Lee Robert E. Lee Quote: Is there a source? Is it real?

peteanddelmar

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R. E. Lee The consolidation of the States into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.

-- General Robert E. Lee
 
It has the hallmarks of a spurious quote. The language is overly florid. The statement is oracular by that I mean it is vague and ominous. Finally, it does not sound like Lee who was very careful and temperate about what he said.
Agree. It doesn't seem like Lee. A politician perhaps?
 
Agree. It doesn't seem like Lee. A politician perhaps?
Well Dr Google tells me the following

An excerpt from Robert E. Lee's reply letter to Lord Acton, Dec. 15, 1866

I can only say that while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism.

So it was indeed Lee. Lord Acton (British politician) made famous the quote .... "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
 
R. E. Lee The consolidation of the States into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.

-- General Robert E. Lee

Yes, he said it, although it's hard to find a reliable source among all the neo-Confederate web sites that have appropriated it. But here's one:

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2247#lf1480_head_058
 
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It has the hallmarks of a spurious quote. The language is overly florid. The statement is oracular by that I mean it is vague and ominous. Finally, it does not sound like Lee who was very careful and temperate about what he said.
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Well PatW if it's true that Lee really said that McClellen was the best Union General ("by far") he ever fought, as believed by many people nowadays, then I suppose he could have said the statement in the OP. :smile:
On a more serious note, I enjoy & admire your observation & explanation of the above quote. You dissected &
explained it in a wonderful manner. Thank you for your post.
 
This website reproduces Lee's letter and footnotes it as being from Freeman's biography of Lee, Vol. IV. It also show the letter from Lord Acton to which Lee was responding:

http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/08/acton-lee-conversation-liberty.html
Acton and Lee: A Conversation on Liberty
by
Stephen Klugewicz and Veronica Mueller

Notes:
1 John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, ed. John Neville Figgis and Renald Vere Laurence. (London: Longmans, Gree and Co., 1917). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2247>

2 Freeman, Douglas Southall, R. E. Lee: A Biography: Vol. IV. Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York and London: 1934. Pp. 515-517
 
As I've posted before

post-1536-0-67214200-1437579794.png
 
Let's dispose of this fruitless speculation (and error)

Lee's letter is quoted and fully discussed in Douglas Southall Freeman's R E LEE Vol IV, pages 302-306 (of the version available at us.archive.org). The letter does state what is included in the OP. The full text is given in the link that I provided.

Anyone who wants to read what Freeman wrote can do so here:

https://ia802607.us.archive.org/22/items/releeabiographyv012631mbp/releeabiographyv012631mbp.pdf

Here is an interesting footnote of Freeman's (21 below):

upload_2015-8-30_9-0-55.png


EDITED TO ADD: Except I did NOT notice my own error! The OP says "empire" and as Andy Hall points out later in this thread, Lee said "republic".
 
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Let's dispose of this fruitless speculation (and error)

Lee's letter is quoted and fully discussed in Douglas Southall Freeman's R E LEE Vol IV, pages 302-306 (of the version available at us.archive.org). The letter does state what is included in the OP. The full text is given in the link that I provided.

Anyone who wants to read what Freeman wrote can do so here:

https://ia802607.us.archive.org/22/items/releeabiographyv012631mbp/releeabiographyv012631mbp.pdf

Here is an interesting footnote of Freeman's (21 below):

View attachment 78037

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly, and you might want to pause before you use dismissive terms like "fruitless speculation (and error)". You link to the same source I provided, which clearly does show that the statement mentioned in the OP is included in the letter:

I can only say that while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralisation of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism.
Notes:
1 John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, ed. John Neville Figgis and Renald Vere Laurence. (London: Longmans, Gree and Co., 1917). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2247>
 
which clearly does show that the statement mentioned in the OP is included in the letter:
So it does seem that Lee thought "the United States ARE" more than he thought of them as one republic. He still thought of them as a more loosely tied alliance (or whatever) of semi-sovereign states than we do today? And that Lee may have indeed thought in a "my home state" way? That he really might have wanted to defend Virginia to some degree and not just slavery?
Because, if true, it might shed a little light on why so many people for so long tried to hold him up as a Confederate Example.
I have heard that most Americans back then thought more of their state than they did the country. But saw the wisdom in having a Federal government for certain purposes. But much different than we do now.

This about Lee is very new to me.
So did the Confederates really think their states had the right to decide about large matters and therefore about slavery?
Or were they just in favor (State Rights) because they lost control of the Federal government? Or a mix?
 
So it does seem that Lee thought "the United States ARE" more than he thought of them as one republic. He still thought of them as a more loosely tied alliance (or whatever) of semi-sovereign states than we do today? And that Lee may have indeed thought in a "my home state" way? That he really might have wanted to defend Virginia to some degree and not just slavery?

Absolutely.

Because, if true, it might shed a little light on why so many people for so long tried to hold him up as a Confederate Example.
I have heard that most Americans back then thought more of their state than they did the country. But saw the wisdom in having a Federal government for certain purposes. But much different than we do now.

This about Lee is very new to me.
So did the Confederates really think their states had the right to decide about large matters and therefore about slavery?
Or were they just in favor (State Rights) because they lost control of the Federal government? Or a mix?

I think we need to make a distinction between Lee and the political leaders of the Southern states. The political leaders were all about protecting slavery, and for the most part they saw states' rights only as a means to achieve their end. They were altogether willing to trample states' rights in order to achieve that end, if necessary.

Many Southerners (and Northerners too, for that matter), believed firmly in states' rights as something worth protecting in its own right, however. The political leaders of the South deliberately created a situation that put the federal government in opposition to a supposed state right to secede unilaterally. This put Southerners, like Lee, who was opposed to unilateral secession, in a position where they had to join the secessionists if they wanted to protect states' rights.
 
Absolutely.



I think we need to make a distinction between Lee and the political leaders of the Southern states. The political leaders were all about protecting slavery, and for the most part they saw states' rights only as a means to achieve their end. They were altogether willing to trample states' rights in order to achieve that end, if necessary.

Many Southerners (and Northerners too, for that matter), believed firmly in states' rights as something worth protecting in its own right, however. The political leaders of the South deliberately created a situation that put the federal government in opposition to a supposed state right to secede unilaterally. This put Southerners, like Lee, who was opposed to unilateral secession, in a position where they had to join the secessionists if they wanted to protect states' rights.

That's the best I've seen it put! Forrest and Jackson were also in that camp - Forrest definitely wanted to protect slavery and Jackson didn't care much, but both were in Lee's camp on states' rights. IIRC, Lee was gravely concerned about the strength the federal government could now exert at the expense of the states after the war ended. (Lincoln was concerned about that, too, but didn't live through his second term so we'll never know what he might have done or not done about it.)
 
Great work, folks! It's cleared up nicely. :smile:

I've always thought I'd like to write a book titled "Quotes from Lee He Knew Nothing About", and its sequel "Quotes from Lee In Context". :tongue:
Hah! This reminds me of a series of signs seen recently at a local church, advertizing a sermon series, "Things Jesus Never Said", followed by "Things You Wish Jesus Had Said". We could substitute Lee's name and start a new thread.:cautious:
 
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly, and you might want to pause before you use dismissive terms like "fruitless speculation (and error)". You link to the same source I provided, which clearly does show that the statement mentioned in the OP is included in the letter:

I think you misconstrue - fruitless speculation and error did not refer to your post at all.

Aha! I didn't intend to link to the same source as you - that was a coincidence. I quoted the footnotes to my link and as it happens, their first footnote DOES link to the same site. I never even noticed that! Thanks.


EDITED TO ADD: Except I did NOT notice my own error! The OP says "empire" and as Andy Hall points out later in this thread, Lee said "republic".
 
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