[VAcourier] SD Lee Institute article by Clyde Wilson

Fri Feb 9 07:46:22 EST 2007

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Robert E. Lee: Traitor or American Hero?

by Clyde Wilson <mailto:cwilson at clicksouth.net> 
by Clyde Wilson 

<http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson
23.html&title=Robert E. Lee: Traitor or American
Hero?&topic=political_opinion> 
DIGG THIS

This year is Robert E. Lee's bicentennial - the 200th anniversary of his
birth. Nothing better illustrates the swift and vicious descent of Political
Correctness upon American history and symbols than the shadow that has, in
just the last few years, been thrown over a man regarded (rightly) for well
over a century as among the greatest of Americans. 

Even before the War to Prevent Southern Independence had ended, his Northern
enemies were claiming Lee as a prized exhibit of America's contribution to
the world. (As they also were claiming his great lieutenant, "Stonewall"
Jackson.) Such a claim could hardly be avoided since the entirety of the
civilized world, watching the American bloodbath with interest, had already
made that judgment. The British military commentator, Viscount Wolsely,
expressed much international opinion when he wrote of Lee: "He is stamped
upon my memory as being apart and superior to all others in every way."

Lee was the son of a renowned general in the Revolution, nephew of two
signers of the Declaration of Independence, and husband of Martha
Washington's granddaughter. His last five years were spent as a non-citizen
with life and liberty at the mercy of the bounders and petty tyrants who had
come exercise the power of the United States. This he endured with exemplary
Christian fortitude and charity. Lee was an audacious military genius and
inspired leader of men, called by Churchill the greatest captain of the
English-speaking peoples, but his fame rests even more upon his character.
No American leader has ever set a higher example in peace and war of what
the Western world used to understand as a Christian gentleman. When the
"traitor" died in 1870, the New York Herald editorialized: "Here in the
North we . . .have claimed him as one of ourselves. . . have extolled his
virtue as reflecting upon us - for Robert E. Lee was an American, and the
great nation which gave him birth would be today unworthy of such a son if
she regarded him lightly."

That judgment had become pervasive national opinion by 1907, when Charles
Francis Adams Jr., the only Adams to have seen active service in the war,
celebrated Lee in a speech in Boston and other cities called "Lee the
American." Adams admitted that the Constitutional position of Lee's cause
had been correct (but had to be defeated, he claimed, because it stood in
the way of national progress and greatness). More recently President Truman
picked a large equestrian portrait of Lee for the lobby of his Presidential
library and President Eisenhower went out of his way to vindicate admiration
for Lee against complaints that he was honouring a "traitor." They were
merely expressing mainstream American sentiment.

How the times have changed - and suddenly. The official doctrine of the MSI
(Mainstream Intellectuals) now condemns Lee as a traitor and oath-violator
and his cause as little better than Hitler's. This interpretation rests upon
either a deliberate or a vastly ignorant misinterpretation of everything
important in American history. The orchestrated blackening of Lee and his
cause exhibits the triumph of Marxist categories in American historiography
and public discussion. The War to Prevent Southern Independence has become
not a great, tragic, historic drama of Americans, but a matter of the
destruction and continued demonization of a "class enemy." This now
semi-official view warps the understanding not only of The War but of all of
American history - which is its purpose. 

  <http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson.jpg> A powerful answer to the
demonization of Lee and the distortion of American history will be given in
a program scheduled for Arlington, Virginia, on Saturday April 28, not far
from the Washington-Lee home illegally seized and turned into a cemetery by
the U.S. government. The program, called "Lee: Hero or Traitor?" will
involve some of the same sponsors and speakers who participated in the
immensely successful "Lincoln Reconsidered" conference in Richmond in 2003.
It will be an unprecedented exploration of Lee and his cause, which Murray
Rothbard called the last of America's just wars. Thomas DiLorenzo, Donald
Livingston, Kent Masterson Brown, John J. Dwyer, Thomas Moore, Robert Krick,
and Yours Truly will explore "Lee and Liberty," "Lee and Slavery," "Lee and
the True Nature of the Union," "Lee's Military Genius," "Lee as Man and
Christian," and "Lee's Relevance Today." A certain Congressman from Texas
whose name is quite familiar to readers of this site is expected also to
participate if his schedule allows.

Full details can be accessed and reservations made at 1-800-MY SOUTH or at
scv.org <http://www.scvva.org/Lee200/institute.html> .

February 9, 2007

Dr. Wilson [send him mail <mailto:cwilson at clicksouth.net> ] is a recovering
professor of history.

Copyright C 2007 LewRockwell.com

Clyde  <http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson-arch.html> Wilson Archives 

Back to LewRockwell.com  <http://www.lewrockwell.com> Home Page

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