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By the way, was it here that someone posted that the actual antislavery person in Lee's family was his wife?
Yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by matthew mckeon
Another thing to consider about Lee's letters is who they are directed to. Lee was diplomatic and sought to sugarcoat the bitter pill of emancipation by agreeing with his correspondent's prejudices and desires. Think about how he handled Davis all those years. I don't know that Lee's letters always reflect his own feelings about issues.
In an 1841 letter to his wife, Mary, Lee discussed her desire to rescue a slave on the Lewis plantation named Robert, either by purchasing him and then manumitting him or by arranging to bring him to Arlington. Lee himself was against the plan:
"If the object is to raise the funds desired by Mrs. Lewis, you had better make a loan to the Major. Your plan of the purchase I think will bring you nothing but trouble & vexation & it is very problematical whether the condition of Robert will not be injured rather than bettered. In judging of results you must endeavor to lay aside your feelings & prejudices & examine the question as thus exposed. In this matter is everything to be yielded to the servant & nothing to th emaster? What will be the effect of the precedent upon the rest & the instruction of the example intended to be set as well as the comparisons likely to be made to the prejudice of your father & his authority. Others ought to be considered as well as Robert. If you determine to apply your money in this way I am ready to pay it. So consider well upon the matter & act for yourself." [Robert E. Lee to Mary Custis Lee, 18 Apr 1841]
"Mary Lee, wrestling as her mother did to find a way of inserting humanity into an unkind system, sems determined to change the situation of a slave named Robert. It appears this man was on a Lewis family estate, perhaps related to Aunt Nelly Custis Lewis. A plan was afoot to rescue him, either by purchasing and liberating him or bringing him to Arlington's more benign atmosphere. Robert Lee was skeptical about the idea. If the strategy was to help the Lewis family out of debt, he recommended floating them a loan. Any effort to buy the slave he thought ill-advised, however, since it interfered with the prerogatives of the owner. Mary's attitude was not only sympathetic to the slave's situation; it showed a willingness to believe that he had a right to be removed from his domineering master. Lee thought otherwise. He worried that it would set a bad precedent 'for the rest' if this slave ws treated leniently, undercutting the 'instruction' the slave's punishment was supposed to impart. It was the master's privilege to manage his property and to exercise control over his labor force, and he was protcted for the most part from questions about his judgment on these matters. This view was reflected in Lee's query--'is everything to be yielded to the servant and nothing to the master?' But it was Mary's money, after all, despite the nineteenth-century reality that if she determined to apply her funds in this way, he was 'willing' to pay it." [Elizabeth Brown Pryor, _Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters,_ p. 143]
Lee's 1856 letter to his wife is more probably an example of Lee's attempting to "sugarcoat" his meaning. She was more antislavery than he was, and he began by appearing to agree with her that slavery was an evil. Yet he also said it was "necessary" for the blacks and would be eradicated only when God willed it. He said it was the abolitionists who were engaged in evil for trying to get the slaves freed, not the slaveowners who wanted to keep the slaves in bondage.
His 1865 letter was more in line with his other letters. Lee wasn't an antislavery man.
There could be some truth to that notion. Gentlemen, therein lies the most difficult challenge in the study of this war: Placing one's 21st century mind into a 19th century context. These folks simply didn't look at slavery with the same feelings that modern folks do. Good or not so good, it was accepted by many and tolerated by many more. Hence the sheer courage required by an abolitionist to confront the norm can not be underated.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
There could be some truth to that notion. Gentlemen, therein lies the most difficult challenge in the study of this war: Placing one's 21st century mind into a 19th century context. These folks simply didn't look at slavery with the same feelings that modern folks do. Good or not so good, it was accepted by many and tolerated by many more. Hence the sheer courage required by an abolitionist to confront the norm can not be underated.
Yes, that is so.
Personally, I have never thought of Lee as "anti-slavery". I put him into a category of people who thought slavery should end, but it was off in the sweet-by-and-by somewhere. That ending was never immediate or close-at-hand, but off in the hazy future when God had shown them the way, probably not in their lifetimes.
Cash sees that as hypocrisy, I think. I can certainly see the self-serving nature of the position, but I also think that there were many people in the South who did believe such things. Ending slavery presented many difficult questions without clearcut answers. Financial disaster faced those who had capital heavily invested in the slave economy. Huge social questions loomed: would all the newly-freed slaves become wards of the state, and at what cost? Would the white population be overwhelmed by the Negro freedmen? Would violence (riot, rapine, etc.) reign after the emancipation? Could society and the economy continue in the wake of the emancipation? Was chaos the only answer?
So in the decades before the Civil War, many Southern Christians did believe (or profess to believe, anyway) exactly what Lee was writing to his wife in December of 1856. Organized religions were splitting on the issue, which is how we ended up with "Southern Methodist", "Southern Baptist", etc., branches of established churches.
I don't think those views were right, but I can see how they salved the consciences of those caught on the horns of this dilemma. It allowed them to fit the concept of "slavery is evil" in as a "burden" the white race must bear to raise up the black race. It offers a neat logical way out, a reason they must allow slavery to continue, as long as you don't look at the basic premise it is built on too harshly: that somehow God would want man to do evil in order to do good.
I am sure some of the people who professed to believe this were simply hypocrits. I think others, listening to their preachers, truly believed it. I think others never allowed themselves to think about it too long or too hard and mouthed the sayings politely and piously when the subject came up.
Doing something else was almost unthinkable to many, because the alternative was that not only was slavery evil, but those who owned and used slaves were evil-doers. That made everyone they knew and loved immediately evil: their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers, their aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. Only a rare individual would follow that chain in full rigor to the end: they themselves were evil. Who could live with themselves if they thought all that?
Robert E. Lee was a practical and talented soldier, but he also spent his whole life living up to and burnishing an image of how his life should be led. My guess is that he was somewhere over on the "truly believed it" side, but not completely. He was a very realistic man when he had to face difficult issues squarely, and I think he never let himself come to a stark confrontation between the realities of his slave society and the question of good-and-evil. Very few people in his situation would. I think his letter to his wife is close to his true feeling, but is an example also of the self-serving justification mentioned above. I think he believed and accepted it, but did not seriously examine it.
Lee says they're at the point where if the Union wins, slavery will be destroyed, but if the confederates can win they have a chance to save it. He's willing to free some slaves to fight in order to keep the rest in bondage.
Originally Posted by Battalion He makes no such proposal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cash
Yes, he does. "Such an interest we can give our negroes by giving immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully (whether they survive or not), together with the privilege of residing at the South. To this might be added a bounty for faithful service."
...and continue to the next paragraph (do you refuse to read this or what?)-
"We should not expect slaves to fight for prospective freedom when they can secure it at once by going to the enemy, in whose service they will incur no greater risk than in ours. The reasons that induce me to recommend the employment of negro troops at all render the effect of the measures I have suggested upon slavery immaterial, and in my opinion the best means of securing the efficiency and fidelity of this auxiliary force would be to accompany the measure with a well-digested plan of gradual and general emancipation. As that will be the result of the continuance of the war [whatever the result], and will certainly occur if the enemy succeed, it seems to me most advisable to adopt it at once, and thereby obtain all the benefits that will accrue to our cause."
You do understand what general means?...don't you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by cash
As long as blacks and whites are in the same country, he's for slavery now and forever. That's what he wrote, that's what he meant.
Regards,
Cash
Utterly false statement.
Just more neo-Radical garbage/revisionism.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
There could be some truth to that notion. Gentlemen, therein lies the most difficult challenge in the study of this war: Placing one's 21st century mind into a 19th century context. These folks simply didn't look at slavery with the same feelings that modern folks do. Good or not so good, it was accepted by many and tolerated by many more. Hence the sheer courage required by an abolitionist to confront the norm can not be underated.
Larry, I believe that you are correct. Too many people today are trying to impose 21st century values, beliefs, and judgements on 19th century people. Slavery is a great evil in our eyes today, but during Lee's time it had been in a fixture in America for over 300 years. Though a section of the country no longer accepted the institution and had ended it, many of these people still saw themselves as superior to the negro. I liken the slavery of the 19th century to the legal practice of abortion today. Is it a great evil? Many would say yes. However, like it or not, the practice is still legal and accepted in this country. In two centuries would it be fair to brand all Americans as murderers or accessories to murder because they didn't fight to end this brutal practice, or because they tolerated its existence? Today's practice of attaching 21st century politically correct labels to historical figures who lived in a time of completely different values and beliefs, is humorous in my view. One can't help but think that there is an agenda in play.
Regards,
John W.
__________________ Ancestors in CSA Army: 51st VA, 54th VA, 45th VA, 50th VA, 24th VA
Larry, I believe that you are correct. Too many people today are trying to impose 21st century values, beliefs, and judgements on 19th century people. Slavery is a great evil in our eyes today, but during Lee's time it had been in a fixture in America for over 300 years. Though a section of the country no longer accepted the institution and had ended it, many of these people still saw themselves as superior to the negro. I liken the slavery of the 19th century to the legal practice of abortion today. Is it a great evil? Many would say yes. However, like it or not, the practice is still legal and accepted in this country. In two centuries would it be fair to brand all Americans as murderers or accessories to murder because they didn't fight to end this brutal practice, or because they tolerated its existence? Today's practice of attaching 21st century politically correct labels to historical figures who lived in a time of completely different values and beliefs, is humorous in my view. One can't help but think that there is an agenda in play.
John,
I see what you are saying and might agree with it to a certain extent, but cannot say I agree with it completely. The problem in 1860 was that there were a great many people in the United States who felt that slavery was, in and of itself, wrong and needed to be abolished. While some are applying XXIst century standards as you say, all we really need is to see the people of 1860 in the terms of the people of 1860 and we will find much to condemn in the eyes of world opinion.
This was all controversial then, of course. That is why we had a Civil War over the issues involved, why a South based on a slave-agricultural society felt so threatened by the growing tilt towards freedom and Abolition that it felt secession and war was the solution to their problem and fear. That is why Southerners travelling in the North felt so threatened, why we had all the violence in "Bleeding Kansas" and the related antagonisms. None of that is XXIst century political correctness applied to the past; rather, it is the past, the real struggles of the people of that day.
I do think one part of modern political correctness is to assert slavery was congruent with racism and white supremacy, or that those who opposed slavery were in favor of equality between the races. It generally didn't work that way. In that day, it was common to find people who were opposed to slavery but also felt whites were superior to blacks.
You can also find Northerners who argued that slavery would be a better life for the working poor in the North. One of the people Battalion has quoted on this forum was in that group (also a believer that the black race was a different and inferior species), and published books on the subject.
As a result, there were a great many people in the country who were against slavery because they saw it as something from which they had escaped (usually refugees/immigrants from Europe), or which might be applied to them (any worker who read the above-mentioned guy's rhetoric would qualify here), or as competition keeping their wages down. They might not think blacks their equals; they might not want to live side-by-side with them, or grant them equal rights; but they did feel slavery was evil and needed to be ended.
So while some of what supporters of the South see as XXIst century political correctness probably is, another large piece of this criticism was current in the XIXth century. Southern defenses of slavery before the Civil War were their version of political correctness; northern attacks upon the institution before the Civil War were their version of political correctness. While we should strive to strip the XXIst century part out, we need to see and recognize the XIXth century part as well so that we can leave it in.
"We should not expect slaves to fight for prospective freedom when they can secure it at once by going to the enemy, in whose service they will incur no greater risk than in ours. The reasons that induce me to recommend the employment of negro troops at all render the effect of the measures I have suggested upon slavery immaterial, and in my opinion the best means of securing the efficiency and fidelity of this auxiliary force would be to accompany the measure with a well-digested plan of gradual and general emancipation. As that will be the result of the continuance of the war [whatever the result], and will certainly occur if the enemy succeed, it seems to me most advisable to adopt it at once, and thereby obtain all the benefits that will accrue to our cause."
Lee' letter is a proposal for general -albeitgradual- emancipation...
...that and the "emancipation...will be the result of the continuance of the war" (whether North or South wins) part...
...are diametrically opposed to the "fighting for slavery" mantra.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
There could be some truth to that notion. Gentlemen, therein lies the most difficult challenge in the study of this war: Placing one's 21st century mind into a 19th century context. These folks simply didn't look at slavery with the same feelings that modern folks do. Good or not so good, it was accepted by many and tolerated by many more. Hence the sheer courage required by an abolitionist to confront the norm can not be underated.
Slavery was well recognized to be a moral blight in the late 18th Century as well as throughout the 19th Century.
The idea that we're imposing 21st Century morality on 19th Century men is, in a word, bunk. By the 1850s the American south was one of the few places in the world that still legalized slavery. It was accepted and tolerated because it made men wealthy.
Lee' letter is a proposal for general -albeit gradual- emancipation... ...and the "emancipation...will be the result of the continuance of the war" (whether North or South wins) part... ...is diametrically opposite to the "fighting for slavery" mantra.
The letter is about enlisting blacks to fight for the south. In effect, Lee had determined that fighting for slavery wasn't working. And that the only hope for winning was in giving up what the CSA was fighting for -- that no matter which side one, slavery was gone. He figures that the CSA might as well get some use out of it while they could.
"We should not expect slaves to fight for prospective freedom when they can secure it at once by going to the enemy, in whose service they will incur no greater risk than in ours. Enlisting slaves with the promise of freedom won't work -- they can get the same thing by going north. The reasons that induce me to recommend the employment of negro troops at all render the effect of the measures I have suggested upon slavery immaterial, and in my opinion the best means of securing the efficiency and fidelity of this auxiliary force would be to accompany the measure with a well-digested plan of gradual and general emancipation. I think Battalion is right in taking this sentence to mean that freedom for soldiers means nothing without an offer of emancipation for their wives, families and friends. Note, however, that there's no indication of what he mean's by "gradual and general." If previous writings mean anything, "gradual" means "really slow," and "general" means "very deliberate and selective." As that will be the result of the continuance of the war [whatever the result], and will certainly occur if the enemy succeed, it seems to me most advisable to adopt it at once, and thereby obtain all the benefits that will accrue to our cause." Slaves will be freed if we lose. We might as well get ahead of the game and free the slaves before we lose the chance.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
and "general" means "very deliberate and selective."
Ole
General means all.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
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