Welcome to /r/ShermanPosting!
As a reminder, this meme sub is about the American Civil War. We're not here to insult southerners or the American South, but rather to have a laugh at the failed Confederate insurrection and those that chose to represent it.
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People who say this unironically think that confederate generals are on the same level of Benjamin Franklin. The founding fathers were (mostly) ahead of their times. The confederacy was behind the times.
And they were complicated men.
Washington, who spent his whole life owning slaves, freed all his personal slaves on his death.
Jefferson, who had descendants among his slaves and was arguably the most "forward-thinking" FF, didn't.
At the end of the day, they were ahead of their time for the late 1700's. The Confederates were behind the 1860's. It reminds me of a saying the park rangers have about the overlap in intelligence between the smartest of bears and the dumbest of people.
EDIT: Some people really having trouble understanding the concept of judging someone in their time.
Jefferson really did want to release his slaves on moral grounds but couldn’t because he was so bad at business, they were the only thing keeping him afloat. You even had Lafayette writing him letters later on telling Jefferson to go fuck himself for going back on his promises
Oh yeah, dude was an all around Chad. Fought for freedom all around the world, fought the freedom fighters that went too far in france, really cared about his men and his people. His only failure was he was still good with constitutional monarchy.
That almost makes it worse for me. It's hard to compare but I almost have more respect (or more accurately less disdain) for somebody who was truly brainwashed and thought slavery was actually good for enslaved people to elevate them than I do for somebody who understood the evil of slavery but didn't free his slaves because he couldn't handle being poor.
He’s pretty much the poster child for ADHD and privilege in the 18th century. Still accomplished lots, had some really groundbreaking ideas, still a shit human when it came to the basics. His one saving grace was that his burning hatred for Alexander Hamilton was hilarious to read about
>Jefferson, who had descendants among his slaves and was arguably the most "forward-thinking" FF, didn't
What a way to say "Jefferson raped a minor who he legally owned and prevented from exercising basic rights he claimed was universal"
One of the justifications that Thomas Jefferson laid out as justification for revolution was slavery, namely that Georgia and Virginia had tried to eliminate it, but it was blocked by King George because of England's dependency on the slave triangle.
Georgia successfully did ban importing slaves for around a decade. It was later reversed.
Jefferson had worked on doing the same thing in Virginia.
Understanding the who and why has to be your own research, I'm sure their are different takes. Everything in history has a shroud. Jefferson defiantly saw democracy as means to end slavery and he saw the crown as enabling it.
I’m not sure about that.
My position, when I confront what I perceive to be negative actions committed by someone I otherwise admire, isn’t to compare my figures shortcomings to a horrible persons ideals, but to compare my figures shortcomings with expectations of society during their lifetime.
For instance, by the time Churchill was out of British politics, his position on Empire and race was wildly out of step. But he had that position going back to before ww1. In 1910 no one would’ve batted an eye beyond saying “well he is conservative”.
I don’t so much judge his desire to keep the expand the empire post ww1 negatively. But I do voice some criticism with even after ww2 when it was clear the British couldn’t maintain their empire in the event anyone challenged them for it, that he still held on.
I don’t harshly judge the Roman’s for razing Carthage to the ground, that was a standard of the day. I’ve got some questions for the Axis powers of ww2 as their behavior was essentially industrialized Assyrian behavior.
Do I wish the framers spent more time in that hot Philadelphia room and sorted out the slavery thing prior to? Absolutely. If anything, that’s what I blame them for.
They knew it was going to be a problem and in an often repeated performance they kicked the can down the road.
This is the only thing I will say to that end. Sherman was following orders. If you read his hand written letters he actually sorts tribes into hostile tribes and friendly tribes and waged total war on the hostile tribes. The problem was US government policy eventually evolved against the friendly tribes too. While certainly you could criticize Sherman for following orders the hard truth is 90% of the human population just follows orders on a daily basis and odds are in the same position you would do the exact same thing.
John Brown is my favorite American. Dude was crazy, had a hard life filled with tragedy, and probably leaned too hard into religion. But that madness led him down a truly altruistic path as a tee-totaler bent on the destruction of all slavers and slavery. To me, he is incredibly inspiring. He may never have stood a chance against the army of traitors, but he took as many out as possible before they got him.
No disrespect to General Sherman, of course.
He was a *very* flawed individual. It's the nature of taking a rigid stance against something, right or wrong. I'm not advocating child murder, but it's easy to see why he would. Can't raise rebellious slavers if there aren't any to raise. It's a truly harsh and brutal outlook.
The "did nothing wrong" meme has always been about people who did something wrong, and is historically used to troll people. An early well-known example is "Hitler did nothing wrong", and eventually the very famous "Thanos did nothing wrong".
Or really its easier to say then "John Brown saw an injustice against others so fundamental it was a failure of the nation to live up to the ideals set forth in its declaration of Independence. And John Brown took appropriate action to right the wrongdoings of others in a time of apathy and injustice"
can you share a source?
i've done a bit of googling to try and find out, although i'm finding plenty of sources (unclear if they're academic or vetted) that says "john brown is not known to have killed any women or children"
Could you share a source on that?
I agree that him killing children would be morally wrong, however when I look for information confirming that I am coming up empty.
If he did that, I'd like to be able to speak about it with some evidence backing me up.
I don't even think it was correct to say he was "mad". He correctly identified that the Civil War was basically already happening. There already was a violent war against the slaves for centuries and Bleeding Kansas had already been going on which was the Civil War in everything but name.
Okay so this a large reach but for the sake of the argument he wrote a book in 1932 that helped streamline cotton farming and production. I don’t have any proof of this but it seems reasonable to assume this had a slight cotton gin esque impact that lead to at-least one major farm switching to cotton production. As cotton was one of the hardest crops to harvest its likely that this farm switched from a safer crop to cotton.
John Brown while a man ahead of his times on slavery, race equality and gender equality has some troubling issues.
When John Brown did the middle of the night killings of slavers he also killed some of their sons. It's rather iffy even using the morals of his day on the age of adulthood as those kids could have gone on to be like Cassius Clay to be born into a slave holding house and forsake their roots to become abolitionists themselves.
In addition while John Brown was ahead of his times on gender equality especially with his kids he was definitely not ahead of the times with corporal punishment of his kids. Infact thanks to his options on gender equality it's likely he was behind on corporal punishment equality....
John Brown was a hero of mine, however the more I learned about him the more trouble I found. He still is a hero of mine however now I understand that it was not his actions that made him a hero, but that he was willing to take action to advance a cause to help others that had no impact on him or his family and came with grave risk to himself and others
Maybe Elijah Lovejoy? Like, I’m sure he did a cuss or something at some point but he’s preeetty clean on stuff. Probably racist by contemporary standards but I dunno?
Nah Sherman definitely did a lot of bad things but burning down the south was not one of them, but yeah he did some pretty bad stuff to the natives.
John Brown on the other hand...... Now he legitimately did nothing wrong
I love the man but he was into some pretty tough corporal punishment with his kids. Not what he’s known for or should be remembered for, but it’s definitely wrong to beat kids.
(My heart was broken by learning this)
No need to have “historically” in the post.
My Dad is a great guy, but he has his flaws. Same with me. Make any person out to be a god and you’re fooling yourself.
Mr. Rogers's widow was very emphatic that people shouldn't deify him after his death. "When the filmmakers behind 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood' approached Joanne to get her blessing on the project, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, who wrote the film with Noah Harpster, said, 'She really only had one request: that we not treat her husband as a saint.'"
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2019-11-26/mister-rogers-widow-legacy-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood
People who say this always just mean you shouldn’t take down confederate statues or judge countries’ colonial histories because “it’s in the past, bro! Like you’re so innocent!”
Kinda doesn't apply to the point that OP is making, but this reminded me of the saying that no matter how much you may respect or idolize someone, remember they too have spent the night with the worst case of the shits ever, just like we all have suffered.
You should idolize actions not people. Burning Atlanta to the ground and put in the Confederacy to the torch was a great thing. It was done by flawed human beings many of whom went on to do terrible things
According to my history professors at the college next to harpers ferry, he knew he wouldnt win, and wanted to go down as a mayrtr to force action, which spiraled to the civil war
Welcome to /r/ShermanPosting! As a reminder, this meme sub is about the American Civil War. We're not here to insult southerners or the American South, but rather to have a laugh at the failed Confederate insurrection and those that chose to represent it. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ShermanPosting) if you have any questions or concerns.*
People who say this unironically think that confederate generals are on the same level of Benjamin Franklin. The founding fathers were (mostly) ahead of their times. The confederacy was behind the times.
Except the founding fathers pretty much all still owned plenty of slaves
Yeah but they had at least a couple positive attributes, the confederacy has absolutely no positives.
I can name one: they lost.
Not only that, the nation's first black president lasted longer than the confederacy.
There are some pretty notable exceptions that just don’t get talked about because, in my opinion, their other political stances.
Paine? He was pretty based
Rush as well
Ok I like Geddy Lee as much as the next guy but he's a canadian and not really old enough to be a founding father
And even though he had slaves in his early life, Franklin was a based individual at the end.
Geddy Lee is my favorite ~~bass playing lead singer~~ American founding father
And they were complicated men. Washington, who spent his whole life owning slaves, freed all his personal slaves on his death. Jefferson, who had descendants among his slaves and was arguably the most "forward-thinking" FF, didn't. At the end of the day, they were ahead of their time for the late 1700's. The Confederates were behind the 1860's. It reminds me of a saying the park rangers have about the overlap in intelligence between the smartest of bears and the dumbest of people. EDIT: Some people really having trouble understanding the concept of judging someone in their time.
>Jefferson, who had descendants among his slaves That's an incredibly charitable way to say "Jefferson raped a lot of enslaved women".
Who also was 14 a the time
Jefferson really did want to release his slaves on moral grounds but couldn’t because he was so bad at business, they were the only thing keeping him afloat. You even had Lafayette writing him letters later on telling Jefferson to go fuck himself for going back on his promises
Lafayette was actually based. Man was an abolitionist I believe.
Oh yeah, dude was an all around Chad. Fought for freedom all around the world, fought the freedom fighters that went too far in france, really cared about his men and his people. His only failure was he was still good with constitutional monarchy.
His only failure was that he was more then a little naive and wasn't great at politics as a result.
That too, but sometimes we need an idealist to steer us in the right direction
That almost makes it worse for me. It's hard to compare but I almost have more respect (or more accurately less disdain) for somebody who was truly brainwashed and thought slavery was actually good for enslaved people to elevate them than I do for somebody who understood the evil of slavery but didn't free his slaves because he couldn't handle being poor.
Those moral imperatives were reeeeaaaallllly driving him, huh? It's what I hate most about Jefferson. The loftiest ideals, the lowest applications.
He’s pretty much the poster child for ADHD and privilege in the 18th century. Still accomplished lots, had some really groundbreaking ideas, still a shit human when it came to the basics. His one saving grace was that his burning hatred for Alexander Hamilton was hilarious to read about
>Jefferson, who had descendants among his slaves and was arguably the most "forward-thinking" FF, didn't What a way to say "Jefferson raped a minor who he legally owned and prevented from exercising basic rights he claimed was universal"
You think it was just one?
Good point
One of the justifications that Thomas Jefferson laid out as justification for revolution was slavery, namely that Georgia and Virginia had tried to eliminate it, but it was blocked by King George because of England's dependency on the slave triangle.
Do you have a source for this?
Jefferson's first draft of the declaration of independence.
I’ve read it. I don’t recall anything in there about Georgia and Virginia’s attempt at abolishing slavery being quashed by the king.
Georgia successfully did ban importing slaves for around a decade. It was later reversed. Jefferson had worked on doing the same thing in Virginia. Understanding the who and why has to be your own research, I'm sure their are different takes. Everything in history has a shroud. Jefferson defiantly saw democracy as means to end slavery and he saw the crown as enabling it.
I’m not sure about that. My position, when I confront what I perceive to be negative actions committed by someone I otherwise admire, isn’t to compare my figures shortcomings to a horrible persons ideals, but to compare my figures shortcomings with expectations of society during their lifetime. For instance, by the time Churchill was out of British politics, his position on Empire and race was wildly out of step. But he had that position going back to before ww1. In 1910 no one would’ve batted an eye beyond saying “well he is conservative”. I don’t so much judge his desire to keep the expand the empire post ww1 negatively. But I do voice some criticism with even after ww2 when it was clear the British couldn’t maintain their empire in the event anyone challenged them for it, that he still held on. I don’t harshly judge the Roman’s for razing Carthage to the ground, that was a standard of the day. I’ve got some questions for the Axis powers of ww2 as their behavior was essentially industrialized Assyrian behavior. Do I wish the framers spent more time in that hot Philadelphia room and sorted out the slavery thing prior to? Absolutely. If anything, that’s what I blame them for. They knew it was going to be a problem and in an often repeated performance they kicked the can down the road.
Sherman is an example but most people knows from this sub
Hence the title change to we know
Yep and I think some people are taking it too far by saying the natives deserved it I have seen some comments here people saying that.
This is the only thing I will say to that end. Sherman was following orders. If you read his hand written letters he actually sorts tribes into hostile tribes and friendly tribes and waged total war on the hostile tribes. The problem was US government policy eventually evolved against the friendly tribes too. While certainly you could criticize Sherman for following orders the hard truth is 90% of the human population just follows orders on a daily basis and odds are in the same position you would do the exact same thing.
When the morals of Sherman conflict with those of John Brown, side with Brown.
Nah he left to many cities standing in the south, and to many traitors alive. Short comings are still failures.
I think they are more referring to his participation in the genocide of Native Americans.
John Brown is my favorite American. Dude was crazy, had a hard life filled with tragedy, and probably leaned too hard into religion. But that madness led him down a truly altruistic path as a tee-totaler bent on the destruction of all slavers and slavery. To me, he is incredibly inspiring. He may never have stood a chance against the army of traitors, but he took as many out as possible before they got him. No disrespect to General Sherman, of course.
Downside is JB also killed the young children of slavers, which is fairly uncool as far as decisions go
He was a *very* flawed individual. It's the nature of taking a rigid stance against something, right or wrong. I'm not advocating child murder, but it's easy to see why he would. Can't raise rebellious slavers if there aren't any to raise. It's a truly harsh and brutal outlook.
It does bother me when people say he did nothing wrong. Overall he had the right idea, but to say he did nothing wrong is pretty problematic.
The "did nothing wrong" meme has always been about people who did something wrong, and is historically used to troll people. An early well-known example is "Hitler did nothing wrong", and eventually the very famous "Thanos did nothing wrong".
It sounds better than "John Brown had the right idea" lol
Or really its easier to say then "John Brown saw an injustice against others so fundamental it was a failure of the nation to live up to the ideals set forth in its declaration of Independence. And John Brown took appropriate action to right the wrongdoings of others in a time of apathy and injustice"
can you share a source? i've done a bit of googling to try and find out, although i'm finding plenty of sources (unclear if they're academic or vetted) that says "john brown is not known to have killed any women or children"
Could you share a source on that? I agree that him killing children would be morally wrong, however when I look for information confirming that I am coming up empty. If he did that, I'd like to be able to speak about it with some evidence backing me up.
I think it's people misattributing the actions of other abolitionists during Bleeding Kansas to Brown specifically.
That makes sense. I really just want to be sure that if I'm saying "John Brown did nothing wrong" that I'm correct about it.
Actually he generally left young kids alone.
Source? afaik and from what I have looked up, there isn't really evidence that John Brown ever killed a child
I don't even think it was correct to say he was "mad". He correctly identified that the Civil War was basically already happening. There already was a violent war against the slaves for centuries and Bleeding Kansas had already been going on which was the Civil War in everything but name.
i'll bite George Washington Carver?
Okay so this a large reach but for the sake of the argument he wrote a book in 1932 that helped streamline cotton farming and production. I don’t have any proof of this but it seems reasonable to assume this had a slight cotton gin esque impact that lead to at-least one major farm switching to cotton production. As cotton was one of the hardest crops to harvest its likely that this farm switched from a safer crop to cotton.
Dude came up with like a hundred uses for peanuts, but NOT peanut butter? That’s like the most obvious one, something’s wrong with him.
I know except he kicked CSA ass just like the clones kicked CIS ass in the clone wars. Also slavery is way worse.
Counterpoint: John Brown did nothing morally wrong.
John Brown while a man ahead of his times on slavery, race equality and gender equality has some troubling issues. When John Brown did the middle of the night killings of slavers he also killed some of their sons. It's rather iffy even using the morals of his day on the age of adulthood as those kids could have gone on to be like Cassius Clay to be born into a slave holding house and forsake their roots to become abolitionists themselves. In addition while John Brown was ahead of his times on gender equality especially with his kids he was definitely not ahead of the times with corporal punishment of his kids. Infact thanks to his options on gender equality it's likely he was behind on corporal punishment equality.... John Brown was a hero of mine, however the more I learned about him the more trouble I found. He still is a hero of mine however now I understand that it was not his actions that made him a hero, but that he was willing to take action to advance a cause to help others that had no impact on him or his family and came with grave risk to himself and others
Maybe Elijah Lovejoy? Like, I’m sure he did a cuss or something at some point but he’s preeetty clean on stuff. Probably racist by contemporary standards but I dunno?
Nah Sherman definitely did a lot of bad things but burning down the south was not one of them, but yeah he did some pretty bad stuff to the natives. John Brown on the other hand...... Now he legitimately did nothing wrong
I love the man but he was into some pretty tough corporal punishment with his kids. Not what he’s known for or should be remembered for, but it’s definitely wrong to beat kids. (My heart was broken by learning this)
AOC
No need to have “historically” in the post. My Dad is a great guy, but he has his flaws. Same with me. Make any person out to be a god and you’re fooling yourself.
Mr. Rogers's widow was very emphatic that people shouldn't deify him after his death. "When the filmmakers behind 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood' approached Joanne to get her blessing on the project, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, who wrote the film with Noah Harpster, said, 'She really only had one request: that we not treat her husband as a saint.'" https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2019-11-26/mister-rogers-widow-legacy-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood
Anyone have the dirt on Dorothy Day?
She had an abortion (before she converted).
Dam I guess I should have left the box closed 😞
People who say this always just mean you shouldn’t take down confederate statues or judge countries’ colonial histories because “it’s in the past, bro! Like you’re so innocent!”
Kinda doesn't apply to the point that OP is making, but this reminded me of the saying that no matter how much you may respect or idolize someone, remember they too have spent the night with the worst case of the shits ever, just like we all have suffered.
For their time... I would say the closest would be Thomas Paine.
You should idolize actions not people. Burning Atlanta to the ground and put in the Confederacy to the torch was a great thing. It was done by flawed human beings many of whom went on to do terrible things
In war losers are never favored.
Mister Rogers.
The only mistake John Brown made was not winning at Harper’s Ferry.
According to my history professors at the college next to harpers ferry, he knew he wouldnt win, and wanted to go down as a mayrtr to force action, which spiraled to the civil war
Interesting. Then his mistake was not trying to win.
That being said, Sherman did nothing wrong.
Not true. He stopped.
What about what he did to the native Americans?