Guelzo’s Robert E. Lee

The only certain things in life are death, taxes, and “conservative” historian Allen Guelzo calling Robert E. Lee a traitor.

In fact, his recent book makes that clear on the first page. Guelzo is a self described Yankee who bleeds blue and genuflects to his statue of Abraham Lincoln. That last part I made up, but he does call himself a Yankee.

That means no one should take anything he has to say about Lee seriously, but the “conservative” establishment will undoubtedly love his latest book on Robert E. Lee.

I won’t link to it because you don’t need to buy it. I can sum it up in about ten words.

“Robert E. Lee is an evil traitor who fought for slavery.”

I just saved you nearly thirty bucks. Who needs the left when you have “friends” like Allen Guelzo.

This is par for the course from an historian who writes so many polemics against the South you would think he was donning the Yankee blue and charging the line at Fredericksburg. If only we could have the same results, figuratively speaking.

Guelzo smugly thinks he can refute the legality of secession. He can’t. He smugly thinks he can easily prove Lee was a traitor. He can’t. He smugly believes he can prove the South waged a bloody war to protect slavery. He can’t. He smugly argues he can prove Lee was an evil de jure slaveowner. He can’t.

In other words, Guelzo fails at everything he attempts to do. You wouldn’t want him as your lawyer let alone your historian.

Perhaps he should stick to writing sloppy op-eds. At least no one expect them to be completely accurate. We could just call them his books.

I discuss the Yankee historian and Robert E. Lee on episode 528 of The Brion McClanahan Show.


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