“If Robert E. Lee, who rebelled against the American government, deserves one, then why doesn't Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion?”

— Eric Foner

As quoted in "Trump says it is 'foolish' to remove Confederate symbols" https://www.ft.com/content/e7496854-82a1-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff (17 August 2017), by Neil Munshi, FT.com <br class="br">2010s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If Robert E. Lee, who rebelled against the American government, deserves one, then why doesn't Nat Turner, who led a sl…" by Eric Foner?

Eric Foner24

American historian 1943

Related quotes

“…not one rebel defection — not even Robert E. Lee's — cost young Adams a personal pang; but Sumner's struck home.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

“I, Robert E. Lee of Lexington, Virginia do solemn, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Union of the States thereafter, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithful support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Amnesty oath to the United States http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/publications/prologue/2005/spring/images/lee-amnesty-l.jpg&c=/publications/prologue/2005/spring/images/lee-amnesty.caption.html (2 October 1865) <br class="br">1860s

“Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.”

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

“The artist is one who has an innate rebellion against schemes.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'artista è colui che ha un'innata ribellione contro gli schemi.
Source: prevale.net

“It is fashionable to present hate and contempt for humanity as the exasperation and despair of compassion, but in that case rebellion should be against existence itself. When a man who is horrified by the basic evil of the world and his own existence, and who sees no God to rebel against, takes revenge on his fellow beings, he is a coward and a hypocrite. Perhaps the ugly, sordid, and horrifying things of which there is no end have always been produced by hypocritical and cowardly rebellion against existence, but that is not the rebellion of the social anarchist.”

Giovanni Baldelli (1914–1986) Anarchist theorist

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 7

“They who accord with Heaven are preserved, and they who rebel against Heaven perish.”

Mencius (-372–-289 BC) Chinese philosopher

Book 4, part 1, ch. 7
The Mencius

“The individual who refuses to defend his rights when called by his Government, deserves to be a slave, and must be punished as an enemy of his country and friend to her foe.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

"Proclamation to the people of Louisiana" from Mobile (21 September 1814).
1810s

“It is ridiculous to seek to excuse Robert Lee as the most formidable agency this nation ever raised to make 4 million human beings goods instead of men. Either he knew what slavery meant when he helped maim and murder thousands in its defense, or he did not. If he did not he was a fool. If he did, Robert Lee was a traitor and a rebel–not indeed to his country, but to humanity and humanity’s God.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Essay on Robert E. Lee http://inthesetimes.com/article/20447/Robert-E-Lee-WEB-DuBois-Racist-Murderer-Confederacy-Monuments (1928)

“The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Address to the court in "The Communist Trial", People v. Lloyd (1920)

“Science as subversion has a long history. … Davis and Sakharov belong to an old tradition in science that goes all the way back to the rebels Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Priestley in the eighteenth century, to Galileo and Giordano Bruno in the seventeenth and sixteenth. If science ceases to be a rebellion against authority, then it does not deserve the talents of our brightest children. … We should try to introduce our children to science today as a rebellion against poverty and ugliness and militarism and economic injustice.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

“If Robert E. Lee, who rebelled against the American government, deserves one, then why doesn't Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Eric Foner24

Related quotes

Related topics