Washington Times' Charles Hurt: “We can debate about what side was right or wrong” during the Civil War
Hurt: “The only slaves that Robert E. Lee ever had were slaves that his wife inherited”
Published
Citation From the June 24, 2020, edition of Salem Radio Network's America First with Sebastian Gorka:
CHARLES HURT: Because it is a wildly misunderstood part of history. The statue to J.E.B. Stuart on Monument Avenue, the largest funeral in the history of Richmond, probably larger than any funeral most cities ever had up to that point, was the funeral for J.E.B. Stuart. The funeral for J.E.B. Stuart -- J.E.B. Stuart died protecting Richmond from an invasion.
And you -- and we can debate about what side was right or wrong, or, you know, whether it was an invasion or a rebellion, we can debate all that, but there were men women and children in Richmond who were living there, and the decision was made that -- that the state of Virginia peeled away from the Union, and their lives were at -- at stake. And J.E.B. Stuart went and protected the city of Richmond. J.E.B. Stuart -- the vast, vast majority of people who died and fought for the South in the Civil War didn't have slaves.
It's -- it's a convenient thing to say the whole thing was about slavery, and yes, it was about the economic differences between the north and the south, but it wasn't -- it's such an oversimplification to simply say oh, it's about a bunch of white people in the South wanting slaves, and a bunch of people in the North wanting abolition. Bullcrap. Bullcrap. Both the North and the South had thrived off of slavery for a long time. It is an -- it is an indefensible, disgusting institution, and Robert E. Lee, for example, was one of the very few people who, during his time, talked about how awful, how horrible slavery was. Nobody talks about that.
Nobody -- no, of course, nobody knows who Robert E. Lee was.
GORKA: Right.
HURT: The only slaves that Robert E. Lee ever had were slaves that his wife inherited.