Lee An Antislavery R. E. Lee?

[cash]

Your original post shows he said he'd rather hire a white man than buy a black one.

That says a lot about his views.

The letter shows him very willing to buy or rent a slave, which is not what someone who is antislavery would do. His preference to hire a white man goes to his dislike of black men, not any antislavery feeling on his part.

 

[wausaubob]

Could you explain in a non cute way, why you no longer have slavery, I'm guessing that you agree that the civil war was fought primarily because of slavery or are you telling me that equal rights had no part in that.

The advocates for the continuation of slavery viewed every issue with regard to whether it would help the section of the country in which slavery was permitted.
In the northern section of the country, the conservatives, the liberals, and the free traders, became impatient with this obstructionism. When the secessionists disturbed the status quo, most people in the paid labor states wanted the labor system that supported the large plantations that were dependent on coerced labor terminated. Eventually the paid labor areas wanted immediate, uncompensated emancipation, and gave up on colonization.
After the war, former General Lee still thought that the freed men and women would somehow be disposed of.

 

[wausaubob]

Most or many Virginians in that time thought of free African/Americans as "pests".

 

[Drew]

The letter shows him very willing to buy or rent a slave, which is not what someone who is antislavery would do. His preference to hire a white man goes to his dislike of black men, not any antislavery feeling on his part.

His preference is written in his own words. Your opinion of what he meant does not matter.

Most of his surviving correspondence is doubtful of the institution of slavery. That is a fact.

 

[leftyhunter]

You didn't think that one through did you! No slavery means that there must be equal rights.

To be fair just because a society does not have slavery does not mean there is not massive discrimination I.e. the U.S. and for many years South Africa.
Leftyhunter

 

[cash]

His preference is written in his own words. Your opinion of what he meant does not matter.

His preference for dealing with white men instead of dealing with black men is written in his own words, as is his support of slavery.

Most of his surviving correspondence is doubtful of the institution of slavery. That is a fact.

That's not a fact. The opposite is the fact. The fact is most of his surviving correspondence shows a support of slavery.

 

[Eleanor Rose]

His preference to hire a white man goes to his dislike of black men, not any antislavery feeling on his part.

Are you forming this opinion based on the line in the letter, "I would rather hire a white man than purchase if I Could" or on some other sources as well? If it's just based on this one line in this one letter, that seems more like conjecture than fact. You may be right. Robert E. Lee may have disliked black men. He certainly wasn't the poster boy for antislavery. I would be curious to know if indeed Robert E. Lee did dislike all black people in general.

 

[Drew]

He certainly wasn't the poster boy for antislavery. I would be curious to know if indeed Robert E. Lee did dislike all black people in general.

I would be very doubtful of this, @Eleanor Rose

My own grandparents were born at the turn of the 20th century in the South and raised in part by Confederate veterans. They didn't "dislike all black people in general" and in fact had close relationships and friendships.

I don't know how in the world Lee's generation was any different. The internet, however, will tell us. Forty seconds until the North shows up and defines the South.

 

[byron ed]

Well from that letter and Robert E. Lee's famous "moral and political evil" quote he was not a supporter of slavery...

?? quite clearly by that letter he was a supporter of slavery. He's considering to rent or outright purchase a slave to meet his current need.

So if this letter is a revelation, it was only that he hinted at having a conscience about slavery. No action, just conscience.

He'd been managing the slaves of his estate for some time, and had one whipped for disobedience. Not saying the guy was a flaming slaver, but merely being a man of the times does not rise to any great level of moral turpitude either.

 

[Drew]

?? quite clearly by that letter he was a supporter of slavery. He's considering to rent or outright purchase a slave to meet his current need.

So if this letter is a revelation, it was only that he hinted at having a conscience about slavery. No action, just conscience.

He'd been managing the slaves of his estate for some time, and had one whipped for disobedience. Not saying the guy was a flaming slaver, but merely being a man of the times does not rise to any great level of moral terpitude either.

I agree the letter really isn't news. We do need a source to show "his" slaves were whipped for disobedience, however. They we're his father-in-laws, not his, if we're talking of the same bunch.

 

[Eleanor Rose]

I would be very doubtful of this, @Eleanor Rose

I hope @cash will share some other sources.

 

[cash]

Are you forming this opinion based on the line in the letter, "I would rather hire a white man than purchase if I Could" or on some other sources as well? If it's just based on this one line in this one letter, that seems more like conjecture than fact. You may be right. Robert E. Lee may have disliked black men. He certainly wasn't the poster boy for antislavery. I would be curious to know if indeed Robert E. Lee did dislike all black people in general.

Having read many of Lee's letters, I base that statement on the fact that Lee didn't like black people.

 

[John Hartwell]

Your original post shows he said he'd rather hire a white man than buy a black one.

That says a lot about his views.

It says he'd rather have white men around him than black men.

 

[cash]

I hope @cash will share some other sources.

"In talking with Colonel Carter about the situation of farmers at that time in the South, and of their prospects for the future, he urged him to get rid of the negroes left on the farm—some ninety-odd in number, principally women and children, with a few old men—saying the government would provide for them, and advised him to secure white labour. The Colonel told him he had to use, for immediate needs, such force as he had, being unable at that time to get the whites. Wereupon General Lee remarked: 'I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving.' " [Robert E. Lee, Jr., Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, p. 168]

"You will never prosper with the blacks, and it is abhorrent to a reflecting mind to be supporting and cherishing those who are plotting and working for your injury, and all of whose sympathies and associations are antagonistic to yours. I wish them no evil in the world on the contrary, will do them every good in my power, and know that they are misled by those to whom they have given their confidence; but our material, social, and political interests are naturally with the whites." [General Robert E. Lee quoted in Robert E. Lee, Jr., Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, p. 306]

Robert E. Lee Testimony before Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction, February 17, 1866:
http://www.archive.org/stream/jointreconstruct00congrich/jointreconstruct00congrich_djvu.txt

Question. General, you are very competent to judge of the capacity of black men for acquiring knowledge : I want your opinion on that capacity, as compared with the capacity of white men?
Answer. I do not know that I am particularly qualified to speak on that subject, as you seem to intimate ; but I do not think that he is as capable of acquiring knowledge as the white man is. There are some more apt than others. I have known some to acquire knowledge and skill in" their trade or profession. I have had servants of my own who learned to
read and write very well.
Question. Do they show a capacity to obtain knowledge of mathematics and the exact sciences ?
Answer. I have no knowledge on that subject. I am merely acquainted with those who have learned the common rudiments of education.

Question. Has the colored race generally as great a love of money and property as the white race possesses?
Answer. I do not think it has. The blacks with whom I am acquainted look more to the present time than to the future.
Question. Does that absence of a lust of money and property arise more from the nature of the negro than from his former servile condition?
Answer. Well, it may be, in some measure;, attributable to his former condition. They are an amiable, social race. They like their ease and comfort, and, I think, look more to their present than to their future condition.

Question. Suppose an amendment should, nevertheless, be adopted, conferring on the blacks the right of suffrage, would that, in your opinion, lead to scenes of violence and breaches of the peace between the two races in Virginia?
Answer. I think it would excite unfriendly feelings between the two races. I cannot pretend to say to what extent it would go, but that would be the result.

Question. Do you not think that the question, as to whether any southern State would allow the colored people the right of suffrage in order to increase representation, would depend a good deal on the amount which the colored people might contribute to the wealth of the State in order to secure two things : first, the larger representation, and, second, the influence derived from these persons voting?
Answer. I think they would determine the question more in reference to their opinion as to the manner in which those votes would be exercised, whether they consider those people qualified to vote. My own opinion is, that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the right of suffrage would open the door to a great deal of demagoguism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways. What the future may prove, how intelligent they may become, with what eyes they may look upon the interests of the State in which they may reside, I cannot say more than you can.

Question. What is your opinion about it being an advantage to Virginia to keep them there at all. Do you not think that Virginia would be better off if the colored population were to go to Alabama, Louisiana, and the other southern States.
Answer. I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them. That is no new opinion with me. I have always thought so, and have always been in favor of emancipation gradual emancipation.
Question. As a question of labor alone, do you not think that the labor which would flow into Virginia, if the negroes left it for the cotton States, would be far more advantageous to the State and to its future prosperity ?
Answer. I think it would be for the benefit of Virginia, and I believe that everybody there would be willing to aid it.
Question. Do you not think that the State of Virginia is absolutely injured and its future impaired by the presence of the black population there ?
Answer. I think it is.
Question. And do you not think it is peculiarly adapted to the quality of labor which would flow, into it, from its great natural resources, in case it- was made more attractive by the absence of the colored race ?
Answer. I do.

 

[cash]

I hope @cash will share some other sources.

"In 1856, and as late as July 1860, he expressed a willingness to buy slaves. Those blacks who were in his possession were frequently traded away for his own convenience, regardless of the destruction it caused to the bondsman's family. He ignores justice to the slaves and defends the rights of the slaveholder in both his 1841 and 1856 letters to his wife, and he continued to uphold laws that constrained blacks well after the war." [Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, p. 145]

"His disdain for peoples unlike himself certainly reflected the society he lived in, but does not rise above it. Whereas some of his fellow officers found the Indians to be fascinating and honorable, Lee simply dismissed them. 'They are not worth it' was Lee's disdainful phrase for interacting with anyone who was not white." [Ibid., p. 150]

"To manage such a complex world of peoples and cultures, Lee professed a simple and inflexible social order, as tidy as the mathematical laws that governed his engineering. 'Though climate, government and circumstance have produced changes in the character of the people,' he once wrote, 'yet in all essential qualities they resemble the races from which they are sprung; and to no race are we indebted for the virtues and qualifications which constitute a great people than the Anglo-Saxon.' Blacks were clearly at the bottom of this racial scale. Lee believed that they were innately inferior to whites and that destiny favored the ascendancy of the Anglo-Saxons." [Ibid.]

"[In 1867] Privately he appears to have advocated restrictions on franchise rights that would exclude a great number of blacks as well as some whites from the polls. Finally, in the election of 1868 he openly backed the rightist [and racist] policies of the Democratic Party, sponsoring a meeting of former generals and other conservative southern leaders at the White Sulphur Springs. The group wrote a manifesto that called for an end to 'oppressive misrule,' dismissed legitimate power-sharing with the blacks, and proposed a return to the 'kindness and humanity' of their former social system." [Ibid., p. 451]

"Like others of his region, he persisted in truly believing that blacks were incapable of functioning on their own, that they had no inclination to work, and aspired to nothing beyond daily comfort and amusement. ... From the end of the war he took care to distance himself from the ex-slaves as much as possible, maintaining his control by aloofness. He tried to employ white rather than black servants in his household, though in the end the family acquiesced to hiring three or four 'tolerable ... respectable, but not energetic' freedmen. As before the war, his expectations fulfilled long-honed stereotypes. He told Congress he thought the ex-slaves less able than whites to acquire knowledge and inclined only to work sporadically on 'very short jobs ... they like their ease and comfort, and I think, look more to their present than to their future condition.' He advised his planter friends to shun black labor, for he felt the freedmen would work against their former owners and destroy property values. 'I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him,' he told one cousin, 'and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving.' Although he did not always state it so starkly, he continued to think, as he had told the _Herald,_ that the blacks had best be 'disposed of' and endorsed the idea of importing European workers to replace them. Lee particularly hoped that English immigration could be increased so that the South would benefit from 'good citizens whose interests & feelings would be in unison with our own.' " [Ibid., pp. 452-453]

"Lees vision did not include granting African-Americans the same option of productive citizenship that he wished to offer to immigrants. He explained to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction that 'at this time, they cannot vote intelligently' and that he opposed black enfranchisement on the grounds that it would 'excite unfriendly feelings between the two races.' He was also concerned about the educational opportunities being provided to the blacks by the Freedmen's Bureau and private northern charities, preferring they be taught by white Southerners, who were 'acquainted with their characters and wants.' Most of all he feared that blacks might procure enough political leverage to offset white control. The blacks lacked the capacity 'necessary to make them safe depositories of political power,' stated Lee and his compatriots." [Ibid., p. 453]

 

[cash]

I hope @cash will share some other sources.

"Some historians have proposed that he [Lee] was silent on the subject of slavery, at times boiling down his entire thinking to one long political paragraph he penned in 1856. Actually Lee's letters are peppered with comments about race, servitude, and abolition. Some make statements that by today's standards would be branded elitist, if not straightforwardly racist. Others discuss the day-to-day arrangements of slavery, which Lee never failed to find irritating. There are numerous letters that give clues to his moral and political thinking on the subject. Taken together, they provide abundant detail about Lee's thirty-five-year involvement with the peculiar institution. The tradition that Robert E. Lee was opposed to slavery has become part of the mythology that surrounds him." [Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters, p. 144]

 

[cash]

I hope @cash will share some other sources.

Chapters 24 and 25 of Elizabeth Brown Pryor's book, Reading the Man, looks at Lee in the postwar/Reconstruction years.

Soon after the war, Thomas Cook, a reporter with the New York Herald, secured an interview with Lee. "Lee took care to present himself as confident, robust, and anxious for reconciliation. He was quick to point out, however, that 'should arbitrary, or vindictive, or revengeful policies be adopted, the end was not yet.' He stated that the issue of states' rights had been decided by military power, not philosophical justice, then trivialized the entire conflict as a difference of political opinion–hardly grounds for accusations of treason. He excused Jefferson Davis's actions and proposed that Davis should be shown leniency because he had been a late and reluctant convert to secession. He explained his own actions in the same way. Lee further stated that the 'best men of the South' were pleased to see the end of slavery, and they had only continued the institution because of their Christian concern for black people. According to the reporter, Lee then showed his hand a bit more and said: 'The negroes must be disposed of, and if their disposition can be marked out, the matter of freeing them is at once settled,' suggesting that without such a 'disposal' the former Confederate states would work to undermine emancipation. Lee's main message, however, was that the South had waged a 'half earnest' rebellion, that every Southerner had overcome his moment of passion, and that no one should 'be judged harshly for contending for that which he honestly believed to be right.' Above all, Lee argued that the former Confederate states be treated with moderation so that the sons who were the country's 'bone and sinew, its intelligence and enterprise' might stay and work for its future." [p. 431] As we can see, Lee was not above prevarication and outright fabrication if it served his purposes. Lee also was not afraid to issue demands to the victors. Lee's words were met with scathing criticism in the loyal states. Lee would eventually accept an offer to be president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, where he took a hands-on approach, making a number of changes, such as using Sylvanus Thayer's running of West Point as a model for his own direction of Washington College. While he made a number of improvements, it wasn't easy on those at the college. "Lee was known for his 'fierce and violent temper, prone to intense expression,' and his administrative staff, as well as the students and faculty, learned to be wary, especially as the explosion often carried over to those not responsible for annoying the president. Some were concerned that nothing seemed to impress him; that he never apologized when clearly in error; that he had a way of testing the youths and their teachers to prove his superiority." [p. 439]

"Lee's progressive stance toward education, and his belief that Southerners should stay with their homes as they faced uncertain prospects, was an exceptional moment of foresight–justly admired and still resonant after fifteen decades. This long-range outlook, however, seems to have been relegated to one compartment of his mind. Lee's political precepts, as well as his efforts to accept the tragic events of the war (and his part in them), would be far more myopic. … [H]e planted himself in his favorite aggressively defensive position, denying any positive outcome to the conflict and balking at social change. [In the letter that opened the chapter] His struggle is quickly visible in this draft, for Lee stumbles over nearly every word, trying to reformulate his thoughts in a gently defiant fashion. He is anxious to state his opinion on the war's outcome, and do a little revisionist history on the reasons for his participation in it." [p. 445] Although he denied in public that he read the newspapers, he assiduously followed the press in both the North and the South. "Most of his opinions sought to justify the preeminence of states' rights, and he expressed an overt dislike–even fear–of majority politics and strong federal government." [p. 450] Lee portrayed himself outwardly as accepting the results of the war, yet inside he seethed with anger. "In private he penned political treatises that throb with controlled rage, containing harsh words about 'a national civilization which rots the life of a people to the core'; 'the gaol [sic] to which our progress in civilization is guiding us'; or 'unprincipled men who look for nothing but the retention of place & power in their hands.' This and several other draft essays he wrote were never published, but their cross-hatched and unfinished pages are like the smoke from a roiling volcano." [p. 450] The biggest political issue of Reconstruction was the status of African-Americans. "Lee had never been comfortable with the idea of intermingling with blacks, and the issue of race and power was one that seemed to jar his most fundamental assumptions. … Like others of his region, he persisted in truly believing that blacks were incapable of functioning on their own, that they had no inclination to work, and aspired to nothing beyond daily comfort and amusement. Such attitudes not only justified the adherence to slavery in the first place, they calmed the unspeakable worry that the freed blacks might succeed, thereby becoming a threat to status, economy, and pride. Lee's worldview was still strongly hierarchical–even within his enlightened vision of widespread education, he could not see beyond offering only as much 'knowledge & high mental culture as the limited means of the humble can command.' From the end of the war he took care to distance himself from the ex-slaves as much as possible, maintaining his control by aloofness. He tried to employ white rather than black servants in his household, though in the end the family acquiesced to hiring three or four 'tolerable … respectable, but not energetic' freedmen. As before the war, his expectations fulfilled long-honed stereotypes. He told Congress he thought the ex-slaves less able than whites to acquire knowledge and inclined only to work sporadically on 'very short jobs … they like their ease and comfort, and I think, look more to their present than to their future condition.' He advised his planter friends to shun black labor, for he felt the freedmen would work against their former owners and destroy property values. 'I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him,' he told one cousin, 'and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving.' Although he did not always state it so starkly, he continued to think, as he had told the Herald, that the blacks had best be 'disposed of' and endorsed the idea of importing European workers to replace them. Lee particularly hoped that English immigration could be increased so that the South would benefit from 'good citizens whose interests & feelings would be in unison with our own.' … Lee's vision did not include granting African-Americans the same option of productive citizenship that he wished to offer to immigrants. He explained to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction that 'at this time,t hey cannot vote intelligently' and that he opposed black enfranchisement on the grounds that it would 'excite unfriendly feelings between the two races.' He was also concerned about the educational opportunities being provided to the blacks by the Freedmen's Bureau and private northern charities, preferring they be taught by white Southerners, who were 'acquainted with their characters and wants.' Most of all he feared that blacks might procure enough political leverage to offset white control." [pp. 452-453]

 

[Eleanor Rose]

I have read many of Lee's letters and most certainly his testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction in 1866. It's clear he thought black people lived in the moment, that most weren't very intelligent and that they weren't qualified to vote in 1866. It's also clear he didn't consider himself to be an expert on all black people.

I'm not attempting to defend Lee's views on black people or slavery. I disagree with his views and I don't think he was
antislavery. In my opinion Lee preferred the notion of black and white people going their separate and unequal ways. However, I still don't see any evidence that he didn't like black people in general. I still see this as conjecture. After all he did write, "I wish them no evil in the world—on the contrary, will do them every good in my power."

 

[cash]

I have read many of Lee's letters and most certainly his testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction in 1866. It's clear he thought black people lived in the moment, that most weren't very intelligent and that they weren't qualified to vote in 1866. It's also clear he didn't consider himself to be an expert on all black people.

I'm not attempting to defend Lee's views on black people or slavery. I disagree with his views and I don't think he was
antislavery. In my opinion Lee preferred the notion of black and white people going their separate and unequal ways. However, I still don't see any evidence that he didn't like black people in general. I still see this as conjecture. After all he did write, "I wish them no evil in the world—on the contrary, will do them every good in my power."

The advocacy of forced removal of every black person from the state of Virginia and the advice to others to never have black people working for them is not evidence of liking that race. It's certainly evidence of disliking the race.

 

[Eleanor Rose]

Chapters 24 and 25 of Elizabeth Brown Pryor's book, Reading the Man, looks at Lee in the postwar/Reconstruction years.

Soon after the war, Thomas Cook, a reporter with the New York Herald, secured an interview with Lee. "Lee took care to present himself as confident, robust, and anxious for reconciliation. He was quick to point out, however, that 'should arbitrary, or vindictive, or revengeful policies be adopted, the end was not yet.' He stated that the issue of states' rights had been decided by military power, not philosophical justice, then trivialized the entire conflict as a difference of political opinion–hardly grounds for accusations of treason. He excused Jefferson Davis's actions and proposed that Davis should be shown leniency because he had been a late and reluctant convert to secession. He explained his own actions in the same way. Lee further stated that the 'best men of the South' were pleased to see the end of slavery, and they had only continued the institution because of their Christian concern for black people. According to the reporter, Lee then showed his hand a bit more and said: 'The negroes must be disposed of, and if their disposition can be marked out, the matter of freeing them is at once settled,' suggesting that without such a 'disposal' the former Confederate states would work to undermine emancipation. Lee's main message, however, was that the South had waged a 'half earnest' rebellion, that every Southerner had overcome his moment of passion, and that no one should 'be judged harshly for contending for that which he honestly believed to be right.' Above all, Lee argued that the former Confederate states be treated with moderation so that the sons who were the country's 'bone and sinew, its intelligence and enterprise' might stay and work for its future." [p. 431] As we can see, Lee was not above prevarication and outright fabrication if it served his purposes. Lee also was not afraid to issue demands to the victors. Lee's words were met with scathing criticism in the loyal states. Lee would eventually accept an offer to be president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, where he took a hands-on approach, making a number of changes, such as using Sylvanus Thayer's running of West Point as a model for his own direction of Washington College. While he made a number of improvements, it wasn't easy on those at the college. "Lee was known for his 'fierce and violent temper, prone to intense expression,' and his administrative staff, as well as the students and faculty, learned to be wary, especially as the explosion often carried over to those not responsible for annoying the president. Some were concerned that nothing seemed to impress him; that he never apologized when clearly in error; that he had a way of testing the youths and their teachers to prove his superiority." [p. 439]

"Lee's progressive stance toward education, and his belief that Southerners should stay with their homes as they faced uncertain prospects, was an exceptional moment of foresight–justly admired and still resonant after fifteen decades. This long-range outlook, however, seems to have been relegated to one compartment of his mind. Lee's political precepts, as well as his efforts to accept the tragic events of the war (and his part in them), would be far more myopic. … [H]e planted himself in his favorite aggressively defensive position, denying any positive outcome to the conflict and balking at social change. [In the letter that opened the chapter] His struggle is quickly visible in this draft, for Lee stumbles over nearly every word, trying to reformulate his thoughts in a gently defiant fashion. He is anxious to state his opinion on the war's outcome, and do a little revisionist history on the reasons for his participation in it." [p. 445] Although he denied in public that he read the newspapers, he assiduously followed the press in both the North and the South. "Most of his opinions sought to justify the preeminence of states' rights, and he expressed an overt dislike–even fear–of majority politics and strong federal government." [p. 450] Lee portrayed himself outwardly as accepting the results of the war, yet inside he seethed with anger. "In private he penned political treatises that throb with controlled rage, containing harsh words about 'a national civilization which rots the life of a people to the core'; 'the gaol [sic] to which our progress in civilization is guiding us'; or 'unprincipled men who look for nothing but the retention of place & power in their hands.' This and several other draft essays he wrote were never published, but their cross-hatched and unfinished pages are like the smoke from a roiling volcano." [p. 450] The biggest political issue of Reconstruction was the status of African-Americans. "Lee had never been comfortable with the idea of intermingling with blacks, and the issue of race and power was one that seemed to jar his most fundamental assumptions. … Like others of his region, he persisted in truly believing that blacks were incapable of functioning on their own, that they had no inclination to work, and aspired to nothing beyond daily comfort and amusement. Such attitudes not only justified the adherence to slavery in the first place, they calmed the unspeakable worry that the freed blacks might succeed, thereby becoming a threat to status, economy, and pride. Lee's worldview was still strongly hierarchical–even within his enlightened vision of widespread education, he could not see beyond offering only as much 'knowledge & high mental culture as the limited means of the humble can command.' From the end of the war he took care to distance himself from the ex-slaves as much as possible, maintaining his control by aloofness. He tried to employ white rather than black servants in his household, though in the end the family acquiesced to hiring three or four 'tolerable … respectable, but not energetic' freedmen. As before the war, his expectations fulfilled long-honed stereotypes. He told Congress he thought the ex-slaves less able than whites to acquire knowledge and inclined only to work sporadically on 'very short jobs … they like their ease and comfort, and I think, look more to their present than to their future condition.' He advised his planter friends to shun black labor, for he felt the freedmen would work against their former owners and destroy property values. 'I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him,' he told one cousin, 'and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving.' Although he did not always state it so starkly, he continued to think, as he had told the Herald, that the blacks had best be 'disposed of' and endorsed the idea of importing European workers to replace them. Lee particularly hoped that English immigration could be increased so that the South would benefit from 'good citizens whose interests & feelings would be in unison with our own.' … Lee's vision did not include granting African-Americans the same option of productive citizenship that he wished to offer to immigrants. He explained to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction that 'at this time,t hey cannot vote intelligently' and that he opposed black enfranchisement on the grounds that it would 'excite unfriendly feelings between the two races.' He was also concerned about the educational opportunities being provided to the blacks by the Freedmen's Bureau and private northern charities, preferring they be taught by white Southerners, who were 'acquainted with their characters and wants.' Most of all he feared that blacks might procure enough political leverage to offset white control." [pp. 452-453]

No doubt about it. Lee thought the black race was inferior. I think cats are inferior, but I don't dislike all of them in general.