Lee Why didn't Lee refuse to obey an immoral order?

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if slavery allows the crime of murder, rape, assault, stealing wages, and forced labor upon a person...does not society have the right to judge those crimes as being "moral or not? Can any state allow the individual to decide if a crime is "moral or inmoral" based on their own value?
I don’t disagree with anything you have said, I’m just genuinely curious to know who made the decision that Lee obeyed an immoral order as was suggested in the OP or was it your own value judgment/decision to suggest that he’d carried out an immoral order. I’m really not trying to be pedantic, it’s just that I’m a firm believer in never judging the decisions made by historic figures unless those decisions are viewed in the context of the time. You’ve mentioned a number of horrific crimes that slaves had to endure and nobody could dispute that many slaves were indeed subjected to those horrors but I’m not sure that Lee can be held accountable for the
inhumane mistreatment of slaves even if his actions were in part instrumental in keeping those very people enslaved.
I appreciate that it may appear that I’m missing the very point that you have so eloquently put foward but I struggle to believe that the rape and murder of slaves was something that Lee would have considered when he chose to follow an order. Like I said earlier, for me, it’s about looking at things within their historical context, some societal norms back then are clearly no longer acceptable today, Its possible to list a number of historical figures whom are held in high regards despite having made decisions which simply would no longer be considered acceptable.
 
I don’t disagree with anything you have said, I’m just genuinely curious to know who made the decision that Lee obeyed an immoral order as was suggested in the OP or was it your own value judgment/decision to suggest that he’d carried out an immoral order. I’m really not trying to be pedantic, it’s just that I’m a firm believer in never judging the decisions made by historic figures unless those decisions are viewed in the context of the time. You’ve mentioned a number of horrific crimes that slaves had to endure and nobody could dispute that many slaves were indeed subjected to those horrors but I’m not sure that Lee can be held accountable for the
inhumane mistreatment of slaves even if his actions were in part instrumental in keeping those very people enslaved.
I appreciate that it may appear that I’m missing the very point that you have so eloquently put foward but I struggle to believe that the rape and murder of slaves was something that Lee would have considered when he chose to follow an order. Like I said earlier, for me, it’s about looking at things within their historical context, some societal norms back then are clearly no longer acceptable today, Its possible to list a number of historical figures whom are held in high regards despite having made decisions which simply would no longer be considered acceptable.

Well, in other words: if Lee was so willing to resign from the United States Army as to protect the rights of "white people" in Virginia against Union Aggression in 1861, why wasn't he willing, or considered, resigning from the Confederate Army to protest the rights of free "black people" in PA against Confederate aggression in 1863?

Fredrick Douglas did not hold Lee in "high regards"?

Should questions of his character lead us to question why we should hold Lee in such "high regards" today?

Why should a man be held in "high regard" that allows slavery to continue in a society? Slavery allows the crime of: murder, rape, assault, kdnaping, thievery against person and property, forced labor.

Is it because we romanticize the south in that era (like the book Gone with the Wind) in spite of the crime?
 
if slavery allows the crime of murder, rape, assault, stealing wages, and forced labor upon a person...does not society have the right to judge those crimes as being "moral or not? Can any state allow the individual to decide if a crime is "moral or inmoral" based on their own value?

I think both of your questions are invalid...The question itself already assumes the order(s) are immoral and the second part I would argue is murder, rape, forced labor upon a person...Didnt the Dred Scott decision already answer the question of property/person..??
 
I think both of your questions are invalid...The question itself already assumes the order(s) are immoral and the second part I would argue is murder, rape, forced labor upon a person...Didnt the Dred Scott decision already answer the question of property/person..??
are you saying the law and justice are always equal?
 
Note: the following is from a modern source and discusses a modern event. I would not normally post it here, but it seems highly relevant to the point of when an officer may disobey an order. It also refers to the understanding of US military law as it goes back to roughly the time of the American Civil War.

The following is from UNITED STATES, Appellee v WILLIAM L. CALLEY, JR., First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Appellant No. 26,875 United States Court of Military Appeals 22 U.S.C.M.A. 534 December 21, 1973 QUINN, Judge; DUNCAN, Judge (concurring in the result); DARDEN, Chief Judge (dissenting).

On the topic of an officer obeying an order:

Colonel William Winthrop, the leading American commentator on military law, notes:​
But for the inferior to assume to determine the question of the lawfulness of an order given him by a superior would of itself, as a general rule, amount to insubordination, and such an assumption carried into practice would subvert military discipline. Where the order is apparently regular and lawful on its face, he is not to go behind it to satisfy himself that his superior has proceeded with authority, but is to obey it according to its terms, the only exceptions recognized to the rule of obedience being cases of orders so manifestly beyond the legal power or discretion of the commander as to admit of no rational doubt of their unlawfulness . . . .
Except in such instances of palpable illegality, which must be of rare occurrence, the inferior should presume that the order was lawful and authorized and obey it accordingly, and in obeying it can scarcely fail to be held justified by a military court.
In the stress of combat, a member of the armed forces cannot reasonably be expected to make a refined legal judgment and be held criminally responsible if he guesses wrong on a question as to which there may be considerable disagreement. But there is no disagreement as to the illegality of the order to kill in this case. For 100 years, it has been a settled rule of American law that even in war the summary killing of an enemy, who has submitted to, and is under, effective physical control, is murder. Appellate defense counsel acknowledge that rule of law and its continued viability, but they say that Lieutenant Calley should not be held accountable for the men, women and children he killed because the court-martial could have found that he was a person of "commonest understanding" and such a person might not know what our law provides; that his captain had ordered him to kill these unarmed and submissive people and he only carried out that order as a good disciplined soldier should. Whether Lieutenant Calley was the most ignorant person in the United States Army in Vietnam, or the most intelligent, he must be presumed to know that he could not kill the people involved here. The United States Supreme Court has pointed out that "[t]he rule that 'ignorance of the law will not excuse' [a positive act that constitutes a crime] . . . is deep in our law." Lambert v California, 355 US 225, 228 (1957). An order to kill infants and unarmed civilians who were so demonstrably incapable of resistance to the armed might of a military force as were those killed by Lieutenant Calley is, in my opinion, so palpably illegal that whatever conceptional difference there may be between a person of "commonest understanding" and a person of "common understanding," that difference could not have had any "impact on a court of lay members receiving the respective wordings in instructions," as appellate defense counsel contend. In my judgment, there is no possibility of prejudice to Lieutenant Calley in the trial judge's reliance upon the established standard of excuse of criminal conduct, rather than the standard of "commonest understanding" presented by the defense, or by the new variable test postulated in the dissent, which, with the inclusion of such factors for consideration as grade and experience, would appear to exact a higher standard of understanding from Lieutenant Calley than that of the person of ordinary understanding.​

I have no clue how Lee himself felt about the order; I am not even sure he received such an order to capture and repatriate black people as escaped slaves. If he did, it would require a very strong conviction his superior was acting illegally to refuse to obey the order.

I do admire the character of Lee as a man. IMHO, Lee would have steeled himself and taken action if ordered to do something he regarded as clearly or strongly illegal/immoral.
 
Note: the following is from a modern source and discusses a modern event. I would not normally post it here, but it seems highly relevant to the point of when an officer may disobey an order. It also refers to the understanding of US military law as it goes back to roughly the time of the American Civil War.

The following is from UNITED STATES, Appellee v WILLIAM L. CALLEY, JR., First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Appellant No. 26,875 United States Court of Military Appeals 22 U.S.C.M.A. 534 December 21, 1973 QUINN, Judge; DUNCAN, Judge (concurring in the result); DARDEN, Chief Judge (dissenting).

On the topic of an officer obeying an order:

Colonel William Winthrop, the leading American commentator on military law, notes:​
But for the inferior to assume to determine the question of the lawfulness of an order given him by a superior would of itself, as a general rule, amount to insubordination, and such an assumption carried into practice would subvert military discipline. Where the order is apparently regular and lawful on its face, he is not to go behind it to satisfy himself that his superior has proceeded with authority, but is to obey it according to its terms, the only exceptions recognized to the rule of obedience being cases of orders so manifestly beyond the legal power or discretion of the commander as to admit of no rational doubt of their unlawfulness . . . .
Except in such instances of palpable illegality, which must be of rare occurrence, the inferior should presume that the order was lawful and authorized and obey it accordingly, and in obeying it can scarcely fail to be held justified by a military court.
In the stress of combat, a member of the armed forces cannot reasonably be expected to make a refined legal judgment and be held criminally responsible if he guesses wrong on a question as to which there may be considerable disagreement. But there is no disagreement as to the illegality of the order to kill in this case. For 100 years, it has been a settled rule of American law that even in war the summary killing of an enemy, who has submitted to, and is under, effective physical control, is murder. Appellate defense counsel acknowledge that rule of law and its continued viability, but they say that Lieutenant Calley should not be held accountable for the men, women and children he killed because the court-martial could have found that he was a person of "commonest understanding" and such a person might not know what our law provides; that his captain had ordered him to kill these unarmed and submissive people and he only carried out that order as a good disciplined soldier should. Whether Lieutenant Calley was the most ignorant person in the United States Army in Vietnam, or the most intelligent, he must be presumed to know that he could not kill the people involved here. The United States Supreme Court has pointed out that "[t]he rule that 'ignorance of the law will not excuse' [a positive act that constitutes a crime] . . . is deep in our law." Lambert v California, 355 US 225, 228 (1957). An order to kill infants and unarmed civilians who were so demonstrably incapable of resistance to the armed might of a military force as were those killed by Lieutenant Calley is, in my opinion, so palpably illegal that whatever conceptional difference there may be between a person of "commonest understanding" and a person of "common understanding," that difference could not have had any "impact on a court of lay members receiving the respective wordings in instructions," as appellate defense counsel contend. In my judgment, there is no possibility of prejudice to Lieutenant Calley in the trial judge's reliance upon the established standard of excuse of criminal conduct, rather than the standard of "commonest understanding" presented by the defense, or by the new variable test postulated in the dissent, which, with the inclusion of such factors for consideration as grade and experience, would appear to exact a higher standard of understanding from Lieutenant Calley than that of the person of ordinary understanding.​

I have no clue how Lee himself felt about the order; I am not even sure he received such an order to capture and repatriate black people as escaped slaves. If he did, it would require a very strong conviction his superior was acting illegally to refuse to obey the order.

I do admire the character of Lee as a man. IMHO, Lee would have steeled himself and taken action if ordered to do something he regarded as clearly or strongly illegal/immoral.

What is meant by "Combat Conditions" & when did those condition occur for Lee in the PA campaign?
Edited.
 
When did combat conditions occur for Lee in PA? Gettysburg comes to mind. It is, as trice mentions, unsettled as to whether Lee received such an order. It may have been more in the line of Davis recommending it. An order may well have turned Lee's army into a giant slave catching posse. The planters were putting a great deal of pressure on Davis to retrieve their runaways and in the end he had to give them something. Lee didn't pay much attention to it, which makes me think it was not an actual order. Blacks, free or not, were collected by elements of his command and a blind eye was turned to it.
 
When did combat conditions occur for Lee in PA? Gettysburg comes to mind. It is, as trice mentions, unsettled as to whether Lee received such an order. It may have been more in the line of Davis recommending it. An order may well have turned Lee's army into a giant slave catching posse. The planters were putting a great deal of pressure on Davis to retrieve their runaways and in the end he had to give them something. Lee didn't pay much attention to it, which makes me think it was not an actual order. Blacks, free or not, were collected by elements of his command and a blind eye was turned to it.
Is combat conditions specifically during the battle, or during the whole campaign into PA? can stress vary giving the function of command...being different giving orders on the front lines as opposed giving orders in the rear. Is not the privilege of rank (especially a one who claims generalship) comes at the price of total responsibility? How can a General not be responsible for the conduct of his army? turning a blind eye by his command to the event of capturing free black people in PA is silent approval.
 
Dont answer a question with a question....

But they are never equal depending on one's point of view....This is first year law school stuff...Are you on Spring Break....??
and what point of view should we have on slavery, just or unjust?
 
When did combat conditions occur for Lee in PA? Gettysburg comes to mind. It is, as trice mentions, unsettled as to whether Lee received such an order. It may have been more in the line of Davis recommending it. An order may well have turned Lee's army into a giant slave catching posse. The planters were putting a great deal of pressure on Davis to retrieve their runaways and in the end he had to give them something. Lee didn't pay much attention to it, which makes me think it was not an actual order. Blacks, free or not, were collected by elements of his command and a blind eye was turned to it.

For a man like Lee, the question is more like "when wasn't he in combat conditions?"

The degree of the conditions waxed and waned, but part or all of his army had been involved in active operations from the point where he detached Longstreet on the Suffolk mission through Chancellorsville, Brandy Station, Ewell's Valley operations and the invasion of Pennsylvania, Gettysburg and the Retreat from Gettysburg. On every day in there, under greater or lesser pressure and urgency, Lee was making decisions that dealt with potential and real combat, where men might die because of what he had done or not done. Even during the "down" periods of the winter, his army was in contact with the enemy, close enough that it was possible they might attack at any time with little warning -- meanwhile, his troops were going hungry.

Sorry -- that's all just a long way of saying Lee was always under pressure. Sometimes it was more distant than others, but it was always there.
 
For a man like Lee, the question is more like "when wasn't he in combat conditions?"

The degree of the conditions waxed and waned, but part or all of his army had been involved in active operations from the point where he detached Longstreet on the Suffolk mission through Chancellorsville, Brandy Station, Ewell's Valley operations and the invasion of Pennsylvania, Gettysburg and the Retreat from Gettysburg. On every day in there, under greater or lesser pressure and urgency, Lee was making decisions that dealt with potential and real combat, where men might die because of what he had done or not done. Even during the "down" periods of the winter, his army was in contact with the enemy, close enough that it was possible they might attack at any time with little warning -- meanwhile, his troops were going hungry.

Sorry -- that's all just a long way of saying Lee was always under pressure. Sometimes it was more distant than others, but it was always there.
Was all Lees decision based on combat, or were there issues based on policy? Did capturing black people and sending them south a combat issue, or policy issue?
 
Was slavery moral in the south because it was validated by law?
Seems to me they are the same......

Morality in any time and place is set by the moral values of the majority of the people

Our laws also reflect the morals of the majority

so its hardly surprising they both reflect the same
 
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