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I believe that it’s also “a fact” that one of Lee’s sons sued to have Arlington returned. The case went to the Supreme Court, which eventually ruled IN LEE’S FAVOR (emphasis intentional). In a great gesture, the Lee family agreed to receive compensation for the property, instead of the actual return of Arlington to their ownership (to which they were legally entitled).

Arlington was, in effect, “given to” the American people by the Lee family....
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Yes, it is a fact that George Washington Custis Lee sued the U.S. Government and won an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by a closely split 5-4 decision arguing the tax delinquency sale of Arlington House was unconstitutional because it failed to adequately comply with due process of law standards. It is also a fact that Major General George Washington Custis Lee and General Robert E. Lee acknowledged their acts of treason against the U.S. Government upon their applications for amnesty and a pardon in 1865 from the U.S. Government.

The statement, “Arlington [House] was, in effect, ‘given to’ the American people by the Lee family....,” is a very very grotesque falsehood. This family played a direct role in the infliction of hundreds of thousands of American deaths and millions more wounded by the Confederate States of America and their own personal acts of treason and armed rebellion. Having lost the war and surrendering themselves to the mercies of the same people upon whom they inflicted such death, destruction, and hardship; they felt it necessary to attempt to recover their lost Arlington House property. In return for their foes’ magnanimous return of their personal freedom without severe punishment for their acts of treason, the Lee family chose not to magnanimously acquiesce to the loss of Arlington House for use as a U.S. military cemetery. The fact is not only did they seek to recover Arlington House, they also tried to petition Congress to dismantle the military cemetery and have the many thousands of soldiers buried at Arlington House disinterred from their graves and moved to someplace else where the sight of their military graves would not disturb the sensibilities of the Lee family upon their reoccupation of Arlington House.

After many years of failures, George Washington Custis Lee finally succeeded in getting the U.S. Supreme Court to decide by a vote of 5-4 that the government officials and policies denied his mother the due process of law needed to forestall the tax sale of Arlington House. Having won the right to receive compensation for the fair market value of Arlington House, he accepted a payment of $150,000 from the U.S. Government which had so recently and generously granted him amnesty and a pardon for his own personal acts of treason, which killed and injured so many of the American families with sons buried at Arlington House and elsewhere. The fact is George Washington Custis Lee had no choice but to sell Arlington House to the U.S. Government. There was absolutely no way the removal of the graves could ever be tolerated. Instead, it was inevitable for the U.S. Government to promptly exercise its right of eminent domain to confiscate Arlington House once more with full due process of law which the U.S. Supreme Court could no longer find unconstitutional.

Given the facts, the readers can judge for themselves whether the Lee family’s actions and threatened removal of the soldiers’ graves were great gestures or something else entirely different.

As for the question of Robert E. Lee having committed treason, even he acknowledged his own treason beyond any shadow of a doubt when he applied for the amnesty and pardon for committing those acts of treason.