Lee Was Lee's US Citizenship Restored Before He Died?

He didn't have full rights of citizenship when he died, thus his citizenship was not restored (brought back to its original state) before he died.
Look, the notion that one has to have the right to vote and hold office to be a citizen is specious. I was born a US citizen, yet I was deprived of the right to vote for 18 years. I could not serve as president until I was thirty-five. Does that mean that I was not a citizen until I was 35?

At the time of the Civil War, most Americans could not vote till they were 21. Does that mean Union soldiers under 21 were non-citizen soldiers?

Felons can't vote in many states, yet they are still citizens of the United States.

Blacks became citizens when the 14th Amendment was ratified, yet they were still denied the vote in many states until the 15th Amendment was ratified.

Women could not vote in many states until less than 100 years ago, but they were still citizens of the United States.

Some parts of the U.S. allowed non-naturalized immigrants to vote. Voting did not make these immigrants citizens.

It is anachronistic to assume that voting and citizenship are so intimately tied together that you can't have one without the other.
 
We used to say that for a lawyer, Jerry Ford was a very good football player.

He was a tremendous athlete, ironically remembered as a klutz. I saw him when I was a boy, on television as president, hit a hole-in-one at golf. IIRC, he said he was grateful to be president at that time, otherwise no one would have been watching or believed the hole-in-one.

He was a citizen though, with voting rights.
 
He didn't have full rights of citizenship when he died, thus his citizenship was not restored (brought back to its original state) before he died.

That's the answer to the question.

As a felon serving a prison term or afterwards serving probation or parole, you are not allowed to vote and in many states not allowed to hold office. Did these felons lose their citizenship?
 
As a felon serving a prison term or afterwards serving probation or parole, you are not allowed to vote and in many states not allowed to hold office. Did these felons lose their citizenship?

This is a definition of a felon:

"[T]he term 'felony' means an offense punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of more than one year."

As a Supervisor of the Checklist, I deal with this fairly frequently. Many people go to jail which is a year or less and they can still vote. And there are many classes of felony. And at least in NH that too can have an effect on when/if voting privileges are reinstated. And before someone says "that can never happen," I was personally directed by the Secretary of State's office to reinstate voting privileges for a convicted felon in one particular case.

Was Robert E. Lee convicted of a felony? I'm unclear on that. Also, I'm sure voting laws were quite different then too, for the state of Virginia. Were all Confederates convicted of felonies? So how did they take away their voting rights exactly? Or am I opening a BIG can of worms here?:confused:
 
This is a definition of a felon:

"[T]he term 'felony' means an offense punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of more than one year."

As a Supervisor of the Checklist, I deal with this fairly frequently. Many people go to jail which is a year or less and they can still vote. And there are many classes of felony. And at least in NH that too can have an effect on when/if voting privileges are reinstated. And before someone says "that can never happen," I was personally directed by the Secretary of State's office to reinstate voting privileges for a convicted felon in one particular case.

Was Robert E. Lee convicted of a felony? I'm unclear on that. Also, I'm sure voting laws were quite different then too, for the state of Virginia. Were all Confederates convicted of felonies? So how did they take away their voting rights exactly? Or am I opening a BIG can of worms here?:confused:

The 14th Amendment.
 
This is a definition of a felon:

"[T]he term 'felony' means an offense punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of more than one year."

As a Supervisor of the Checklist, I deal with this fairly frequently. Many people go to jail which is a year or less and they can still vote. And there are many classes of felony. And at least in NH that too can have an effect on when/if voting privileges are reinstated. And before someone says "that can never happen," I was personally directed by the Secretary of State's office to reinstate voting privileges for a convicted felon in one particular case.

Was Robert E. Lee convicted of a felony? I'm unclear on that. Also, I'm sure voting laws were quite different then too, for the state of Virginia. Were all Confederates convicted of felonies? So how did they take away their voting rights exactly? Or am I opening a BIG can of worms here?:confused:

The point I'm trying to make is that Lee and other Confederates lost only their right to vote and to hold office, the same as it used to be for convicted felons. The loss of voting and office holding rights for a felon most suredly did not strip them of their American citizenship; likewise for the former Confederates.

edit - I just now read Pat's post from December 18th and he not only covered what I apparently repeated above, but was more thorough in his examples.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top