Robert E. Lee Echoing Lincoln
In the August 25 Washington Post op-ed page, Eugene Robinson revealed a side of Robert E. Lee that runs against the grain of many who wish to celebrate his memory with public statues: after the Civil War, the general warned against erecting Civil War monuments in Gettysburg (one may infer that he referred to both Union and Confederate monuments): “I think it wiser,” said Lee, “not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”
Echoes of Lincoln, right down to the metaphor of wounds to the body politic, ring uncannily. In his second inaugural address—made less than a month before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox—Lincoln urged, “let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds. . . .”
This softens the picture of Lee, who was, by any definition of treason, a traitor to his country. A traitor, moreover, who chose to defend a government founded on the monstrosity of slavery.
Continue reading “Robert E. Lee Cooling the Fires – All for Naught”