Easter Greetings

[L Verge]

I hope that all our Christian friends on this forum have a very happy Easter. I just read a quote from General Albert Pike, CSA, and found it very appropriate for the celebration of this holy season:

What we do for ourselves dies with us.
What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
― Albert Pike

I tend to be a private person when it comes to religion, but this quote speaks to me about the sacrifice of Jesus and other early Christians. It also gives me pause about the world situation today.

[Gene C]

Couldn't agree more.

There is this familiar quote by Lincoln
http://www.aboutabrahamlincoln.com/anecd...n_the.html

[Eva Elisabeth]

Happy (and peaceful) Easter everyone.

[RJNorton]

Happy Easter to all!

[LincolnMan]

Thanks Laurie. Happy Easter!

[HerbS]

Happy Easter-everyone!

[Angela]

Happy Easter to you all!

[RJNorton]

Happy Easter!

[Gene C]

And please maintain social distancing - https://i.ytimg.com/vi/of7iYUH19Vo/hqdefault.jpg

[Eva Elisabeth]

Happy Easter everyone!

[LincolnMan]

I was good seeing this again. Happy Easter season everyone!

[wpbinzel]

(04-15-2017 05:24 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I hope that all our Christian friends on this forum have a very happy Easter. I just read a quote from General Albert Pike, CSA, and found it very appropriate for the celebration of this holy season:

What we do for ourselves dies with us.
What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
― Albert Pike

I tend to be a private person when it comes to religion, but this quote speaks to me about the sacrifice of Jesus and other early Christians. It also gives me pause about the world situation today.

Albert Pike's statue in Washington, DC, which depicted him as a Masonic Leader and not as a Confederate officer, was toppled by protestors late in the evening on June 19,2020.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-20-2020 12:07 AM)wpbinzel Wrote:  

(04-15-2017 05:24 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I hope that all our Christian friends on this forum have a very happy Easter. I just read a quote from General Albert Pike, CSA, and found it very appropriate for the celebration of this holy season:

What we do for ourselves dies with us.
What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
― Albert Pike

I tend to be a private person when it comes to religion, but this quote speaks to me about the sacrifice of Jesus and other early Christians. It also gives me pause about the world situation today.

Albert Pike's statue in Washington, DC, which depicted him as a Masonic Leader and not as a Confederate officer, was toppled by protestors late in the evening on June 19,2020.

I wrote the following email last Saturday to the clerk of the court in Richmond hearing the case for removal of the General Lee statue. I do not know if the judge hearing the case will consider my email, but I tried.

Email subject: Richmond Circuit Judge Bradley B. Cavedo and General Robert E. Lee statue

The following are excerpts from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, at pages 731-32.

Good Friday, April 14, 1865, was surely one of Lincoln’s happiest days. The morning began with a leisurely breakfast in the company of his son Robert, just arrived in Washington. . . . As the father imparted his advice, Elizabeth Keckley observed, “his face was more cheerful than [she] had seen it for a long while.”

At 11 a.m., Grant arrived at the White House to attend the regularly scheduled Friday cabinet meeting. He had hoped for word that Johnston’s army, the last substantial rebel force remaining, had surrendered to Sherman, but no news had yet arrived. Lincoln told Grant not to worry. [Note: Johnston followed the lead of General Lee; there would not be many years of guerilla warfare following the American Civil War. General Johnston signed the surrender of his army to General Sherman on April 26, 1865.] [Lincoln] predicted that the tidings would come soon, “for he had last night the usual dream which he had preceding nearly every great and important event of the War.” . . . Grant remarked that not all those great events had been victories, but Lincoln remained hopeful that this time this event would be favorable.

The complexities of reestablishing law and order in the Southern states dominated the conversation [of the subsequent cabinet meeting]. . . . Lincoln said that “he thought it providential that this great rebellion was crushed just as Congress had adjourned,” since he and the cabinet were more likely to “accomplish more without them than with them” regarding Reconstruction. He noted that “there were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. He hoped that there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over.”

As for rebel leaders, Lincoln reiterated his resolve to perpetrate no further violence. “None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them.” While their continued presence on American soil might prove troublesome, he preferred to “frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off.” To illustrate his point, he shook “his hands as if scaring sheep,” and said, “Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union.”

Stanton later wrote that Lincoln seemed “more cheerful and happy” than at any previous cabinet meeting, thrilled by “the near prospect of firm and durable peace at home and abroad.” Throughout the discussion, Stanton recalled, Lincoln “spoke very kindly of General Lee and others of the Confederacy,” exhibiting in marked degree the kindness and humanity of his disposition, and the tender and forgiving spirit that so eminently distinguished him.”

"I believe that General Lee’s statute should remain where it is, in order to honor his noble act of moral courage. I believe that President Abraham Lincoln would have agreed with this assessment."
________________________________________
"So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history." – Plutarch

President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

What would this nation be like now if General Lee had followed the express orders of his Commander-in-Chief, President Jefferson Davis, and committed his army to guerilla warfare?

The answer to that question must be put on the scale of justice in defense of the character and reputation of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Even then, as historian JMadonna notes: “[T]he unveiling of the Lee statue served as a moment of reconciliation for Americans. Union and Confederate veterans gathered together on the same platform, honoring a man many Americans, north and south, regarded as the epitome of military brilliance, bravery, and honor.”

I believe that General Lee’s statute should remain where it is, in order to honor his noble act of moral courage. I believe that President Abraham Lincoln would have agreed with this assessment.

Yours truly,
David Lockmiller

P.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has now ordered the removal of four portraits of former Speakers of the House from the Halls of Congress because they served in the Confederate Army or Government.

I strongly disagree with Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-20-2020 11:31 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Richmond Circuit Judge Bradley B. Cavedo and General Robert E. Lee statue

The following are excerpts from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, at pages 731-32.

Good Friday, April 14, 1865, was surely one of Lincoln’s happiest days. . . .

At 11 a.m., Grant arrived at the White House to attend the regularly scheduled Friday cabinet meeting. He had hoped for word that Johnston’s army, the last substantial rebel force remaining, had surrendered to Sherman, but no news had yet arrived. Lincoln told Grant not to worry. [Note: Johnston followed the lead of General Lee; there would not be many years of guerilla warfare following the American Civil War. General Johnston signed the surrender of his army to General Sherman on April 26, 1865.]

[Lincoln] hoped that there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over.”

As for rebel leaders, Lincoln reiterated his resolve to perpetrate no further violence. “None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them.” While their continued presence on American soil might prove troublesome, he preferred to “frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off.” To illustrate his point, he shook “his hands as if scaring sheep,” and said, “Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union.”

Stanton later wrote that Lincoln seemed “more cheerful and happy” than at any previous cabinet meeting, thrilled by “the near prospect of firm and durable peace at home and abroad.”Throughout the discussion, Stanton recalled, Lincoln “spoke very kindly of General Lee and others of the Confederacy,” exhibiting in marked degree the kindness and humanity of his disposition, and the tender and forgiving spirit that so eminently distinguished him.”

Letter from General Robert E. Lee to President (Confederacy) Jefferson Davis

April 20, 1865

the end of this letter reads:

A partisan war may be continued, and hostilities protracted, causing individual suffering and the devastation of the country, but I see no prospect by that means of achieving a separate independence. It is for Your Excellency to decide, should you agree with me in opinion, what is proper to be done. To save useless effusion of blood [my own emphasis added], I would recommend measures be taken for suspension of hostilities and the restoration of peace.

I am with great respect, yr obdt svt
R. E. Lee
Genl

[RJNorton]

Happy Easter to all!