current leadership, there is no gray area.... President Trump, although rough and lacking in skills of charm, he is loved.... or because he is rough and lacking skills of charm, he is hated. So was the split in the Civil War. The North took secession as an act of aggression, to be countered accordingly. When Lincoln called on the loyal states for troops to invade the South, Southerners could see the issue as defense not of slavery but of homeland. Virginia had already voted against secession 2 to 1, but with the invasion.... the winds of fickle providence changed to 2 to 1 in favor. One could sit and argue the sanity of this, or even the practicality. But, we would be arguing a decision clearly tainted by modern day views. We can not put aside what we know happened after the first bullets were loosened on the first human causality which would lead to years of blood shed. But, General Lee was not clairvoyant and the future was yet to be realized. Not once did he suspect that years later, just before his surrender at Appomattox, one of his nephews would find him in the field, “very grave and tired,” carrying around a fried chicken leg wrapped in a piece of bread, which a Virginia countrywoman had pressed upon him but for which he couldn’t muster any hunger.

I would very much like to say that General Lee did not make mistakes, but the truth is, he made mistakes on the battle field and in executing his father-in-laws estate (where his wife inherited slaves). I could point out that each major blunder of his subordinates—Ewell’s failure to take the high ground of Cemetery Hill on July 1, Stuart’s getting out of touch and leaving Lee unapprised of what force he was facing, and the lateness of Longstreet’s attack on the second day—either was not a blunder at all (if Longstreet had attacked earlier he would have encountered an even stronger Union position) or was caused by a lack of forcefulness and specificity in Lee’s orders. Although all true, does not change the outcome of the battle of July 1-3, 1863. The mistake he made in executing his father-in-laws estate was not immediately freeing those slaves. However, in his defense, the estate will was clear, the slaves were to be freed in seven years. And General Lee, as honoring the wishes.... did in fact release all the slaves on the seventh year.

Now for some hard to wrap the mind around facts about slavery. It is a myth that all white settlers owned slaves and farms could not exist without their labor. In fact, the first documented slave owner was a black. Another issue with the newly taught history they conveniently leave out facts, such as less than 5 percent of whites in the south owned black slaves. Did you know, prior to 1654, all Africans in the thirteen colonies were held in indentured servitude and were released after a contracted period with many of the indentured receiving land and equipment after their contracts for work expired? Probably not.

If you love history and digging through old records, you may know this, but in 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the US census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states. The same records has an eye-opening set of records. There were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves. Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country.

The figures show conclusively that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters in pre-Civil War America. The statistics outlined above show that about 28 percent of free blacks owned slaves—as opposed to less than 4.8 percent of southern whites, and dramatically more than the 1.4 percent of all white Americans who owned slaves.

And Georgia, often thought of as a large slave state, actually placed a ban on slave ownership. James Oglethorpe (1696–1785) was a British general who founded the colony of Georgia in 1732. From the very beginning, Oglethorpe ensured that slavery was banned in the colony, and that Africans were barred from entering the territory.

Can anyone justify the treatment of slaves.... I do not think anyone would even try to justify how many were treated. Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. They were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives. Cruelty abound; they were beaten, hung, mutilated, and men were castrated for disobedience. But, I do not need to go further into the gory details. Enough is written about slave trade, but if you are thinking about those captured by blacks on the African Continent, you would be wrong.

King James II and Charles I led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor. King James II began the white slave trade when he sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.

During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.

If you are, and I have sincere doubts that you are, still reading I can provide more historical facts. But, as most in today's society, my bet is you stopped reading around the second paragraph. Too much information to be absorbed in the 63 second attention span of most progressives. One last comment, or answer to your unasked question.... no, I am not Irish.

The slaves of the North were house slaves... those that cooked, cleaned, and provided au peir services. Many in large cities owned 2 or 5 slaves. While the South needed a more condensed population of field slaves. The cotton gin pretty much eliminated the cotton plantation's need for labors. Couple that with horse drawn plows, harvester, and ballers.... well, those men and women were sold off. Of course there were plantations that continued to use field slaves, sugar plantations accounted for the majority of slave holdings. (There is a reason for sugar cane plantations and the black field hand if you ever become interested). But by the time of the Civil War, slavery was well on its way to becoming obsolete.... or at least limited to the very large sugar plantations and the very rich. Of course when a plantation was visited by a Northerner and they saw 30 blacks cutting cane.... well, they saw their 3 or 4 invisible slaves who cooked, cleaned, or took care of their children as immaterial in comparison.

;Penny,

I have agreed with much of what you have posted on this subject.

But the cotton gin had the opposite effect of your statement..

The cotton gin greatly advance the processing of cotton.. that allowed much more cotton to be marketed. that in turned increased production, which required more field hands..

so a surge in slavery in our south, resulted from the invention of the cotton gin..

the great majority of sugar cane was grown in more tropical areas then our southern states.. that is why even more black slaves were used on the Caribbean and south America..

Permafrost: plantations could have hired labor.
Oh Republicans are now haters? They don't
Call for violence against the president. They don't do nasty attacks on the first lady. They don't presidential children. Their Hollywood contingent (Republicans in tinsel town) doesn't say Barron should be thrown in a cage with pedophiles. Robt. deNiro.oh well.
Calling president a Traitor? Demanding impeachment and don't cite impeachable issues. Shooting a GOP congressman. Harrassing govt. Employees at restaurants ANF theatres.
Unbridled charges of racism of all Republicans. Claims of Naziism.
And it's the GOP spewing hate and not the Dems.
Drop your hate. Your side has counter arguments. Debate not hate speech.

The question on Lee though isn't wasn't whether he was for or against slavery but his treatment of his slaves that were under his discharge at the time. There are records on how Lee treated his slaves, which was not unlike other Southern gentlemen of the time, are on file so the truth about Lee is none the less on record. If I'm not mistaken, it was also Lee's view that Negro's were lucky to be in slavery instead of free and left to their own means in Africa. Now myself I don't see Lee's treatment, or statements about Negro's, denigrating or anymore harsh then most Southern gentlemen of his time - though Custis did seem to see Negro's as equal human beings where most gentile white's of the day saw them as distinctly inferior forms of human beings--many still do.

So while I am sure that you see my comments on Lee as an attack on Robert, and by an extension an attack on you, it was never intended to be only to show Lee in the light that actually shown on his distinguished face - even if some of those wrinkles weren't as refined as many conservatives had hoped them to be. Lee was simply a man of his time and he can't be faulted for holding the perspective that most whites held about Negro's - hell even the Sainted Lincoln thought the best solution to repatriate Negro's to anyplace but here. So as I say, Lee's beliefs weren't out of the ordinary but if those same beliefs were held today that would be a fully different situation - one not to be excused by customs as we have made great efforts to expunge them though sadly not as thoroughly as we had hoped.

So Pennylynn you are welcome to do that lonely little dance of yours but you aren't going to rewrite what is written about your confederate hero Robert E Lee because by now his records are permanent as are the records as to why the civil war's spark was lit in the first place.

Now here is the first hint for why South Carolina succeeded:

Transcript of South Carolina's Declaration of the Causes of Secession (1860, South Carolina's Declaration of the Causes of Secession)

He [Memminger] most often sided politically with the Conservative Democrats of South Carolina.

Christopher decided that South Carolina should secede in order to "break things up" and "drag" other states with them. Led to his major involvement South Carolina's secession from the north.

Reason's for Secession

The reasons given by Memminger and others for the succession of South Carolina begin in the early 1850's.

Prominent reason was the believed intrusion of state's rights coming from the north.

The fourth article of the United States constitution had believed to had been broken by the northern states. This was referring to the returning of runaway slaves from the from the north back to the south.

For the North, many people were offended by the act of providing a way for the slave owners to get back their slaves who were supposed to be free.

In the south, they felt as though they were being treated unconstitutionally and that the North was encouraging a revolt among slaves.

So the first grievance was the returning of runaway slaves and that they felt the north was encouraging the revolt among slaves.

It's hard to argue that this isn't about slavery when the first grievance is over slavery.

And then there is this from the PDF of the Secession of South Carolina: The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

What they are saying is that the federal government is passing laws hostile to the slaveholding states of America. Well, the reason for those laws is slavery meaning to then secede for that reason directly related to slavery.

(The last link is to newspaper archives. Go to the last page and look of an article titled Robert E Lee.)

https://prezi.com/ed35slf61pcs/south-carolinas-declaration-of-the-causes-of-secession-186/
http://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/assets/documents/SCarolina-Secession-p1-13.pdf
http://fair-use.org/robert-e-lee/letter-to-his-wife-on-slavery
http://fair-use.org/national-anti-slavery-standard/1866/04/14/standard-26-49.pdf

There is much reason for the South's secession but the argument made by you cons most often is over "states rights" where the right most often referred to was the RIGHT to hold African Negro's as part of one's personal property. The second most frequent argument is over the egregious treatment of the federal government on the south but again the reason for that treatment centers around the use of the south of Negro's a part of one's personal property which then means that were it not for slavery then the civil war never would have occurred.

Yes indeed, the cotton gin did allow for more cotton to be processed. So, I do agree with you to a point. But, automation also eliminated the need for field labors. Fields could be planted using machines, the cotton could be harvested and bailed by machines.... again, eliminating much of the field labors. Now the sugar plantations still required field hands and this is where the majority of the workers were sold off to.... the Caribbean. The plantations actually produced more rum than sugar.... still do. Another industry that required large labor forces was tobacco plantations which were not automated and would not be for many years. John Rolfe actually arrived in the new world with tobacco seeds and started farming the crop in Jamestown, Virginia. Another crop, hemp.... or marijuana was also cultivated in the south. So, although the cotton industry was booming while using less field labors, there were other crops that were in high demand requiring large numbers of labors.

I was amiss for not listing those crops in my first reply. I was somewhat distracted. I am bottle feeding some newborns who lost their mother.... forgive my lack of attention to detail.