Civil war and abolitionist ponderings.

So was General Robert E Lee a racist? In doing research for our upcoming 2011 civil war reenacting I find very conflicting "proofs" to support both sides of the coin when it comes to Lee. Many of the southerners often take portions of a letter Lee wrote out of context to prove he was against slavery. But yet he owned slaves and was quoted as thinking the abolitionist were wrong in their fight for freedom of all people. Lee supposedly thought it was God's will that black people be slaves at that time. But no matter what it would appear that despite his owning slaves he still had a noble character and his good points.

Some northers do the same thing to Honest Abe trying to prove he was not a racist. Everyone seems to not be able to see the truth but instead defends their side with skewed facts taken out of context and misinterpreted. Abe wanted to ship all black people back to Africa. Some places quote him as saying that he felt whites were better then blacks instead of equal. I don't know if that was in or out of context. But it would also appear that he too had many fine points like Lee despite his possible racist feelings.

I guess it goes to show there will always be the good and bad in every person.

It would appear that both Abe and Lee were a bit racist but not to the point of being hateful closed minded bigots that we see most salve owners and or racist as being.

Take into account that this is my conclusions from what I have read and should anyone take issues with it I admit that I could be in error.

I will never understand why many of the southerners praise and about worship a man who owned slaves (Lee) and thought God wanted them to be salves despite the fact that he freed them. Owning another human, no matter what, is wrong.

And I will never understand why many of the northerners about worship Abe when he too appeared to have negative thoughts about black people for daring to be born black.

If people on BOTH sides had simply just stopped being evil and owning slaves and stopped fighting over control of things then that blood bath of a war would not have happened. Selfishness, greed, violence and evil on BOTH sides caused that war not just slavery. Back then a woman would sometimes lose her father, brothers, nephews, husband and sons all to the war leaving her and her remaining children and female family members destitute. A woman couldn't just simply go out and find a living back then. They didn't have food stamps and medicaid or rental assistance back then for widowed and or single mothers. Many young boys were allowed in the war and died. People on both sides suffered terribly with their arms or legs being sawed off due to gangrene from the gun shot wounds.

I do not buy into the commonly used phrase of "well it was just how it was back then they were men of their time". If I were to fall for that excuse then I could go out and get abortions, sleep around and have 1-3 failed marriages and just say "well it is the way things are done nowadays". There is such a thing as common since and respect for people. Wrong is wrong and right is right and we can all make a right choice no matter what our culture is at the time.

But nevertheless whatever the causes of the civil war were slavery was still one of the causes. I am glad to be the descendant of abolitionist. I have the blood of abolitionist Quakers running deep with in me. Abolitionist were people who fought for the freedom of slaves and all people.

I may be distantly related to Lee but I find no "specialness" in that but I do find it special to be a descendant of abolitionist freedom fighters. Those abolitionist fought against slavery and fought for the freedom of religion too. We may not have as much freedom as we do now if it were not for many abolitionist.