Opinion and Analysis:
Yes, as difficult as it is to believe, many respected Americans decades ago, and even many today still admire Robert E. Lee. And, in our view with good reason. Not just because of his exceptional military record, but because of his other even more important outstandng personal characteristics. He may not have been perfect, but nobody is. However, what is strikiing to us is how, even in the face of defeat, his men admired him.
We firmly believe that as a general rule one cannot judge historical figures based on contemporary standards. After exemplary military service in the U.S. Army in the Mexican War, Lee became Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Lee was quite torn and very probably thought that Southern secession was a bad idea. When Virginia did secede from the Union he faced terrible personal and professional dilemmas. He ulitmately turned down command of the Union Army because he could not bring himself to do harm to his native Virginia. Leaving his exceptional military record as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia (the Confederate army) at the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and elsewhere aside we’ll just note that, pursuant to his father- in-law’s will, he released his slaves before the end of the Civil War, and before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. He fought nobly for the South until the end of the Civil War giving successive Union commanders a very hard time indeed. His last big victory was against General Grant at Cold Harbor in June of 1864. Thereafter, he became the President of Washington College (now Washington & Lee University).
By the way, a much stronger argument can be made that the South had legitimate reasons for seceding than most academics nowadays admit. Those reasons included (i) the Union before the war was a voluntary association of states and the Constitution itself did not prohibit any state from leaving at any time for any reason; (ii) the North was in the process of violating the Three-Fifths Compromise at the original Constitutional Convention under which the North induced (some say misleadingly) the Southern states to join the Union by implicitly accepting the existence of Slavery; and (iii) other reasons escape us as we write this, but they exist. Clearly, however, the South firmly believed they had a right to determine whether, when and how and under what conditions slaves should be freed, if ever. We note that freeing the slaves had been seriously discussed in the South for several years, however, unlike the more industrialized North the Southern economy was dependent on slavery, and naturally Southerners were not happy about being told what to do by outsiders who didn’t have to suffer the severe economic, politicial and social consequences of freeing the slaves that the South would suffer. In short, if the situation were reversed the North would have seceded too.
[ Note 1: And, people should frankly be amazed that the Union, after the war, allowed the construction of the various statues and monuments honoring leaders of the Confederacy after the war. Frankly, we don’t know of many other countries, if any, where one sees anything like that. Remember Union families had had their fathers, brothers and sons die during that conflict and one would think that they would have greatly objected to the construction of many of the monuments and statues–but amazingly they didn’t. ]
[ Note 2: We’ve actually addressed the causes of the Civil War and many of the reasons the South felt that it was within its rights and/or was justified in seceding from the Union. This includes an in-depth chat with ChatGPT on this subject. Here are just a few of the useful links on this subject (please use the search box on this website to find others):
https://reasonandbalance.com/judging-confederate-leaders/
https://reasonandbalance.com/the-civil-war-rebel-justification/
But we digress. The purpose here is to show, that not that long ago even Northerners had a lot of respect for General Lee. Far too many progressives and even mainstream academia wrongly paint a very sour picture of both Lee and the Southern cause. We are not saying that slavery isn’t horrible and/or that ultimate Union victory wasn’t in the best interests of our Nation. Moreover, equal protection and non-discrimination laws are good and healthy for our society. However, in our view, making our Southern ancestors out to be the bad guys and disrespecting them is one big reason why many Southerners and others have fallen under the spell of Trumpism. In short, they resent having their ancestors painted as villains. See the two videos below:
Why do we oppose Trump? Here’s Senator Mark Warner to give us but one of a long long list of examples: