jegates

Thanks Salah...it's a shame we have to go through so much to accept others. Imagine there's...wait, about to break into a song...

tjadams

One has to look no further than by Lincoln's own mouth in his
debates with Senator Douglas for more confusion on the issue
of race.

skizzerflake

And, a lot of abolitionists assumed that the freed slaves would be sent "back" to Africa (where? Liberia?), in spite of the fact that most slaves were born in America, some had roots here as long as 200 years before and many didn't even know what part of Africa they had come from. We're still evolving on issues that surround race, but not much evolution had occurred back in 1860.

oshron

personally, i think that was the case with most confederates, especially since most of the confederate soldiers probably didnt own slaves
agreed

Viperlord

Lee's attitude was typical of the period. He spoke against slavery as an abstract evil, but nevertheless owned slaves himself and had at least one I'm aware of beaten for trying to escape. Lee and many other southerners seemed to believe slavery to be the will of their god, and Lee also railed against abolitionists for their open opposition to the institution.

tjadams

Lincoln supported for a long time the <1816> American Colonization Society, which was the relocation of freed slaves. He later changed his mind.

betgo

Yeh, it is a myth that Lee was anti-slavery.

It would have been very hard for Lee to lead on invasion of his own state.

He was in a difficult position for various reasons since his wife's plantation was just accross from Washington. The Union used his land to bury the war dead. His descendents eventually sued and were compensated. The land would be worth several billon $s today.

There was very mixed feelings in VA and all the slave states that seceeded after Fort Sumpter or did not seceed. In the deep south, there was a booming economy based on cotton and slavery. VA was partly an industrial state and many of the slaves had been sold down the river to the big cotton plantations in the deep south. Slavery, other economic issues, and cultural differences with the north were not as important as in the cotton states. The upper south was forced to take sides. The VA session convention initially voted 2-1 against secession, but seceeded rather than allow the Union arny to pass through VA.

Vintersorg

Robert E. Lee once wrote in a letter:
"There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil."

But he did not consider slavery and slaves worth fighting a war over.
He joined the Southern Cause, because his only goal was the defense of his beloved State of virginia.

dschardt

Well the one thing you can say about the man is that he is generally respected today as he was in his day. That says enough to me about the man.

I was at Arlington a couple of summers ago and his house was falling apart, hopefully they raised enough money to renovate the thing. I cannot begin to fathom how hard it would have been to live so close to the city that housed his enemy, and represented the country he loved.

betgo

Lee's home and most of what is now the VA suburbs of DC was seized by the Union at the beginning of the war. He was away in the Confederate army, so he didn't look down from Arlington House on the capital once the war started.

The weird thing is that when Lee sided with the Confederacy, he knew the Union would probably take his plantation right away. However, it would have been hard to lead an invasion of his home state.

Lee was definitely antisecession. Don't know if he was really antislavery or that he didn't believe in the Confederate cause.