Remove the Lincoln Memorial!!

It appears that the iconic Robert E. Lee memorial in Richmond, Virginia is about to be removed. A judge has issued a 10-day stay, but given the sweeping histrionic behavior at the moment, the statue is probably doomed, all because those who know absolutely nothing about Lee associate the statue with slavery and racism. 

Robert E. Lee was one of the most principled, noble yet humble Americans that this country has ever produced. I would encourage those who dismiss him as simply a racist to read some of the many books about Lee's life prior to the Civil War, during the war, and more importantly after the war. He, more than any other southerner dedicated his post-war life to rebuilding the south and advocated obedience to the nation. If someone were to ask me today who a young man should model his life after, my instant response would be Robert E. Lee. And now we want to and probably will remove the memorial to a man we should be proud of. 

Following the uninformed logic of the memorial destroyers, the next target should be the Lincoln Memorial...the monument to the 'great emancipator'. Lincoln was anti-slavery, viewing it as immoral and unjust. He was not pro-black. 

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863 was a strategic, not a humanitarian move. At that time in history the North had suffered one battle defeat after another. Northerners were tired of the war and were beginning to doubt that victory was possible. In France and England there was talk of recognizing and supporting the Confederacy. Initially the conflict was viewed as a war to preserve the union. The Emancipation Proclamation made the cause of the war one of human freedom, thus ending any discussion of Confederate support from foreign nations. And the emancipation granted freedom to slaves in the south, a territory that the Federal government had no control over anyway, so it in effect was meaningless. 

As mentioned before, Lincoln was anti-slavery, but Lincoln did not see black people as being an intrinsic part of American society. He saw them as an alien group of people who had been unjustly uprooted from their country. Lincoln supported freeing slaves gradually, and talked of compensating slave owners. He envisioned the freed slaves to be encouraged or perhaps obligated to return to their country. 'Send them back to Africa', he is reported to have said...a rather naive notion since many of the slaves had ancestors dating back 200 years in this country. No such words ever came from Robert E. Lee. 

So if we're going to take down Lee's memorial it seems only just to take down Lincoln's memorial. Maybe we could dig a deep hole called the 'history repository' in Montana and bury the memorials side-by-side. We'd have to leave room for the Washington Monument. George was also a slave owner.