Robert E. Lee was not fighting to perpetuate slavery... What was so evil about Lee's vision?
Perhaps that was not his motivation, but he was certasinly not fighting against slavery at all, and he certainly was fighting for a Confederacy that was expressly dedicated to perpetuating and expanding slavery. If he didn't want to fight against his neighbors and relatives, he could have chosen to remain neutral by sitting out the war.
Would America not have been far better off if slavery had died it's inevitable end, in Lee's words, "from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy" which cost a nation of 32 million people the deaths of 600,000 of it's citizens and poisoned racial relations for the next 140 years?.
Those are very convenient assumptions for him and for you, but they are totally unsupported by history. How exactly would slavery "melt away" when it was essentially adding the equivalent of about $100,000 (in today's dollars) on average to the wealth of each Southern family (and much more to the wealthiest and most politically powerful in the South)?
Race relations are not great now due to the toll that several hundred years of slavery and Jim Crow laws in the South have taken, but it is clear that race relations would be much worse had slavery survived any longer. Had the Confederates prevailed and the Northerners not dared to interfere with it, slavery may have continued to the present day, and even if it did not the American South would certainly be a lot more like South Africa (either before or after aparteid).
One must also remember that Lincoln signed the first version of the 13th Amendment which called for the perpetual establishment of slavery in order to appease the Southern fire-eaters.
The president has no formal role in passing Constitutional amendments, and though Lincoln passively approved of that proposed Amendment, you are mischaracterizing its terms, since it did not prohibit any state from abolishing slavery therein. (The Confederate constitution, in contrast, did prohibit any state or territory therein from abolishing slavery.)
Lincoln believed that he could persuade slave states to voluntarily abolish slavery therein. He was certainly quite mistaken in that belief, and fortunately the Radical Republicans did not share his faith in the prospects of voluntary abolition (note that 3/5 of the Republicans in Congress voted against this proposal, even as a last ditch effort to avoid a bloody civil war).
So, how are Christian men such as Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson supposed to acquire your 20/20, year 2003 moral and historical hindsight regarding the future of slavery in 1861?
All they had to do was read Tocqueville's Democracy in America, which was published in 1840.
The same Lincoln that singed the proposed Constitutional Amendment that would have perpetually enshrined slavery in the U.S. Constitution in the form of the first proposed 13th Amendment...
His signature would have been a nullity, and even if the states had passed it (which is unlikely given the Radical Republican's opposition to it), it could not have been made permanent.
How are Lee and Jackson expected to equate abandoning the defense of their native State in 1861 to the abolition of slavery?
The original Confederate states seceded (as they explicity and emphatically declared) in order to preserve, protect, and defend the institution of slavery, which they (quite accurately) perceived as being threatened by the rising tide of the abolition movement and the Republican Party. When Virginia joined the Confederacy, they joined that cause, and when Lee and Jackson agreed to serve the Confederacy, they were serving that cause (whatever their personal reasons for choosing to do so were).
Had Lee (or other prominent like-minded prominent Southern military men) stated from the outset that he/they would only serve Virginia and/or the Confederacy if they first abolished slavery, he/they might well have had a very positive influence on preventing or shortening the war.
The reasons men fought between 1861 and 1865 were very complex. Some were honorable and some were not. To judge all men on either side with 20/20 moral and historical hindsight from a vantage point of 142 years into the future is a cheap shot.
I'm not "judging" anyone -- I'm just pointing out some deep character flaws in some of the more prominent ones. Most of the Confederate soldiers probably fought because they were presented with a Hobson's choice to either fight for the Confederacy or be executed as traitors (as many Southerners who escaped to the North and fought for the Union were). Many others fought for the Confederacy because of social pressure (especially from the women) and/or as a result of a fighting instinct that had been deeply bred into them. Many of the most prominent Confederate officers, though, fought with the idea of preserving slavery foremost on their mind (eg. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who said "if we ain't fightin' fer slavery, I don't know what we're fightin' fer").
It should be noted the Lee's opinions of the Negro (to use the language of the time) changed during the course of the war as well. He was impressed with the valor and discipline of the colored regiments of the North, IIRC, and that experience served to alter his opinions more positively over time.
Of each Souhthern family? Where do you come up with such a number when most Southern families could not afford to own slaves?
Slavery melting away in Western nations is unsupported by history? When the time came in 1888, the Brazilians passed the Lei Áurea and abolished slavery without the fire-eaters on both sides of the issue unleashing the dogs of war.
So, how are Christian men such as Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson supposed to acquire your 20/20, year 2003 moral and historical hindsight regarding the future of slavery in 1861?
All they had to do was read Tocqueville's Democracy in America, which was published in 1840.
You did not answer my question. My question was: If Mr. Lincoln was actively promoting the first version of the 13th Amendment that would have protected slavery within the Constitution, how could Lee and Jackson know in 1861 that defending Virginia from an Army raised by Mr. Lincoln had anything to do with the abolition of slavery in Virginia?
My copies of Tocqueville's Democracy in America never mention a single word about someone named Abraham Lincoln or what wheels were turning in his political mind.
And, even if they did know what was in Lincoln's future mind, why would they agree to have the law of the land changed through the bayonet from the North rather than through the ballot box in the South?
If he didn't want to fight against his neighbors and relatives, he could have chosen to remain neutral by sitting out the war.
Lee, indeed, did not want to fight his "neighbors", be they Southern or Northern. When he was offered command of the Union Army, Lee declined and resigned his U.S. commission. He then went back to Virginia and wrote that he "would never again raise his sword except for the defense of his native Virginia."
There is a huge difference between not fighting your family and neighbors and sitting idly by and not raising a finger to protect them when they are attacked by outsiders.
Sorry. I forgot one.
Comparing Stonewall Jackson to Osama bin Ladin is not "judging"? You could have fooled me.