# What's the Big Deal About Robert E. Lee? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 9, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591 "2018-07-09T17:42:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/141 "2018-07-13T23:52:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That’s awfully convenient that in order to do so much good he had to keep dozens of people in brutal bondage (and a few in sexual slavery). If he hadn’t raped Sally Hemings, the USA wouldn’t exist today! > > And from your cite: > > If he hadn’t ordered so many slaves to be brutalized and tortured, America wouldn’t be what it was today! Thank God Jefferson raped and brutalized human beings! Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson is much disputed. The children could have been fathered by any of eight different father, all related. Runaway apprentices were also whipped. So were schoolkids. That was then. Look, slavery was bad. But Jefferson made the best of a bad deal and worked all his political life to end slavery. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/142 "2018-07-13T23:58:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Runaway apprentices were also whipped. So were schoolkids. That was then. So your position is that runaway slaves were treated the same as white schoolchildren in the 17 and 1800s? That’s an interesting position, and one I’ve never heard. Probably because it’s utterly fatuous, ahistorical nonsense. > [@](#): > > Look, slavery was bad. But Jefferson made the best of a bad deal and worked all his political life to end slavery. No, he didn’t make the best of a bad deal. Making the best of a bad deal would have meant _no torture, no brutalization, and no rape_. You don’t have to defend torture, brutalization, and rape. You should make a different choice. It doesn’t mean Jefferson was history’s worst monster. It means that it’s a fact that he ordered the torture and brutalization of humans for doing nothing morally wrong, and it’s likely that he committed and abetted rape on multiple occasions, and it’s okay to acknowledge these facts and likelihoods, and it’s not necessary to defend them. Adams never (that I’m aware of) ordered torture, brutalization, or rape. If Franklin ever did, he repudiated and stopped doing it and worked against it. Jefferson made decisions to continue torture and brutalization (and likely rape), when he didn’t have to – he could have let the slaves escape, he could have gradually manumitted them, he could have made a whole lot of decisions that would have resulted in less torture, brutalization, and rape of human beings, and it’s fair to point this out and include this in our evaluation of his morality and decency. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/143 "2018-07-14T00:13:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > What Evil did they do? > > Yes, they kept slaves- \*which wasnt considered evil back then. \* [William Wilberforce would beg to disagree.](http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wilberforce2.htm) > [@William Wilberforce](#): > > How then can the House refuse its belief to the multiplied testimonies before the privy council, of the savage treatment of the negroes in the middle passage? Nay, indeed, what need is there of any evidence? **The number of deaths speaks for itself** , and makes all such enquiry superfluous. As soon as ever I had arrived thus far in my investigation of the slave trade, **I confess to you sir, so enormous so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for the abolition.** A trade founded in iniquity, and carried on as this was, must be abolished, let the policy be what it might,—let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest till I had effected its abolition. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/144 "2018-07-14T00:19:20Z")
Jefferson could have done what Cassius Marcellus Clay did: > **[Cassius Marcellus Clay (politician)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassius_Marcellus_Clay_(politician))** > > American Civil War > Major General Cassius Marcellus Clay (October 19, 1810 – July 22, 1903) was an American planter, politician, military officer and abolitionist who served as the United States ambassador to Russia from 1863 to 1869. Born in Kentucky to a wealthy planter family, Clay entered politics during the 1830s and grew to support the abolitionist cause in the U.S., drawing ire from fellow Southerners. A founding member of the Republican Party in Kentucky, he was appointed by President A... > [@](#): > > Cassius Marcellus Clay, nicknamed the “Lion of White Hall”, was a Kentucky planter, politician, and emancipationist who worked for the abolition of slavery. He freed the slaves that were handed down as his inheritance from his father. Those freed slaves were allowed to stay and were paid a wage. Jefferson could have freed his slaves, paid them a wage, and had a slightly less profitable plantation. He made a different choice, and it’s fair to judge him for those choices. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/145 "2018-07-14T00:26:41Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, he _did_ fight to end it, he ended the International Slave trade. How? ---
**Author:** ![Huey\_Freeman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/huey_freeman/32/251_2.png) [@Huey\_Freeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huey_Freeman)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/146 "2018-07-14T00:29:37Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I get this. I do. > > But it’s a pretty spectacular piece of craftsmanship. It’s not on the level of Rushmore or the Pyramids (I’ve seen all three up close) but it’s up there. \*\* I just wish that, instead of destroying it, we could rebrand it somehow.\*\* (emphasis mine) Yes, the main picture of the traitors should be surrounded with bas-relief carvings of characters from Kirby, Street Fighter, Murder She Wrote, X-men, Dragonball Z, Barney and Friends, 227, Sailor Moon, and the members of the band Queen. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/147 "2018-07-14T00:33:10Z")
I have an ancestor who was one of those early “lone wolf” abolitionists and he sent some of his pamphlets to Jefferson. He got this response, which I always felt was apologist BS and certainly less strong that that paragraph from an early draft of the Declaration of Independence quoted in post 134. Which was, of course, a deleted paragraph. > **[Founders Online: Thomas Jefferson to David Barrow, 1 May 1815](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-08-02-0364)** > > Thomas Jefferson to David Barrow, 1 May 1815 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/148 "2018-07-14T00:41:37Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, they kept slaves- \*which wasnt considered evil back then. \* Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, would also beg to disagree: > [@](#): > > … **a case so odious as the condition of slaves** must be taken strictly, the power claimed by this return was never in use here; no master ever was allowed here to take a slave by force to be sold abroad because he had deserted from his service, or for any other reason whatever; **we cannot say the cause set forth by this return is allowed or approved of by the laws of this kingdom** , therefore the black must be discharged. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/149 "2018-07-14T00:47:36Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I get this. I do. > > But it’s a pretty spectacular piece of craftsmanship. It’s not on the level of Rushmore or the Pyramids (I’ve seen all three up close) but it’s up there. I just wish that, instead of destroying it, we could rebrand it somehow. You could have an equivalent carving of Hitler, Goering and Himmler done on the other side, and then put up a sign over the Confederate white supremacists: “You think these guys were bad, you should see what’s on the other side of the mountain!” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/150 "2018-07-14T01:16:26Z")
First of all, slavery was evil in Washington and Jefferson’s time, even if people at the time didn’t think so. Second, there were a _very_ large number of people who considered it evil, starting with most of the slaves themselves. Third, are those goal posts getting heavy? You started by claiming that nobody considered it evil, then changed that to saying that only a few folks did, then changed it again to lots of folks considered it evil, but weren’t organized, and finally admit that even Jefferson himself considered it evil. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/151 "2018-07-14T01:17:56Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > How? > **[Thomas Jefferson and slavery | Ended international slave trade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery#Ended_international_slave_trade)** > > In 1808, Jefferson denounced the international slave trade and called for a law to make it a crime. He told Congress in his 1806 annual message, such a law was needed to "withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights ... which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe." Congress complied and on March 2, 1807, Jefferson signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves into la... \*Ended international slave trade In 1806, Jefferson denounced the international slave trade and called for a law to make it a crime. He told Congress in his 1806 annual message, such a law was needed to “withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights … which the morality, the reputation, and the best of our country have long been eager to proscribe.” Congress complied and on March 2, 1807, Jefferson signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves into law; it took effect 1 January 1808 and made it a federal crime to import or export slaves from abroad.[71] No such legislation could have taken effect prior to January 1, 1808, on account of the provisions of Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, of the United States Constitution. By its Slave Trade Act 1807, Great Britain prohibited the slave trade in its colonies. The nations cooperated in enforcing interdiction of the slave trade on open seas. By 1808, every state but South Carolina had followed Virginia’s lead from the 1780s in banning importation of slaves. By 1808, with the growth of the domestic slave population enabling development of a large internal slave trade, slaveholders did not mount much resistance to the new law, presumably because the authority of Congress to enact such legislation was expressly authorized by the Constitution,[72] and was fully anticipated during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Jefferson did not lead the campaign to prohibit the importation of slaves.[73] Historian John Chester Miller rated Jefferson’s two major presidential achievements as the Louisiana Purchase and the abolition of the slave trade\* ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/152 "2018-07-14T01:20:31Z")
Oh, and Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings is pretty thoroughly beyond dispute. The genetic evidence leaves any of several men possible… but Thomas is the only one of those several who was within a hundred miles of Hemmings at the time of the conception of her children. And heck, even without the genetic evidence, the case was already pretty strong. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/153 "2018-07-14T01:49:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings is pretty thoroughly beyond dispute. The genetic evidence leaves any of several men possible… but Thomas is the only one of those several who was within a hundred miles of Hemmings at the time of the conception of her children. And heck, even without the genetic evidence, the case was already pretty strong. Actually that is not true. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/154 "2018-07-14T02:37:54Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > [William Wilberforce would beg to disagree.](http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wilberforce2.htm) In what year was slavery in the Empire made illegal? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/155 "2018-07-14T10:59:04Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > So your position is that runaway slaves were treated the same as white schoolchildren in the 17 and 1800s? That’s an interesting position, and one I’ve never heard. Probably because it’s utterly fatuous, ahistorical nonsense. No, that wasn’t the position. It reflects poorly on you to make such an assertion: and the insult that follows merely reinforces the impression. Obviously, there was overlap between the way escaped apprentices and escaped slaves were treated, because their condition overlapped, and their punishments overlapped. Obviously, there was an overlap between the way children were treated and the way slaves were treated, because their condition overlapped, and punishments were from the common range of accepted punishments. Understanding that apprentices were occasionally beaten to death by their masters helps us to understand the kind of conditions slaves were held under, and the value of not being a slave. Understanding that officially sanctioned violent beatings could happen to unprotected white children as young as 8, gives white children as young as 8 an insight into the kind of violent unconstrained society slaves lived in. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/156 "2018-07-14T11:24:34Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > No, that wasn’t the position. It reflects poorly on you to make such an assertion: and the insult that follows merely reinforces the impression. > > Obviously, there was overlap between the way escaped apprentices and escaped slaves were treated, because their condition overlapped, and their punishments overlapped. Obviously, there was an overlap between the way children were treated and the way slaves were treated, because their condition overlapped, and punishments were from the common range of accepted punishments. > > Understanding that apprentices were occasionally beaten to death by their masters helps us to understand the kind of conditions slaves were held under, and the value of not being a slave. Understanding that officially sanctioned violent beatings could happen to unprotected white children as young as 8, gives white children as young as 8 an insight into the kind of violent unconstrained society slaves lived in. Do you also insist that Jefferson shouldn’t be criticized for his treatment of slaves? The idea that slaves, which were subject to terrorization and torture as a continuous threat to prevent escape and rebellion, and children, which were not, were treated similarly in America, is nonsense. And it’s reasonable to criticize those who ordered and oversaw this terror and torture. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/157 "2018-07-14T19:30:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > First of all, slavery was evil in Washington and Jefferson’s time, even if people at the time didn’t think so. Second, there were a _very_ large number of people who considered it evil, starting with most of the slaves themselves. Third, are those goal posts getting heavy? You started by claiming that nobody considered it evil, then changed that to saying that only a few folks did, then changed it again to lots of folks considered it evil, but weren’t organized, and finally admit that even Jefferson himself considered it evil. I never said _nobody_ considered it evil. Hell, back in the days of the Israel Kingdoms, the Greeks, the Romans there were those that thought slavery was evil. what I said was “\*which wasnt considered evil back then.” \* By that I meant that it wasnt generally considered evil. I showed that by the history of abolitionist movements and laws. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/158 "2018-07-14T19:39:26Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I never said _nobody_ considered it evil. Hell, back in the days of the Israel Kingdoms, the Greeks, the Romans there were those that thought slavery was evil. what I said was “\*which wasnt considered evil back then.” > \* > > By that I meant that it wasnt generally considered evil. I showed that by the history of abolitionist movements and laws. It was known to be evil by enough that it’s fair to judge Jefferson and Washington for not meeting the standards of Adams and Franklin (among others, like Cassius Marcellus Clay who inherited dozens of slaves and freed them all). It’s also fair to judge Jefferson for ordering brutalization and torture, in addition to owning slaves. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/159 "2018-07-14T19:54:25Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > It was known to be evil by enough that it’s fair to judge Jefferson and Washington for not meeting the standards of Adams and Franklin (among others, like Cassius Marcellus Clay who inherited dozens of slaves and freed them all). It’s also fair to judge Jefferson for ordering brutalization and torture, in addition to owning slaves. Adams never owned slaves and lived in Mass, where owning a slave was unfashionable. Instead you had indentured servants. Again, Franklin inherited a handful of house slaves, and wasnt rich enuf to keep them, so freed them. Had Jefferson freed his slaves he would have lost his farm, his home, everything. Clay wasnt even \*born \*until \*\*1810. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2018, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591/160 "2018-07-14T20:01:27Z")
Note that about 2/3rds of the Signers of the Declaration owned slaves. it was very common. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-about-robert-e-lee/817591.md?page=9)