When he took his oath as an officer? When he was fighting in the Mexican War? When he was head of West Point?
I can have some sympathy for the difficult choice Lee had to make, but his decision was a questionable one for someone who didn't really believe in secession.
Maybe the fact that so many members of his family opted for secession and the Confederate forces influenced him.
We must, in my opinion, always try and consider the time and place before we try to apply judgments concerning motivations, and that includes the relationship between the federal government and states, especially when we are very different today than what we were as a people back then.
Retrospective conjecture is difficult when we over-lay our own contemporary biases.
We were, back then, “American” but at the same time very much sovereign citizens of our states (10th amendment and all that).
We are so much different today than before that it is very difficult to appreciate/identify the pressures one was under when having to choose between remaining loyal to the federal government or to remain loyal to one’s state.
Therein is the problem.
Even back then, from a federal perspective and a states rights perspective, they both had difficult choices to be made. Whatever choice that was made was not perceived as evil or disloyal, but one made of conscience. Both sides understood that and that is why, I think, so many Northern and Southern officers and men remained friends through-out the struggle. . .especially West Point peers and friends.
Back then and today, how people and the states view their relationship with the federal government is so very much different that we can hardly grasp it (for most anyway).
Please see Post 70 to get an idea as to why I think this.
Post 70 is a quote from an 1896 Congressional Record that proves my point about how much the federal government respected state’s sovereignty, respected it so much the president used the Secretary of State to communicate with the governors. For the federal government and the South to fight was an extraordinary step borne by men of conscience, both sides.
Just my opinion. . .
Cheers.