“by noting that Lee was a traitor who fought against the country founded by Washington and Jefferson”
I am not arguing in favor of slavery or the Confederacy, but you and the never Trumper have to put Lee into the same kind of context they are willing to put Jefferson. Why? The “country founded by Washington and Jefferson” did not ban slavery. That’s a fact.
If you look at how far apart were NOT the views of Lincoln and Lee, as to the inequalities of “the Negro”, and put them both in the context of their day, you could see how Lee, no less than Lincoln thought HE WAS fighting for that country founded by Jefferson and Washington, that country that did not ban slavery.
I believe Lee was wrong, AND I believe Lincoln was wrong in his truly racist beliefs that “legal protections”, like banning slavery or not, “the negro” was not the “White Man’s” equal in many ways.
If everyone is going to tear down statues of Lee, I insist, with equal outrage, that the Lincoln memorial be torn down as well. There is enough racist comments from Lincoln that justify that if we are trying to apply a single standard to all parties of the day.
Given Lincoln’s stated views that blacks should not be considered socially equal to whites,
and given that the Confederacy’s founding openly stated that those in power considered blacks inferior,
and given that the North acted essentially as a occupying force in the South during Reconstruction with the aim of keeping the South from rebelling again (taking over industries and creating harsh conditions for most of the whites, including poor education for both races),
one can easily imagine that emancipating the black slaves who formed a quarter to a third of the population was a covertly punitive act against the white population—clothed in noble language about human dignity.