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Cobb Opposed Robert E. Lee Letting Slaves In The Military

Howell Cobb is best known as one of the founders of the Confederacy. He was also both a member of the United States House of Representatives and was ultimately the Speaker of the House. He was also appointed to be the Secretary of the Treasury under President James Buchanan as well as the Governor of Georgia. He owned slaves and was a Colonel in the Confederate Army.

He opposed when Robert. E. Lee wanted to let slaves enlist in the military. In the closing days of the war, Cobb fruitlessly opposed General Robert E. Lee’s eleventh hour, saying “You cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” Essentially, he was saying that allowing to slaves to be soldiers went against the theory accepted by the Confederacy that slaves were inferior human beings.