Posted on 01/30/2007 11:33:39 AM PST by RayStacy
Robert E. Lee: Icon of the South -- and American Hero By H. W. Crocker III Published 1/30/2007 12:08:14 AM
January can be a depressing month. The Christmas decorations come down, the creche is returned to its box (save for those hardliners, like the Crocker family, who leave the nativity set up until 2 February, the Presentation of the Lord), and the tree is dragged unceremoniously from the house. If you've had any time off of work, it ends; the spirit of Christmas can deflate pretty fast, if you're not careful. Even if you are, and you're returning to a desk job, you might start day-dreaming (as I always do) about whether you could, in good conscience, risk the family finances and try your hand at farming or ranching or doing anything that would get you out of an office and away from the corporate crowd.
But we all have to buckle down to our responsibilities, and as we settle down to it, there comes along another anniversary, another date to mark, another birthday to celebrate. In traditional Southern households, four weeks after Christmas, comes the birthday of Robert E. Lee, icon of the South, "one of the noblest Americans who ever lived, and of the greatest captains known to the annals of war" (according to Winston Churchill).
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Lee's birth, and yet so far it seems to have been marked largely by silence. How many of you noticed, or celebrated yourselves, Lee's birthday on 19 January (or Stonewall Jackson's on 21 January)? Lee's birthday is still officially marked in some Southern states, but the great and good general seems to be slipping from America's consciousness, or at least from America's esteem.
Lee, in the mind of some, has become a sectarian hero, when he used to be a national one. Theodore Roosevelt, scion of a Yankee father and a Southern mother, thought Lee was "without any exception the very greatest of all the great captains that the English-speaking peoples have brought forth." On Lee's death in 1870, a Northern paper, the New York Herald, editorialized: "Here in the North... we have long ceased to look upon him as the Confederate leader, but have claimed him as one of ourselves; have cherished and felt proud of his military genius as belonging to us; have recounted and recorded his triumphs as our own; have extolled his virtue as reflecting upon us -- for Robert Edward Lee was an American, and the great nation which gave him birth would be to-day unworthy of such a son if she regarded him lightly. Never had mother a nobler son."
IT IS IRONIC THAT LEE was so respected as a national hero when the wounds of war were still fresh, but now, a century and a half later, he is considered discredited because of the cause for which he fought. Yet his cause, if anything, is another reason to admire him.
If that last statement sounds controversial, consider, without prejudice, the cause for which Lee sacrificed everything -- his life, his family, his career. It was a simple and eloquent one that every humane man should be able to rally round: "With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty as an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home." In another letter, he wrote, "a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets has no charm for me. If the Union is dissolved and government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none."
Lee would have endorsed the view of General Richard (son of Zachary) Taylor who said that he and his fellow Southerners had fought not for the preservation of slavery -- regret for slavery's loss, Taylor noted after the war, "has neither been felt nor expressed" -- but rather, they had "striven for that which brought our forefathers to Runnymede, the privilege of exercising some influence in their own government."
That Lee believed that the Confederacy had only exercised its rights as guaranteed under the Constitution, defended by the founders, and invoked by states and statesmen "for the last seventy years," can be seen in his letter of 15 December 1866 to Lord Acton, in which he says precisely that. He wishes that "the judgment of reason" had not "been displaced by the arbitrament of war," but concludes it has been, and it is time for the South to move on, to accept "without reserve... the extinction of slavery.... [A]n event that has been long sought, though in a different way, and by none... more earnestly desired than by citizens of Virginia," and to "trust that the constitution may undergo no [further] change, but that it may be handed down to our succeeding generations in the form we received it from our forefathers."
This does not sound like a man whose politics should bar him from the admiration that used to be his due.
I THINK, HOWEVER, THAT THERE IS another, deeper reason why Lee makes modern America uncomfortable. It is his Christianity -- not the fact the he was a believer, but that he actually knew what it meant to pursue the imitation of Christ. Try reading the Gospel of Matthew and you'll find that it's arresting stuff. And Lee, though gentle in demeanor -- indeed a thoroughgoing gentleman -- could be equally arresting.
When a young mother sought Lee's advice for raising her infant son, Lee replied, "Teach him he must deny himself." Or how about this: "Duty...is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things.... You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less."
Lee always put others first; he believed that to lead is to serve; he believed that the "forbearing use of power does not only form the touchstone, but the manner ... of a true gentleman.... A true gentleman of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others."
Today, Self seems to be the great god of most people. They bow before the presumed truth that happiness lies in self-esteem and "self-actualization" -- a very self-flattering way of affirming that one's "inner self" is always right, and the source of all truth. Self-denial, unless it is in the form of a diet (to make us feel better about ourselves), is not much in vogue.
Well, Lee was the great anti-self-actualizer of American history. As Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Douglas Southall Freeman put it: "Had [Lee's] life been epitomized in one sentence of the Book he read so often, it would have been in the words, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.'"
Today, many find that sentence too bracing, and Lee, who embodied it, becomes an affront, a perfect example of Mark Twain's apothegm that "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."
And it's not just that, of course. Ignorance is part of the problem too. For how many Americans today know the real Robert E. Lee or know anything about him at all, save that he was a general "who fought for slavery."
If we want an America of heroes, we need to cherish our heroes of the past. It is to the advantage of every Southerner, of every American, to renew his acquaintance with Robert E. Lee, because there simply is no finer American hero.
A better description would be kidnapping and enslaving. How would the confederates know a runaway slave from a black man free for generations? Not that they tried, apparently.
If they addressed that I missed it. You'll enjoy the show. It makes African slave traders look very bad and it tries to paint the issue of N vs. S regarding slavery. There are also some guest commentators who make statements that are probably impossible to verify.
"And the lack of treason trials was due to amnesty declarations and the ratification of the 14th Amendment."
Now that's hardly a convincing argument.
But the truth. Amnesty proclamations took care of most Southern leaders. And when the 14th Amendment was passed Chief Justice Chase made his opinion clear that he believed trying and convicting the likes of Jefferson Davis would be a violation of their 5th Amendment protections since they had already been punished for their part in the rebellion by the ratification of the 14th Amendment.
Thanks for the info; hopefully a road trip up to VA will be in the cards for me this summer.
So then it was not about secession? I live in the south and the general concensus here is that it was about states rights and not about slavery at all. The Emancipation Proclamation was just signed as an afterthought and that Lincoln was not all that opposed to slavery.
I have seen documentaries on TV about a northern prison camp where they were very cruel to the southern prisoners. Many died of starvation, etc. And they did kill southern women and children. Also burned their homes out from under them. I see no reason why they should have harmed the families of the southern soldiers.
Camp Douglas, Helllmira, and Point Lookout. And done not for lack of supplies, but with willing cruelty.
I suggest a book, America's Victories by Larry Schweikart
Thanks but I've already got several usuable doorstops. McPherson's drivel does the job rather well, not to mention Harry Jaffa's collective 'works'
"So then it was not about secession? I live in the south and the general concensus here is that it was about states rights and not about slavery at all. The Emancipation Proclamation was just signed as an afterthought and that Lincoln was not all that opposed to slavery."
A fundamental states' right being asserted by the southern states was the right to own slaves and to spread slavery to new territories.
Slavery was very much at the center of the reasons for the Civil War. It was not the only reason, but it was a central reason. But don't take my word for it. Read the proclamations that the Confederate States adopted when they seceded. These documents were called "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of {such and such state} from the Federal Union.
Here is one statement from South Carolina's Declaration of Secession: "The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation."
I suggest that anyone who thinks that the Civil War was not about slavery, google each confederate state's Declaration of Secession and read them for yourself.
Good for posting the Declarations of Session? That's never been done before on FR.
Another primary source is the famous "Cornerstone" Speech of the Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stevens delivered in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861. Vice President Stevens is asserting that white supremacy and slavery are the cornerstones of the Confederacy.
Here are two key paragraphs. The context is that Stevens is enumerating why the confederate constitution is an improvement on the US Constitution.
He states:
"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind -- from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just -- but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal."
You're a real scholar. We haven't seen that much cut and paste since Wlat.
Might be better if you looked to see what the book is about, rather than dismiss it out if hand, but I suppose once you formulate an opinion you stick to it...even when you are wrong.
Fair enough. What state's right did they see as being in danger and important enough to justify rebellion?
The Emancipation Proclamation was just signed as an afterthought and that Lincoln was not all that opposed to slavery.
Lincoln was opposed to slavery and said so continuously throughout his life. He was also aware that there was nothing he could do about it in the states where it existed. He did firmly believe that the government could halt the spread of slavery to the territories and was totally committed to doing so.
It was actually the Southern leadership that was, at best, not all that opposed to slavery. The overwhelming majority of them were firmly committed to the institution.
DiLorenzo's stuff, Chuckie Adams' book, and the collected works of the Kennedy bros work for me.
Right, Right. The South Will Rise Again. :)
On that we can agree..
Another myth of Dixie. I suspect more southerners had much more to fear from "their own" government than from the Yankees. In general, the reb regime was so oppressive that in many places the Union army was seen as liberators from reb tyranny. After four years of rule by confederate thugs, many southerners' eyes were finally opening. Witness the high desertion rate for the reb army. The slaveowners' government wasn't worth fighting for.
Oh come on, stainless. The late and unlamented Nolu Chan used to cut and paste in ways that Walt never dreamed of.
Yup! He was a great man, but one day someone may accuse us of a hate crime for speaking well of him. The American Thought Police are running wild.
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