Scholars say Trump went afoul in lumping Lee with founders

Trump's remarks on Tuesday came as he was defending those who have sought to preserve the statue of Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, the focus of a violent weekend clash in which an anti-racist protester was killed.

[...] he noted a similarity sometimes glossed over — ownership of slaves by figures who nobly stand or sit astride horses on U.S. pedestals — and he asked:

For some, monuments to those founding fathers "force us to contemplate the centrality of slavery to the making of the nation," said Gregory Downs, a history professor at the University of California, Davis who studies the impact of the Civil War on the United States.

Adding to the complexity of the debate, many Lee memorials were erected long after the Civil War as part of an effort to rehabilitate Lee's reputation and denigrate his victorious opponent Ulysses S. Grant, who fought to preserve the nation and later defended black civil rights as president.

[...] treasonous secession for the purpose of preserving and expanding slavery forever.

[...] the violent and fraudulent creation of Jim Crow segregation.