[QUOTE=Liberal]
I agree, and go beyond that. Lee did fight for his country. His country was Virginia.
[/QUOTE]
He never swore any oaths to Virginia. His country was the USA. If people succeed in putting the traitor label on him, it’s because he was a traitor, and your hailing of “Jeffersonian principles” doesn’t change the fact that the principles of the CSA were evil.
[QUOTE=Billdo]
And, for comparison, Gen. George Washington, by any account a brilliant tactician, levied war against his country well before the American colonies seceded from Great Britain.
[/QUOTE]
By any might be a bit of hyperbole. Some of his biographers certainly argue that way, and some of the military histories do, too; but I think it’s much more accepted that Washington’s genius wasn’t in tactics (if his defense of New York, for example, is any indication) but in leadership and strategy, in realizing that more than almost any victory in the field, the continued existence of his army was important.
Cites on request :-).
[QUOTE=astorian]
George Washington was an officer in His Majesty’s Army, and may very well have taken requisite oaths of loyalty to the King of England.
[/quote]
I don’t believe that he was. During the French-Indian War he served a Col. in the Virginia militia. He actually bowed out of the war when the English said that all militia officers were subordinate to British officers regardless of rank.
Marc
[QUOTE=Enterprise]
By any might be a bit of hyperbole. Some of his biographers certainly argue that way, and some of the military histories do, too; but I think it’s much more accepted that Washington’s genius wasn’t in tactics (if his defense of New York, for example, is any indication) but in leadership and strategy, in realizing that more than almost any victory in the field, the continued existence of his army was important.
[/QUOTE]
I won’t disagree with you, but will suggest that a discussion of whether his unidsputed brilliance as a leader and a strategist concealed mere tactical adequacy, rather than tactical brilliance, would be a hijack of this thread. Either way, he pulled our chestnuts out of the fire more than once.
Pound for pound, given what he had to work with, Lee was one of the most brilliant and successful generals ever.
The only cloud over his reputation might be that, up against McClellan, Pope, Hooker, Burside et al maybe he wasn’t fighting top drawer opposition - and by the time Grant did get to him his army was no longer the force it once was.
Also, he was hardly a politician or a social architect so it is wrong to ascribe a social and moral defence of the Confederacy to him. He was a soldier and he did a soldier’s job. Superbly.
As for the traitor agrument - a kid is born in Baghdad, his family flees to the US, takes up citizenship. Kid enlists in the Army to go and fight in the
Gulf War. Traitor or not? It’s the same argument for Lee. He had resigned his citizenship of the US by becoming a citizen of the CSA and took up arms in service of his new country against what was percieved as tyranny in his former country.
So, in short, Robert E Lee good, Confederacy as a whole, bad.
mm
[QUOTE=if6was9]
I mentioned the North East (and Don’t Tread on Me) more because they have historically had a distrust of the federal government. My sister lived in Maine for years, and she said the prevailing attitude was don’t tell us how to run our own affairs. Not a state’s rights issue, more right down to the local level.
[/QUOTE]
Nitpick for the record: The Gadsden flag (Don’t Tread on Me) has more historical connection to South Carolina than to New England.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
I agree, and go beyond that. Lee did fight for his country. His country was Virginia. It’s easy to lose track this day and age of the fact that federalism is not federally oriented. It was the States that had united, not the Union that had spawned states.
[/QUOTE]
This is only true for the part of the Confederacy that was sovereign prior to joining the US. The rest of the Confederacy was sitting on land that was either ceded to the US or bought and paid for by the US. The US spawned states such as Louisiana or Arkansas.
Even if they had a natural right, they didn’t have that right under the US Constitution.
[QUOTE=if6was9]
That very well sums up my thoughts. Lee didn’t seem to be for the worst reasons for the war, but he had no choice but to join the wrong side. The morally wrong side.
[/QUOTE]
How was the South’s position “morally” wrong? The states that attempted secession did so based upon a legal argument that had as much validity as the argument in favor of a determination that a state cannot secede. And while you can argue that people who were in favor of continuted slavery were morally wrong, not everyone who was in favor of secession was in favor of slavery; indeed, one of the common mistakes is to take the fact that the states of the South seceded to perpetuate slavery to mean that secession was all about slavery, and, thus, that the Civil War was fought over slavery.
As for “treason,” ANYONE who fights in a war against their previously existing government is committing treason. The question is whether or not they eventually get forced to confront that charge as a result of losing whatever conflict emerges from their actions. As noted, George Washington was a traitor, and, to us, a hero. Robert E. Lee was a traitor, but so what? At the time of the Civil War, being a citizen of a state had much more meaning than being a citizen of the United States did.
[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]
Even if they had a natural right, they didn’t have that right under the US Constitution.
[/QUOTE]
As it turned out, no. But had the CSA won, the answer would be different. Had the Democrats won the election of 1864, the answer might well have been different. Please note that there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution itself that says one way or the other.
[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
Good point. Grant certainly matured as a leader in the western campaign. He could hardly have been worse than McClellan, though.
[/QUOTE]
maybe a good team would have been McClellan to organize and prepare the army and Grant to conduct operations.
McClellan built up such a splendid army that he didn’t want to see it damaged by actualy fighting. His aim seemed to be to maneujver and maneuver in order to capture territory, Richmond in particular.
Grant understood and agreed with Lincoln that the destruction of the Confederate army was the main goal. Both of them also grasped the simple fact that the Confederacy couldn’t win a war of attrition, so they fought one. Grant’s order to Gen. Meade was that his objective was Lee’s army. Wherever Lee went Meade was to go and to keep engaging Lee at every opportunity.
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
As it turned out, no. But had the CSA won, the answer would be different. Had the Democrats won the election of 1864, the answer might well have been different. Please note that there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution itself that says one way or the other.
[/QUOTE]
No, if the CSA had won, the answer would still be the same. You can’t just read non-existent provisions into a governing document wholesale. In our system of government, absent a court ruling that the states have a right to secede, there is no provision in the US Constitution for secession–which means secession is possible only through an act of Congress or a constitutional amendment.
Furthermore, as I’ve already pointed out, the Federal government has direct authority over citizens. There have been Federal-type governments in the world where this is not the case, but it is the case with the US. Regardless of what a state does, the authority of the US over its citizens doesn’t stop.
Finally, as I’ve already pointed out, a good chunk of the Confederacy was sitting on land which the US had general power over. It was the US who ceded partial sovereignity to these states, not the other way around. While a dubious argument can be made that Virginia was merely reclaiming its sovereignity (and once again, without a provision in the Consitution for such reclamation, such an argument is invalid), the same argument doesn’t apply to Arkansas or Tenessee, since they never had general sovereignity to reclaim.
[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
“Treason is a matter of dates”; “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason”,
[/QUOTE]
Since you beat me to this one I’ll just add a far lesser quote from the miniseries SHOGUN.
Lord Torenaga is talking to Pilot John Blackthorne through an interpreter and is grilling him on why he should trust a man who serves the Dutch in their fight against (their legal overlord) Spain.
Blackthorne: I feel the fight of the Dutch is justified and noble.
Torenaga [stern]: When can an act of treason ever be justified or noble?
Blackthorne: When you win.
or, Benj. Franklin in the musical 1776 (based on an actual quote when the Continentals were called traitors):
*A rebellion is always legal in the first person, such as “our rebellion.” It is only in the third person - “their rebellion” - that it becomes illegal. *
PS- There’s a new(ish) biography of Lee taken from his letters that I’ve read large sections of in the bookstore. I haven’t bought it yet myself but would still recommend it-
Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters
It goes into major detail of Lee’s views towards slavery (he detested slavery, but he was not by any means a racial egalitarian) and his seldom touched on bitterness and depression after the war. Among lighter ‘revelations’ is that he seems to have been a faithful husband (and was an excellent father- he read manuals on child care between battles of the Mexican War) but he was an irrepressible flirt, so much so that his invalid wife once wrote to him telling him (jokingly) she would hear of it if he tried to pass himself off as a grieving widower for the buxom young ladies.
On the subject of his “treason”, it’s easy to forget how close he was in time to the founding of the country, less than divides us from WW1 and not much more than separates us from WW2. He was so close in time to the Revolution that George Washington was his father-in-law’s adoptive father- he was in fact served by slaves who had served Martha and George at Mt. Vernon. Washington was a legend in his own life and moreso afterwards, and he was seen as anything but a traitor for his role in helping “to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them”.
[QUOTE=BrightNShiny]
Finally, as I’ve already pointed out, a good chunk of the Confederacy was sitting on land which the US had general power over. It was the US who ceded partial sovereignity to these states, not the other way around. While a dubious argument can be made that Virginia was merely reclaiming its sovereignity (and once again, without a provision in the Consitution for such reclamation, such an argument is invalid), the same argument doesn’t apply to Arkansas or Tenessee, since they never had general sovereignity to reclaim.
[/QUOTE]
What document granted the American colonies the right to proclaim their own sovereignty? And if none, what was the difference in their treason and Lee’s?
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
What document granted the American colonies the right to proclaim their own sovereignty?
[/QUOTE]
No document, that I’m aware of, granted the American colonies the right to proclaim their own sovereignity under English law.
I didn’t claim there’s a difference, so I’m not sure why this question is being posed to me.
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
And while you can argue that people who were in favor of continuted slavery were morally wrong, not everyone who was in favor of secession was in favor of slavery; indeed, one of the common mistakes is to take the fact that the states of the South seceded to perpetuate slavery to mean that secession was all about slavery, and, thus, that the Civil War was fought over slavery.
[/QUOTE]
There were certainly those who were pro-slavery but disapproved of secession (or simply thought, correctly, that it would be a disastrous tactic for the perpetuation of slavery). And of course there were pro-slavery, pro-secession men. And anti-slavery Unionists. Who was arguing in favor of secession, but against slavery? (I’ve always heard that Lee didn’t really approve of either slavery or secession, but wound up on the Confederate side anyway.)
[QUOTE=if6was9]
That very well sums up my thoughts. Lee didn’t seem to be for the worst reasons for the war, but he had no choice but to join the wrong side. The morally wrong side.
[/QUOTE]
Well…he did have a choice. There were certainly Southerners who fought for the Union.
[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
Well…he did have a choice. There were certainly Southerners who fought for the Union.
[/QUOTE]
That’s true, but I think today we miss the loyalty to one’s state and even town that was prevalent then. Shelby Foote talked about that in Ken Burns’ Baseball series. Paraphrasing, he said that there was great rivalry then (he was talking of the '20’s and '30’s) My town can beat your town any day.
Before the automobile, and early in the train era, it was even more so. Most Americans lived their whole lives never going more than maybe 20 miles from where they were born.
My point, Lee could have sided with the North, but I think he had a tremendous loyalty to his native Virginia. Moreso than his loyalty to the U.S. as a whole.
I think it’s impossible to argue that Lee was fighting against the “government” - when the southern states seceded they immediately created an almost word-for-word identical government. Lee and the rest of the South were rebelling against a particular election and the consequences they foresaw (correctly or not).
[QUOTE=if6was9]
My point, Lee could have sided with the North, but I think he had a tremendous loyalty to his native Virginia. Moreso than his loyalty to the U.S. as a whole.
[/QUOTE]
He did, but the point is, he still had a choice. His feelings toward Virginia influenced that choice, but it was still his choice to make.
Just as a side note, something I just realized was that, before the Civil War, Lee spent almost none of his life in Virginia. He moved from Stratford Plantation to Alexandria, which at that point was part of the District of Columbia), when he was 3. He then lived in Alexandria until he went to West Point. He graduated from West Point in 1829, and then served in Georgia from 1829-1831. From 1831-34, he was back in Virginia, building Fort Monroe. Then 1834-37, he was in Washington, 1837-41, Missouri and Iowa, 1841-46, in New York City, 1846-48, Mexico, 1848-52, Baltimore, 1852-55, back to West Point as Superintendent, and then from 1855-61, in Texas.
It’s true he took a leave of absence in 1857-59 to take care of his father-in-law’s estate, but even counting that time, at the outbreak of the Civil War, Lee had only lived in Virginia for 10 of his 54 years.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
He did, but the point is, he still had a choice. His feelings toward Virginia influenced that choice, but it was still his choice to make.
Just as a side note, something I just realized was that, before the Civil War, Lee spent almost none of his life in Virginia. He moved from Stratford Plantation to Alexandria, which at that point was part of the District of Columbia), when he was 3. He then lived in Alexandria until he went to West Point. He graduated from West Point in 1829, and then served in Georgia from 1829-1831. From 1831-34, he was back in Virginia, building Fort Monroe. Then 1834-37, he was in Washington, 1837-41, Missouri and Iowa, 1841-46, in New York City, 1846-48, Mexico, 1848-52, Baltimore, 1852-55, back to West Point as Superintendent, and then from 1855-61, in Texas.
It’s true he took a leave of absence in 1857-59 to take care of his father-in-law’s estate, but even counting that time, at the outbreak of the Civil War, Lee had only lived in Virginia for 10 of his 54 years.
[/QUOTE]
But his family had been there since Moses was in high school. His family was very much a part of our fair state (along with the Byrd, Carter, and Harrison families).