Lee Lee and Reconstruction

Nowhere did I say it was. This thread is about Lee in Reconstruction, not Grant's quote. Grant's quote directly addresses Lee in Reconstruction.

It's not clear to me what Lee said/did that constituted "behaving badly" in 1866. What light can you shed on that?
 
We often forget just who Lee was. He was truly a member of the establishment- the well-to-do planter class. In spite of how some try to redefine him, he was not some egalitarian.


Let's not mince words -- Lee was a member in good standing to the plutocrat class.
 
he writes a lot of unfinished essays and unfinished notes on war and on government, and these little unfinished descriptions of battlefield scenes that are not quite exactly accurate, that are very skewed, and with tremendous hostility toward the North. His language is tremendously hostile in these notes.
He doesn't publish them, and he doesn't send some of the letters
He wasn't doing everything in his power for Reconstruction as was claimed.
There is a difference between doing and saying. You are using Lee's musings to indicate he wasn't 'doing' what was in his power. Musings are not indications of actions, they are indications of thoughts only. It is possible to act contrary to what one is thinking and feeling in the interest of others or for the greater good. I don't think this quote is an indication of what is being asserted. Specific actions have to be associated with the premise - what was in his power to do? How did he fail to do this?
 
There is a difference between doing and saying. You are using Lee's musings to indicate he wasn't 'doing' what was in his power. Musings are not indications of actions, they are indications of thoughts only. It is possible to act contrary to what one is thinking and feeling in the interest of others or for the greater good. I don't think this quote is an indication of what is being asserted. Specific actions have to be associated with the premise - what was in his power to do? How did he fail to do this?

You think a public letter is only a musing?
 
I suggest reading the thread. I've only posted directly on it three times and even quoted from it.
 
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]
A fascinating look at post war Lee. A side of the man I had no idea existed.
 
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Since Grant didn't plan to ship anyone anywhere, Lee couldn't have commented on it; however, had Grant actually planned to ship black people to Santo Domingo, Lee would probably have applauded and may even have donated money to help it along. Lee commented that he would have liked to have seen all black folks shipped out of Virginia and replaced by workers from Europe.
I beleive Lee used the term “disposed of”.
 
Let's not mince words -- Lee was a member in good standing to the plutocrat class.
Thanks for your response.
I thought my words were straightforward. My point is that Lee's guiding principles, beliefs, behavior, and actions were consistent with the well-to-do planter class of which he belonged. To say otherwise- as some suggest- is to ignore the facts.
That does not condemn him: it presents a fairer, more balanced picture of the man.
 
he writes a lot of unfinished essays and unfinished notes on war and on government, and these little unfinished descriptions of battlefield scenes that are not quite exactly accurate, that are very skewed, and with tremendous hostility toward the North. His language is tremendously hostile in these notes.
He doesn't publish them, and he doesn't send some of the letters. The only letters I know that he sends that have those qualities to them are some letters that he sends to a nephew who lives in Paris
You think a public letter is only a musing?
You indicated this was evidence to support your claim. But the reference states these writings were not published. That is what I was referring to. I describe them as musings which are reflective of thoughts and feelings. Once again, it is possible to act contrary to these. I did not claim that Lee did or didn't. I asked the question. What was in his power to do? And, how did he fail to do this?
 
You indicated this was evidence to support your claim. But the reference states these writings were not published. That is what I was referring to. I describe them as musings which are reflective of thoughts and feelings. Once again, it is possible to act contrary to these. I did not claim that Lee did or didn't. I asked the question. What was in his power to do? And, how did he fail to do this?

You haven't read the thread, then. I posted about a public letter he signed, his testimony to Congress, and a newspaper interview he gave. Those were all published and in public, not private musings.
 
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You haven't read the thread, then. I posted about a public letter he signed, his testimony to Congress, and a newspaper interview he have. Those were all published and in public, not private musings.
I did read the thread, I just didn't agree that the quote above was evidence to support your claim.
 
In a May 12, 1866 interview published in the Lewiston Journal, Ulysses S. Grant said, " 'Some of the rebel generals are behaving nobly and doing all they can to induce the people to throw aside their old prejudices and to conform their course to the changed condition of things. Johnston and Dick Taylor particularly are exercising a good influence; but, he added, 'Lee is behaving badly. He is conducting himself very differently from what I had reason, from what he said at the time of the surrender, to suppose he would. No man at the South is capable of exercising a tenth part of the influence for good that he is, but instead of using it, he is setting an example of forced acquiescence so grudging and pernicious in its effects as to be hardly realized.' " [PUSG Volume 16, page 258]

I'm having difficulty understanding your point. You quote Grant criticizing Lee for "behaving badly" but you won't say what the bad behavour is.
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