Uncancelled History with Douglas Murray | EP. 01 Robert E. Lee

Jonathan Horn joins Douglas Murray on this episode to discuss Robert E. Lee’s infamous legacy. The two dissect his childhood, military career and life after the war. Should Robert E. Lee stay cancelled?

Douglas Murray is a British author and political commentator, who — along with his guests — looks at great figures of the past through their historical context.

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[staffordlee]

Thank you for the thoughtful and factual exploration into General Robert E. Lee. As a direct descendant of his & the Lee family of Virginia it’s been challenging recently. For most of my 51 years in VA, Lee was respected in spite of his very much being on the wrong side of history. I am proud to be related to 2 signers of the Declaration & until 7 yes ago felt proud to be the multiple greats niece of General Lee. Now it’s as if my DNA is diseased because of my lineage. I suppose I don’t have the most objective perspective…… still, it seems short sighted to look back 150 years through the convenience & luxury of a modern lens and so harshly judge what we cannot fully understand. In the first 1/2 + of the 1800’s life was a much harsher experience, scripture was adhered to, family obligation more intense, patriotism to state was extreme for the son of a founding father. Lee loved his kids and wife. He was rather quiet, humble, faithful to God, & respectful of women in a way more foreword thinking than many men in his time & in the South. He was in many ways a great man w/ views very much informed by his era, an era that I can’t feel, smell, touch or see in real time. Loyalty can be admired and a bad bad call. Duty can be righteous and lead one down a terrible path. I can only reach back w/ empathy and gratitude for what I would eventually inherit: a free world full of opportunity and prosperity built on the backs, blood, & treasure of imperfect men & women who built a nation from the ground up. Slavery was and is an atrocity of humankind. It has existed for all of history and continues today across the globe. I wish my many greats uncle had chosen differently but I respect most of what he accomplished in life and who he was & am grateful for the way he chose to surrender & afterwards serve the young men of VA, while also quietly setting a good post war example to unify a ravaged south by submitting to the North’s win & the law of all the land.

[garywildfong]

Douglas Murray. Absolutely the best as an interviewer because of his zenith intellect, true desire for understanding and educate us all. Just brilliant and honest. God bless you.

[gregorycox]

An adult conversation of history. Very refreshing.

[dwhunter]

🔥🔥🔥Sadly Johnathan glossed over the fact that General Lee was one of the very very few cadets to graduate West Point with ZERO demerits. Still quiet the feat today.

[reminder]

I appreciate Jonathan Horn's take on General Lee's choices. He articulated his opinions skillfully and with tact. I must say that I absolutely sympathize with Lee, and the feeling of being unable to fight against my home. Having served in the U.S. Military, If I was told to bear my arms against my home I couldn't do it. Neither could I simply sit idle, even if I didn't hold to every political tenet that prompted the conflict. My family settled the valley in which I was born, and we have owned the land upon which our homestead was built for more than 160 years. The house I grew up in was the same that my Grandfather grew up in, and was built by my Great-Grandparents more than 70 years ago. It is on that homestead that I have every intention of caring for until I breathe my last. Sometimes it is easier to live broken and defeated but with a clean conscience than to have never fought for what you are truly loyal to. How much easier is it then to die for it? As the Author Shelby Foote retold, when a Southern Soldier was asked why he was fighting, he replied "because you're down here"

Lee would be the first to point out he was only a man, but his love for his home and his people was great enough, that even with the shame of defeat and the label of a traitor, he did not abandon them. I believe that is worthy of some degree of emulation.

[What]

Woo hoo!! Just discovered this show. Douglas Murray hosting his own podcast is some of the best news I have heard all week!

[davidmcaliley]

This is an amazing conversation. As a born and raised southern gentleman I appreciate this on so many levels. Great perspectives here.

[thespider]

Thank you so much for this! This man has such a passion for history! What a joy to watch! God Bless Robert E Lee!

[gregoryarruda]

This series of Q and A's are a treasure. Thanks.

[Neil-Daimond]

To discover a series like this to which I can binge listen is a priceless joy 😊

[basilmoncrief]

Adults discussing history like adults. Very nice.

[damoclesdrops]

Awesome Douglas keep going bro. The importance of learning from our past can't be understated.

[isaacesposito]

I can't tell you how stoaked I am for a Douglas Murray channel.

[alanaadams]

My family's is from Illinois the land of Lincoln. So I am a yankee. But I have always loved Robert E Lee respected him for his military abilities and his patience and kindness to his troops.

[ashleyburns]

I did a module on the Civil War at university and wrote my essay on what the war was faught for, I read thousands of Confederate soldier's letters and studied a vast amount of primary sources, they were not fighting to preserve slavery. The generals and officers probably were, but for the ordinary soldier it was freedom and states rights. The Union also definitely wasnt fighting to end slavery, it was much more than that, for example after the Civil War in New Orleans French was banned by the Federal government and English was enforced. It was primarily about maintaining the Union/Empire and transforming ''these United States'' into ''the United States''.
By the way, I am not American, I have never lived there so what I see is from afar. Whenever the issue of reparations is brought up, I always think that the 600, 000 or so dead Americans is reparation enough.
I finished my History and War Studies degree in 2014 and finished my Masters in 2016. I am very lucky as I think I was one of last generation who went to pre-Woke university and enjoyed the traditional experience of free thought and debate, before those two luxuries that were once integral to modern Western civilisation came under attack.

[chokkan]

Hat's off to Mr. Murray for allowing educated people to expound upon various matters of import to those of us with traditional values. As a southerner born and bred (and one who has spent many years working and living in the NE area of the US), it's never ceased to amaze me how little the average American seems to understand their own history. When I lived in MA, driving around the region, I could still see the ruins of various Victorian-era textile mills (where southern cotton would have been processed into fabric), and the framework of the tension came into focus. In 1861, the highest concentration of wealth on the planet was in MS (due to their production of cotton; 20 years later, it was in MA, due to whaling), while Boston was the locus of banking; one needn't be too imaginative to see how a grand transfer of wealth might have been machinated. The Mexican-American War formed a template which was dutifully replicated with the southern states as a foreign combatant for the Civil War, and the pretext was the abolition of chattel slavery. At one point, slavery had been legal in every US state; one by one, those states which had been unable to make the practice economically profitable renounced the practice and then later came to oppose it in other areas of the country. After the Civil War, the US gov't made no substantive effort to mainstream the newly freed slaves (Recontruction is often viewed as such an effort, but the thrust of this was far more in line with humiliating and punishing the rebels than in affording the benefits of democracy to the former slaves, as is evidenced by the following century of poverty), and as Blacks moved north in search of work, various forms of discrimination expanded to conform (e.g., in the '20s, NJ was the headquarters of the KKK) to this new paradigm.
Let me be clear: I wish that the practice of slavery had never been introduced to the New World, but that happened long before I was born. Castigating those long-dead for their failure to adhere to modern ethics is little more than woke, self-servicing sophistry. History is far more complex and satisfying (if one takes the time to regard it appreciatively) than any Maoist dogma could ever be...

[douglasdearden]

Horn's thoughts on why we should NOT tear down monuments is one of the most eloquent and concise points I've heard. I usually just scream "What the hell are you morons doing?!!!" Horn appeals to reason and appreciation of the past. Sadly, the maddening crowd won't understand him. Such a shame.

[kristinarimkunaite]

Thank you! I knew very little about these important historical moments.

[aarlee]

As his 4 great nephew it saddens me that people do not know the whole story.

[skauffman]

Mr. Murray

Congratulations Sir, I was looking for your own podcast and finally found it. The ambience and civilized conversation makes of this a beautiful experience.

The very best for you all and greetings from Mexico.
Thank you kindly.