The
debate about the Charleston Bible study shooting has morphed into a
debate about the Confederate battle flag and other symbols of the
Confederacy. This is not a trivial sideshow. Racism is not just a
personal prejudice and an evolutionary byproduct. It resurfaces year
after year because it’s been woven by historical events into the fabric
of American culture.
That
culture is transmitted through the generations by the things we honor
or don’t honor, by the symbols and names we celebrate and don’t
celebrate. If we want to reduce racism we have to elevate the symbols
that signify the struggle against racism and devalue the symbols that
signify its acceptance.
Lowering
the Confederate flag from public properties is thus an easy call. There
are plenty of ways to celebrate Southern heritage and Southern life
without choosing one so enmeshed in the fight to preserve slavery.
The
harder call concerns Robert E. Lee. Should schools and other facilities
be named after the great Confederate general, or should his name be
removed and replaced?
The case for Lee begins with his personal character. It is almost impossible to imagine a finer and more considerate gentleman.
As
a general and public figure, he was a man of impeccable honesty,
integrity and kindness. As a soldier, he displayed courage from the
beginning of his career straight through to the end. Despite his
blunders at Gettysburg and elsewhere he was by many accounts the most
effective general in the Civil War and maybe in American history. One
biographer, Michael Korda, writes, “His generosity of spirit,
undiminished by ideological or political differences, and even by the
divisive, bloody Civil War, shines through in every letter he writes,
and in every conversation of his that was reported or remembered.”
As
a family man, he was surprisingly relaxed and affectionate. We think of
him as a man of marble, but he loved having his kids jump into bed with
him and tickle his feet. With his wife’s loving cooperation, he could
write witty and even saucy letters to other women. He was devout in his
faith, a gifted watercolorist, a lover of animals and a charming
conversationalist.
In
theory, he opposed slavery, once calling it “a moral and political evil
in any country.” He opposed Southern secession, calling it “silly” and a
rash revolutionary act. Moreover we shouldn’t be overly guilty of the
sin of “presentism,” judging historical figures by contemporary
standards.
The case against
Lee begins with the fact that he betrayed his oath to serve the United
States. He didn’t need to do it. The late historian Elizabeth Brown
Pryor demonstrated that 40 percent of Virginia officers decided to
remain with the Union forces, including members of Lee’s family.
As
the historian Allen Guelzo emailed me, “He withdrew from the Army and
took up arms in a rebellion against the United States.” He could have at
least sat out the war. But, Guelzo continues, “he raised his hand
against the flag and government he had sworn to defend. This more than
fulfills the constitutional definition of treason.”
More
germane, while Lee may have opposed slavery in theory he did nothing to
eliminate or reduce it in practice. On the contrary, if he’d been
successful in the central task of his life, he would have preserved and
prolonged it.
Like
Lincoln he did not believe African-Americans were yet capable of
equality. Unlike Lincoln he accepted the bondage of other human beings
with bland complaisance. His wife inherited 196 slaves from her father.
Her father’s will (somewhat impractically) said they were to be freed,
but Lee didn’t free them.
Lee
didn’t enjoy owning slaves, but he was considered a hard taskmaster and
he did sell some, breaking up families. Moreover, he supported the
institution of slavery as a pillar of Confederate life. He defended the
right of Southerners to take their slaves to the Western territories. He
fundamentally believed the existence of slavery was, at least for a
time, God’s will.
Every
generation has a duty to root out the stubborn weed of prejudice from
the culture. We do that, in part, through expressions of admiration and
disdain. Given our history, it seems right to aggressively go the extra
mile to show that prejudice is simply unacceptable, no matter how fine a
person might otherwise be.
My
own view is that we should preserve most Confederate memorials out of
respect for the common soldiers. We should keep Lee’s name on
institutions that reflect postwar service, like Washington and Lee
University, where he was president. But we should remove Lee’s name from
most schools, roads and other institutions, where the name could be
seen as acceptance of what he did and stood for during the war.
This is not about rewriting history. It’s about shaping the culture going forward.
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