General John Kelly Parades his Ignorance

“I’ll tell you, Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man who gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. The lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand, where their conscience had them make their stand.”

General John Kelly, White House Chief of Staff 

General Kelly, you sir are a fool and an embarrassment.  Never mind that the rebellion spearheaded by men such as Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis lead to the deaths of more loyal Americans than Nazism and Communism combined.  That a man could achieve your position of responsibility within the Armed Forces and not understand the most basic precepts of the United States of America is beyond belief.  But let’s consider your claim that 150 years ago state identity surpassed national identity. 

George Henry Thomas, David Farragut and Winfield Scott were faced with the same dilemma as Robert E. Lee.  They too had to choose between “their state” and “their country.”  But each of the three aforementioned gentlemen chose the Union over the Confederacy and they fought with distinction.  Where do they stand in your pantheon of heroes?

What values did the government of the South hold dear?  They were stated succinctly in 1861 when Vice President of the Confederacy  Alexander H. Stephens delivered the Cornerstone Speech.  In this address Stephens argued against the equality of men and asserted that advances in science proved the enslavement of African Americans by whites to be justified and consistent with Biblical teachings.  Let’s consider a brief excerpt from this oration:

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.”

Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy

The Superior Race?  Where have we heard those words before?  What say you General John Kelly?  How is it possible that an honorable man such as Robert E. Lee supported an institution as odious as the Confederacy?