[quote=@POOHEAD189]As a history major who's taken multiple courses and written essays on the civil war, I can tell you now I know that a lot of leftists are into the mob mentality and don't deign to look up facts. Like how Robert E. Lee freed his slaves, petitioned for african americans to gain a good education after the war, and the south would have abolished slavery due to industrialization in 20 years anyway. But instead you have people with no historical studies commenting on the civil war as if they've got a degree. [/quote]
I love Robert E. Lee as a historical figure, but he was a lot more complicated than that. He also believed that blacks shouldn’t have the vote, were [i]inferior[/i] to white men and women, and by some accounts was ruthless with how he treated his father’s slaves for a time. He was also a spiteful and petty man, just not in regards to the victory of the Union over the Confederacy. While I agree that the near-sighted perspective of history by the ignorant and uneducated is an issue you cannot just hand-waive all of Lee's problematic issues because he was against confederate statues and the few positive views he had on blacks.