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Thanks for posting the letter though... ...as it shows Lee in favor of emancipation and totally throws your idea on its head. With it I have proven my points entirely.
It shows Lee in favor of conditional and limited emancipation during a period of desparate circumstances.
I does not demonstrate that Lee was always in favor of emancipation, or that Lee was ever in favor of emancipation except during that particularly worrisome time. If you have other letters in which he espoused emancipation during some other time, please share them with us.
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
From other posts and threads, but need repeating here. The Letter to Hunter in January of 1865, needs close scrutiny. For instance, we must remember Lee is writing to a Senator of the Va. State Legislature not to the Confederate Congress.
In the first paragraph he alludes to ".....my desire for the welfare and happiness of our people." the question immediately arises; is he referring to the people of the south or va.? Since he writing to a member of the state legislature, one can properly infer he is talking about the people of Va.
In another paragraph, Lee notes that if the war continued the enemy 'May' eventually "...penetrate our country and get access to a large part of our negro population." This is early 1865, the confederacy has barely 3 months more of existence, yet, apparently, the enemy has not yet penetrated 'our country'. What country is he describing, the CSA or the State of Va.?
Lee notes that if the war continues, the negros brought within the reach of Northern Forces will surely be increasingly used against their owners As he says "Many have already been obtained in Virginia, and should the fortune of war expose more of her territory..." the enemy would gain a large accession to his forces.
Lee seems still to be fixated on the war in Va. nothing has happened in the rest of the Confederacy, that a well digested emancipation plan for Va. might not retrieve Va's fortunes; if not the Confederacys.
P.S. As an aside, If the Confederate congress had passed their bill with a plan for emancipation and Va's did not, would Lee have obeyed the Va. law or the Confederate Law.
From other posts and threads, but need repeating here. The Letter to Hunter in January of 1865, needs close scrutiny. For instance, we must remember Lee is writing to a Senator of the Va. State Legislature not to the Confederate Congress.
In the first paragraph he alludes to ".....my desire for the welfare and happiness of our people." the question immediately arises; is he referring to the people of the south or va.? Since he writing to a member of the state legislature, one can properly infer he is talking about the people of Va.
In another paragraph, Lee notes that if the war continued the enemy 'May' eventually "...penetrate our country and get access to a large part of our negro population." This is early 1865, the confederacy has barely 3 months more of existence, yet, apparently, the enemy has not yet penetrated 'our country'. What country is he describing, the CSA or the State of Va.?
Lee notes that if the war continues, the negros brought within the reach of Northern Forces will surely be increasingly used against their owners As he says "Many have already been obtained in Virginia, and should the fortune of war expose more of her territory..." the enemy would gain a large accession to his forces.
Lee seems still to be fixated on the war in Va. nothing has happened in the rest of the Confederacy, that a well digested emancipation plan for Va. might not retrieve Va's fortunes; if not the Confederacys.
P.S. As an aside, If the Confederate congress had passed their bill with a plan for emancipation and Va's did not, would Lee have obeyed the Va. law or the Confederate Law.
It's illuminating to see the letter to which Lee was responding. Hunter had written to Lee on 7 Jan 1865, saying,
"I refer to the great question now stirring the public mind as to the expediency and propriety of bringing to bear against our relentless enemy the element of military strength supposed to be found in our negro population; in other words, and more precisely, the wisdom and sound policy, under existing circumstances, of converting such portions of this population as may be required into soldiers, to aid in maintaining our great struggle for independence and national existence.
"The subject is one which recent events have forced upon our attention with intense interest, and in my judgment we ought not longer to defer its solution; and although the President in his late annual message has brought it to the attention of Congress, it is manifestly a subject in which the several States of the Confederacy must and ought to act the most prominent part, both in giving the question its popular solution and in carrying out any plans that he may devise on the subject. As a member of the Virginia Senate, having to act upon the subject, I have given it much earnest and anxious reflection, and I do not hesitate to say here, in advance of the full discussion which it will doubtless undergo, that the general objectives to the proposition itself, as well as the practical difficulties in the way of carrying it out, have been greatly lessened as I have more thoroughly examined them. But it is not to be disguised that public sentiment is greatly divided on the subject; and besides many real objections, a mountain of prejudice growing out of our ancient modes of regarding the institution of Southern slavery will have to be met and overcome, before we can attain to anything like that degree of unanimity so extremely desirable in this and all else connected with our great struggle. In our former contest for liberty and independence, he who was then at the head of our armies, and who became the Father of His Country, did not hesitate to give his advice on all great subjects involving the success of that contest and the safety and welfare of his country, and in so doing perhaps rendered more essential service than he did in the field; nor do I perceive why, upon such a subject and in such a crisis as the present, we should not have the benefit of your sound judgment and matured wisdom. Pardon me therefore for asking, to be used not only for my own guidance, but publicly as the occasion may require: Do you think that by a wisely devised plan and judicious selection negro soldiers can be made effective and reliable in maintaining this war in behalf of the Southern States? Do you think that the calling into service of such numbers of this population as the exigency may demand would affect injuriously, to any material extent, the institution of Souther slavery? Would not the introduction of this element of strength into our military operations justify in some degree a more liberal scale of exemptions or details, and by thus relieving from active service in the field a portion of the intelligent and directing labor of the country (as seems to be needed) have a beneficial bearing upon the question of subsistence and other supplies?
"Would not, in your judgment, the introduction of such a policy increase, in other regards, our power of defense against the relentless warfare the enemy is now waging against us?" [Andrew Hunter to Robert E. Lee, 7 Jan 1865]
Wow! Leave it to Cash to fill in the background! Many, many thanks for that prelude -- it brings a sharper focus on Lee's letter.
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
It is to be noted that in Lee's letters to Hunter of the Va. Legislature and Barksdale, Sen. from Mississippi, of the Confederate Congress were both written to be viewed and discussed by the members of two separate organs of gov't. In both, Lee recommends emancipation as a part of any plan to arm slaves. Both the Nat'l and the State gov'ts rejected that particular recomendation, even though favored by Lee himself.
Even Lee, the one leader in the south that most citizens of the south trusted and respected could not get the leaders of the confederacy, State Or National, to give up their slaves.
P.S. Although favoring emancipation as the final hope of the South, does it follow that he would have accepted emancipation, if approved by the Confederate Congress in defiance of the wishes of his own state of Va.?
REL in an interview in 1866 told a reporter that he had always favored emancipation, and that in Virginia, "The feeling had been strongly inclined in the same direction, till the ill-judged enthusiasms of the abolitionists in the North had turned the Southern tide of feeling in the other direction."
Robert E. Lee, Recollections and Letters of General REL (New York, 1924), p. 231 cited in Fawn M. Brodie, "who Defends the Abolitionists?" in the Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists, Martin Duberman, ed. (Princeton, 1965), p.58.
Texas2nd
What is your opinion then, of Lee's statements on emancipation before & during the war, vice this statement made after the war?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
T
The Lee of January 11, 1865 seems to disagree with the Lee of 1866. Did the Lee who 'always' favored emancipation really say "considering the relation of master and slave,..........., as the best than can exist between white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country,...."?
As shown on most CW Boards, including this one, the evidence of the South moving towards emancipation is less than comprehensive or compelling, at the very least.
T
The Lee of January 11, 1865 seems to disagree with the Lee of 1866. Did the Lee who 'always' favored emancipation really say "considering the relation of master and slave,..........., as the best than can exist between white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country,...."?
As shown on most CW Boards, including this one, the evidence of the South moving towards emancipation is less than comprehensive or compelling, at the very least.
Back in the 1830s, Lee favored emancipation when the Virginia Emancipation Convention met (same year as Nat Turner -- Lee was at Fortress Monroe at the time). He was surprised when the convention voted against that (74-58). He expressed confidence that it would pass the next time it came up -- but it never did.
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