My understanding is that the was required to take the same oath upon each promotion. If that's the case, then as a full Colonel in the U.S. Army, Lee would have taken that oath seven times, by my count.
I'm unaware of any oath that Lee took to preserve, protect, and defend Virginia, although times were different and the concept of federalism was stronger before the War Between the States. Nothing in the officer's oath said "of course, this oath is trumped by allegiance to an individual state."
Lee resigned his commission before taking up arms against the United States. I don't understand how that released him completely from his oath to the United States. A first- or second-generation German immigrant who graduated from West Point would certainly be considered a traitor if he had resigned his commission and accepted one to fight for Germany in WWI or WWII.
The Constitution of the United States defines as a treasonable offense any “act of war” against the United States or any “aid and comfort” given to enemies of the United States. Construing the acts of the Confederate States of America against the Union as something other than an 'act of war' or as constituting the acts of an 'enemy' require some rationalization.
One would have to believe that loyalty to state automatically trumped the officer's oath, although that prior loyalty was unspoken. Or that, by resigning a commission, the oath becomes null and void. Or that Virginia's secession somehow made the officer's oath irrelevant.
Lee was by virtually all accounts a gentleman. It requires more rationalization and perhaps some sophistry to say he was other than a traitor. He may have been a man of his word when it came to personal dealings, but when he took perhaps the most solemn oath he ever took, he was not a man of his word.
I'll be flamed for this, I'm certain.
If George Washington took a similar oath to protect and defend King George, then he was a traitor, too.
I am sure old Bobby Lee felt the same way and I raise a glass to his character.
1. Robert E. Lee did not betray his oath as an officer. He resigned his commission and returned home. Only when President Lincoln called for 100,000 volunteer and it became obvious that federal troops would invade Virginia did Lee take up the sword, in defense of his state. You need to remember that the feeling of most Southerners (and the original intent of the Constitution) was for strong states and limited federal government.
2. Robert E. Lee, and many other Christian men in the South had no love for slavery. In fact, Lee freed his slaves and Stonewall Jackson was opposed to slavery.
3. The South fought a losing battle against encroaching federal power. I feel far more kinship with those men than Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.
We are soon reaching the point when there will have to be another stand taken again federal power. Let us pray that this one will be peaceful.
“If George Washington took a similar oath to protect and defend King George, then he was a traitor, too.”
Nope... the difference is, Lee lost.
If one rebels and loses, one is a traitor.
No, it doesn't. All it requires is an inspection of the time line to see that Lee resigned his commission in the U.S. Army before accepting a commission in the Virginia Militia.
Lee resigned on April 20, 1861, three days after Virginia's secession convention reported secession articles and called for a plebiscite, and two days after Lincoln, acting through Joseph Blair as his proxy, offered Lee a general's rank and command of the Union field armies.
Lee asked Winfield Scott to assign him other duties that would not involve fighting in Virginia against his neighbors and fellow-citizens, and Scott refused, telling Lee that if he didn't want to accept orders to fight against the South, he'd better resign his commission right away. He resigned promptly.
Lee's Virginia Militia commission as a major-general, dating from just a couple of days later, predates both Virginia's plebiscitary secession vote and Virginia's joining the Confederacy, as well as Lincoln's blockade (declaration of war) against Virginia and North Carolina. North Carolina didn't secede until May, and neither State seceded before Lincoln blockaded them on April 27, 1861.
There's also the matter of several exchanges of gunfire -- cannon fire -- between federal ships and batteries, and Southern ones, before Sumter. That all has to be considered as well.
Also, there were shooting episodes involving Virginia Militia batteries on the shore of Chesapeake Bay, and federal gunboats, after Sumter but while Virginia was still a State of the Union. There were two such blockade-related clashes before Virginia's voters took the State out of the Union on May 23rd, 1861.
On the other side of the ledger, some of Virginia's state government officials, led by Gov. Letcher, were engaged in correspondence and cooperative actions, or at least noises, with the provisional Confederate government while Virginia was still unseceded, for which they might have been liable in a court of law. None of these actions involved Gen. Lee personally, however.
Lee had resigned his commission, That oath was null and void.