I am a life-long Virginian, raised in the 1950s in North Arlington, then, after my father’s retirement from the military, I lived South Arlington and attended a different Arlington high school (Wakefield), though many of my high school friends and North-side acquaintances were W-L or Yorktown students. Our schools enjoyed an often-fierce rivalry—a semi-bloodless reprise of North vs. South.
Along with her post, Suiters asked,
“Arlington School Board considering erasing the Lee name ... do you agree or disagree with the proposal?”My initial response was, “Disagree. I'm not taking a Confederate position...but I think it's important to look at Lee as a very conflicted warrior who, like the Union's Sherman and Grant, had no taste for war's horrors.”
And I followed that comment up with, “We rush to judge in milliseconds now, when the arc of history tells us that even from the remove of hundreds of years, the great stories of the world do not easily reveal their full scope.”
The yays and nays followed swiftly and predictably, including:
“Disagree. To judge Lee as unworthy of being remembered and honored for his contributions to the nation and reconciliation afterwards; is to deny our nation’s truth and Lee’s role in our history. He is worthy to be remembered and no one should erase his memory from our history.”
“Agree. Lee, in choosing to fight in support of the Confederacy, was a traitor to our country. Traitors do not deserve honor.”
“[Disagree] Might as well take the Washington off too since he was a slave owner. One generation shouldn't judge the morals, values and standards to the ones of past generations. What seems abhorrent to us by our standards today was life then, as I'm sure our morals and standards of today have these past generations rolling in their graves. Judge them for the times, the conditions and standards of their time not ours. Keep the name!”And, of course, there was the usual outlier, who chimed in with, “God bless the snowflakes!”
As the comments came in, Suiters added an important link to the post, writing:
“There are some who argue, after surrender, Lee was part of this country's reconciliation. History, like everything, is not black and white.”
And she added this link: https://www.virginiahistory.org/.../lee.../reconciliation
In the article, Lee is quoted as saying, “…all should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of war and to restore the blessings of peace." Lee vowed to do "all in my power to encourage our people to set manfully to work to restore the country, to rebuild their homes and churches, to educate their children, and to remain with their states, their friends and countrymen."
So, let’s back off a bit and look at the issue not just from 30,000 feet, or even the distance of 150 years, but from the perspective of the much larger arc of history.
There is no doubt that Lee’s pre-war personal life was consistent with that of many slave owning families, and that, depending on which biographer you read, he was not sympathetic to the abolitionists of the day and was not above having fugitive slaves returned as his property. Having complicated his father-in-law’s last wishes in 1857 to emancipate the Custis’s slaves within five years of Custis’s death.
In the article, Lee is quoted as saying, “…all should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of war and to restore the blessings of peace." Lee vowed to do "all in my power to encourage our people to set manfully to work to restore the country, to rebuild their homes and churches, to educate their children, and to remain with their states, their friends and countrymen."
So, let’s back off a bit and look at the issue not just from 30,000 feet, or even the distance of 150 years, but from the perspective of the much larger arc of history.
There is no doubt that Lee’s pre-war personal life was consistent with that of many slave owning families, and that, depending on which biographer you read, he was not sympathetic to the abolitionists of the day and was not above having fugitive slaves returned as his property. Having complicated his father-in-law’s last wishes in 1857 to emancipate the Custis’s slaves within five years of Custis’s death.
Lee left military service to oversee the plantation and its slaves. Stories of him personally beating or whipping slaves (The Norris Case)—notably a woman, Mary Norris, stripped to her waist—are inconsistent, incongruent, and remain unresolved. It is true that he did not honor fully a family commitment to release the family’s slaves after the death of Custis, and that, along with his rough treatment as an overseers, is a dishonorable stain that cannot be cleansed by any rewriting of history.
And yet Lee himself had done much to work—in an often-backhanded way—toward the abolition of slavery, and, by 1862, had released the last of the slaves he owned. In his 1997 book, “Robert E. Lee, a Biography,” author Emory Thomas cites one of Lee’s letters in which Lee said, “In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country.”
And yet Lee himself had done much to work—in an often-backhanded way—toward the abolition of slavery, and, by 1862, had released the last of the slaves he owned. In his 1997 book, “Robert E. Lee, a Biography,” author Emory Thomas cites one of Lee’s letters in which Lee said, “In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country.”
Yet, while he accepted slavery as a necessary evil toward the advancement of the Southern economy (while presuming, irrationally, that slaves were better off in America than in their native lands), he also expressed his belief that one day slavery would cease, but only by the just hand of God and not by the hands of men through political strife and war.
There is little doubt of Lee’s initial affection and sense of duty to the Union as he knew it as a star West Point cadet (and, eventually as the military academy’s commandant), and as an officer engaged in close combat, and wounded, in the Mexican campaign under General Winfield Scott (1846-48).
As the North and South ratcheted up the tensions leading to the war, Lee was in constant conflict between his loyalty to the Union, and his even-deeper loyalty to his home state of Virginia. He was loath to take up arms against Virginia, and his resignation from the Union army was one of the great disappointments of the Union’s military leaders of his day. In an 1861 letter to his father-in-law, George Washington Custis, Lee expressed his deepest fears about the looming war, and its futility and shaming of the express views of the Founders:
To me, the key phrase in this letter is, “But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.”
Can you imagine the conflict eating away at Lee’s intellect and heart over the choice about to be thrust upon him? He was a man torn apart by the duality of his pragmatism toward slavery and the South’s right to tend its own affairs, and his ideological love of the United States and his affection for the core foundation of the Constitution.
It is to Lee’s discredit, in my opinion, that after the Civil War, Lee rejected or simply ignored—through silence—opportunities to speak out on behalf of freed slaves and lend his once-respected voice to those, like Andrew Johnson, who used Reconstruction as a devastating weapon against black interests. He could have done much, post-war, to heal some of the South’s self-inflicted wounds; that he chose not to remains one of history’s biggest lessons in disappointment.
But, it is to his credit that Lee did attempt to help Virginia make strides toward improved education, and he did champion free education for blacks, though he drew the line at supporting black voting rights. His tenure as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) is generally praised, and, in an act of reconciliation, Lee accepted an invitation to meet with President Grant at the White House.
On a personal note, I must point out that Arlington County schools have enjoyed a reputation as excellent institutions of learning—whether it is my old school, Wakefield, or Yorktown, or Washington-Lee. In poll after poll, Arlington schools rank at the top of all schools statewide (though Fairfax’s Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology is the rare list buster). According to Niche’s 2018 rankings, Arlington County schools ranked first in best places to teach in Virginia, best school district in Virginia, and best teachers out of all 131 Virginia school districts.
The county’s education board has a long record of progressive oversight and policy-making that encouraged its system of schools to advance new ideas over old, to refresh the zeal for learning in so many students, to set high standards for academic achievement, and to help students refine their aims for higher education. Nothing in a name can change that.
No student attends a public school for partisan or philosophical reasons; they attend in part because they have to according to the law and within their various districts, and in part because the school either keeps them engaged or the students simply put up with the routine until they can graduate. Removing Lee’s name from W-L will not lead to increased motivation, or even higher standards of academic rigor, or graduation outcomes.
There is little doubt of Lee’s initial affection and sense of duty to the Union as he knew it as a star West Point cadet (and, eventually as the military academy’s commandant), and as an officer engaged in close combat, and wounded, in the Mexican campaign under General Winfield Scott (1846-48).
As the North and South ratcheted up the tensions leading to the war, Lee was in constant conflict between his loyalty to the Union, and his even-deeper loyalty to his home state of Virginia. He was loath to take up arms against Virginia, and his resignation from the Union army was one of the great disappointments of the Union’s military leaders of his day. In an 1861 letter to his father-in-law, George Washington Custis, Lee expressed his deepest fears about the looming war, and its futility and shaming of the express views of the Founders:
“The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union," so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled.”
To me, the key phrase in this letter is, “But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.”
Can you imagine the conflict eating away at Lee’s intellect and heart over the choice about to be thrust upon him? He was a man torn apart by the duality of his pragmatism toward slavery and the South’s right to tend its own affairs, and his ideological love of the United States and his affection for the core foundation of the Constitution.
It is to Lee’s discredit, in my opinion, that after the Civil War, Lee rejected or simply ignored—through silence—opportunities to speak out on behalf of freed slaves and lend his once-respected voice to those, like Andrew Johnson, who used Reconstruction as a devastating weapon against black interests. He could have done much, post-war, to heal some of the South’s self-inflicted wounds; that he chose not to remains one of history’s biggest lessons in disappointment.
But, it is to his credit that Lee did attempt to help Virginia make strides toward improved education, and he did champion free education for blacks, though he drew the line at supporting black voting rights. His tenure as president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) is generally praised, and, in an act of reconciliation, Lee accepted an invitation to meet with President Grant at the White House.
On a personal note, I must point out that Arlington County schools have enjoyed a reputation as excellent institutions of learning—whether it is my old school, Wakefield, or Yorktown, or Washington-Lee. In poll after poll, Arlington schools rank at the top of all schools statewide (though Fairfax’s Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology is the rare list buster). According to Niche’s 2018 rankings, Arlington County schools ranked first in best places to teach in Virginia, best school district in Virginia, and best teachers out of all 131 Virginia school districts.
The county’s education board has a long record of progressive oversight and policy-making that encouraged its system of schools to advance new ideas over old, to refresh the zeal for learning in so many students, to set high standards for academic achievement, and to help students refine their aims for higher education. Nothing in a name can change that.
No student attends a public school for partisan or philosophical reasons; they attend in part because they have to according to the law and within their various districts, and in part because the school either keeps them engaged or the students simply put up with the routine until they can graduate. Removing Lee’s name from W-L will not lead to increased motivation, or even higher standards of academic rigor, or graduation outcomes.
I’m not saying W-L students don’t have a right to have a say in the proposed excising of Lee’s name from their school; what I am saying is that a name change will not raise the fundamental principles of educational excellence upon which W-L, and all Arlington County schools are founded and operate.
If the county education board succeeds in removing Lee’s name from Washington-Lee, the board members will be sending a signal to the current student body and the generations to come (and the parents and residents of Arlington County) that inconvenient truths—uncomfortable as they may make us—can simply be chiseled away rather than addressed in reasonable colloquy and sensible debate.
I just can't demonize Lee to the extent some folks do, and, as a conflicted man myself—and as a proud graduate of an Arlington County school, I worry about the trend of rewriting history down to this level.
If the county education board succeeds in removing Lee’s name from Washington-Lee, the board members will be sending a signal to the current student body and the generations to come (and the parents and residents of Arlington County) that inconvenient truths—uncomfortable as they may make us—can simply be chiseled away rather than addressed in reasonable colloquy and sensible debate.
I just can't demonize Lee to the extent some folks do, and, as a conflicted man myself—and as a proud graduate of an Arlington County school, I worry about the trend of rewriting history down to this level.
I narrated a biography of Robert E. Lee as an audio book. It was written by a Captain who served with and admired him. I agree with you Jim, Lee was conflicted, but at that time his loyalty was to Virginia, and had Virginia decided not to secede he would have fought for the Union. Lee was first of all an honorable man.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the positive response, Mike. I did not know you followed my blog, and I sure appreciate your thoughts.
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