Lee Memoirs Of Robert E Lee

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"There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age who will
not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and
political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I
think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race.
While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter,
my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The
blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally,
physically, and socially. (The painful discipline they are
undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race,
and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long
their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a
merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result
from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from
the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence,
though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour
have required nearly two thousand years to convert but
a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian
nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course
of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give
it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as
the results in the hand of Him who sees the end, who chooses
to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years
are but as a single day. Although the Abolitionist must know
this-must know that he has neither the right nor the power of
operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he
must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he
may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes
its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reasons
he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with
holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor,

still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course
.
" . . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pil
grim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own
freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others."

MEMOIRS OF ROBERT E LEE
HIS MILITARY AND PERSONAL HISTORY
By A L LONG
1887
 
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