Historical Ignorance II
Forgotten facts about Lincoln, slavery and the Civil War.
“My policy sought only to collect the Revenue (a 40 percent federal sales tax on imports to Southern States under the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861).” reads paragraph 5 of Lincoln’s First Message to the U.S. Congress, penned July 4, 1861.
Myths and the Facts concerning the War Between the States. History books, the media, the school systems, etc abound in falsehoods and inaccuracies of Confederate and Southern history. This fact sheet will help to clarify and dispel some of these rampant inaccuracies.
General Lee’s 1870 Quote:
General Robert E. Lee, during Reconstruction, said, “Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand.”
The quote originates with Robert Lewis Dabney, who alleged that he heard it from former Texas Governor Fletcher Stockdale. Dabney and Stockdale claim the meeting where Lee is alleged to have said this took place at White Sulphur Springs in the summer of 1870, the year Lee died. Lee went to Staunton on August 29 to attend a meeting of the stockholders of the Valley Railroad. The stockholders met in Staunton on the morning of August 30. “Upon the conclusion of the stockholders’ meeting, General Lee returned to Lexington. It was his last journey.” [Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography, Vol 4, p. 480] Also, this particular fairy tale does not appear in Charles Bracelen Flood’s Lee: The Last