Quote#Wisdom
I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them.…
Quote byRobert E. Lee · 1807–1870
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Testimony to the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction (17 February 1866) responding to a question on relocating freed slaves to other states as quoted in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 186.
English (original)
I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them. That is no new opinion with me. I have always thought so, and have always been in favor of emancipation - gradual emancipation.
— Robert E. Lee
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I have fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and have never seen the day when I did not …