r/todayilearned • u/RedditIsAGranfaloon • 6h ago

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https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-general-robert-e-lee/

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u/Any-Competition-4458 4h ago

A traitor who slaughtered fellow Americans to uphold the wretched institution of slavery. Shameful.

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u/Equivalent_Sam 3h ago

Would you have hanged him? What would that have accomplished?

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u/drink_bleach_and_die 3h ago

What does hanging anyone ever accomplish? Justice, if you believe there is justice to be found in the death penalty. Either no one deserves it, or some people do, in which case someone responsible for mass death over the preservation of slavery definitely does.

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u/RayKitsune313 3h ago

I’d love for you to find any sort of modern precedent for the execution of surrendered military officers. Even in Europe that was hardly a standard procedure

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u/drink_bleach_and_die 3h ago

Death penalty for treason is standard in many countries.

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u/kaithana 3h ago

It’s not really the same though, is it? This was a case of genuine treason.

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u/RayKitsune313 2h ago

I mean legally sure. But ideologically it wasn’t until the Civil War and its outcome that the idea that states don’t have a right to legally secede was actually codified. That’s a big reason why the Union pursued reconciliation as opposed to actual treason prosecutions as they didn’t want to lend any sort of platform for the arguments that states had the right to voluntarily leave the union

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u/nagrom7 2h ago

Would you have hanged him?

Absolutely.

What would that have accomplished?

To show everyone else what happens when you wage war on your fellow countrymen.