(05-31-2017 11:03 PM)ColKurtz Wrote: Quote:Literally no one in the mainstream would draw that from the team's branding, colors, or anything relating to the team as it is viewed and celebrated today. It is so heavily tied to the actual animal now that its original meaning is irrelevant. Nothing about the team's image as-is today celebrates the Civil War or the Confederacy.
I would completely get going after Ole Miss, waste of time though it might be. This is just stupid.
One would think. They did just tear down Robert E. Lee's statue though. A man whose biggest fault was growing up in a DC suburb a few miles from the wrong side of the line. Graduated in the top of his class at West Point. Fought alongside Ulysses Grant in the Mexican American war. Grew up poor, but emancipated a relative's slaves when he was named executor of his estate. Wrote about slavery being a sin to mankind.
But he was associated with the south, so off he goes. Thought this will in all likelihood lead to nothing, I'd be a little wary of the momentum of the safe space crowd in LA if I was LSU.
The relative was his father-in-law and the father-in-law's will directed that the slaves be freed as soon as practical. Lee kept them until he got his own financial situation in order (most of the family fortune had been squandered before he was born and little was left for him, his wife's inheritance saved him financially). He complied with a direction in a will and only once he was in better financial shape.
He also took this oath.
"I, ______, do solemnly swear or affirm (as the case may be) to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States of America, and the orders of the officers appointed over me."
He was active in the Army (he had been promoted to Colonel after the first group of state seceded and turned down a Confederate offer of command prior to the promotion) and upon the start of shooting, Lincoln promoted him to major general and assigned him command of the Army but with Virginia's secession he did not obey the order of the president and resigned his commission.
Lee like Texas governor Sam Houston thought secession was a mistake. But Houston refused to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy and was removed from office.
People have choices.
Lee made the wrong choice when faced with how to deal with secession.
All that said, if someone wants to have a statue to Lee, I am not opposed because despite his mistake with regard to secession, in choosing to join the Confederacy, he sealed the fate of slavery. If Lee had commanded the Army of the Potomac the war likely ends much more quickly before the abolitionist sentiment took over the nation. The south would have been restored to the Union with slavery intact.
Far more significantly, as the war effort was collapsing, Jefferson Davis refused to accept that reality and accept any terms of peace. He directed Lee to escape with as many men as he could and wage a guerrilla campaign to undermine the Union occupation. Davis wanted a terrorist campaign. Lee instead ignored the order and in days surrendered Grant.
Lee was a very complex man. He believed slavery was bad not because of the impact it had on those in bondage but because it was bad for whites undermining the poor and their ability to earn a living competing against bondage labor. He believed that slavery was essential for the black man to make him civilized enough to be in America.
He also reformed a troubled little college, found ways to admit poor students who couldn't afford to attend and twice used his reputation and influence to prevent lynchings (one white, one black).