Benedict Arnold adhered to a foreign monarch a vast difference from a people who attempted to leave the Union by lawful process. No person was ever tried and convicted of treason who adhered to the CSA. The fanatics that ran the Federal government after the Civil war knew they could never get treason convictions so they passed the 14th amendment.
Lastly, the winners define who is a traitor. If King George had won the Revolutionary war all the signers of the Declaration of independence would have been hung. They said so themselves. Lee was a noble man even General Grant said so. A democratic fanatics can never understand the idea of the noble enemy.
Lee left his Country to form another Country thus he was not an honorable American he was a citizen of the Confederate States of America which had its own Constitution.
You can admire Lee all you want but don’t delude yourself to say he was an honorable American since he rejected America, its Constitution and its Founders.
BTTT! Excellent and I agree because it’s true, despite my Yankee public school indoctrination. Taxes unequally imposed upon the industrial and successful South were used solely in Northern States.
Good post.
“did the national government or the state have a right to nullify a national government ruling”
A very good subject for debate. Most states were incorporated into the Union by mutual consent. Or applied for entry.
I won’t lie. I wish the South had won sans slavery which was a dying institution. We wouldn’t be part of the current mess now...maybe.
This can get confusing if you forget important facts and the precise sequence of events.
Two days later, Lee resigns from the Union army.
At the same time, Lee's close friend and fellow Virginian, George Thomas, remained with the Union Army, eventually becoming one of its best generals, the "Rock of Chickamauga".
So let's pause for a moment here.
At this point in time, war/rebellion has clearly begun but is not yet formally declared, no soldiers have yet been killed in battle.
Yes, Virginia's convention declared secession, but that is not yet confirmed by voters, and it may not even be clear yet if Virginians intend to join the rebellion.
Remember, just five months before, Virginians had voted for neither Southern Democrats nor Northern Republicans, but for John Bell's Constitution Union third party.
Virginians were hoping to steer a "middle road".
So Lee's resignation did not necessarily mean that he was intending then to make war on the United States.
He may simply have hoped to stay out of a war against former states.
Of course, the situation soon clarified:
So Lee's appointment to command Virginia's forces came after the Confederacy's formal declaration of war, but well before Virginia voters ratified secession & war, and before the first Union troops crossed into Virginia, or fought their first battle there.
Of the two Virginia generals -- Lee & Thomas -- I actually like Thomas better: solid as a rock, methodical, accused of being slow (due to prewar wounds & injuries), but always victorious, he was distrusted as a Virginian (and totally rejected by his family), but in the end highly praised by other Union generals, including Grant & Sherman, and by historians.
George Thomas proves that Lee had a choice, and the war's outcome that, as the Grail Knight told Indy: "he chose poorly."
Had Lee as ably served the Union as Thomas, the war would most likely have ended sooner, with far fewer Confederate deaths, especially those of his most beloved Virginians.