Robert E. Lee, Honor, and the Governor of Virginia
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“On Wednesday, the Commonwealth of Virginia took down and then sawed to pieces Robert E. Lee’s 21-foot bronze equestrian statue in the former Confederate capital of Richmond.
“On paper, this was illegal. In 1889, the General Assembly guaranteed that the state would “hold the said [Lee Monument] perpetually sacred to the monumental purpose to which it has been devoted.” In 1890 the association to build the monument deeded the land to the Commonwealth. This month, the Virginia Supreme Court noted that:
The 1890 Deed states that The State of Virginia . . . executes this instrument in token of her acceptance of the gift and of her guarantee that she will hold [the Lee Monument and the land it stands on] perpetually sacred to the Monumental purpose to which they have been devoted and that she will faithfully guard it and affectionately protect it.
“That should have been the end of the story, but Virginia Democrat Governor Ralph Northam had already decided to take the statue down in 2019.“
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“General Lee’s personal integrity and his record in the Mexican-American War were beyond reproach. The federal government esteemed him so highly that he was offered command of the Union Army, but he felt he had to defend his state. His family had lived in Virginia for 200 years. If fighting for his home makes him a “traitor,” the Founding Fathers were no different, except that their rebellion succeeded.
“Unlike the Union generals, General Lee forbade attacks against the “unarmed and defenseless” or the destruction of private property. The Union soldiers he fought respected him and his army. Their respect makes the faux courage of goons who boast about toppling a statue all the more pathetic.
“The current rage against the South is more hateful than anything Union soldiers felt. Civil War reunions with combatants from both armies were relatively common after the war.
“General Lee accepted defeat with grace. Reconstruction was brutal; Southerners might have rebelled again without Lee’s calls for peace. It may be no exaggeration to say that it is Lee, as much as Abraham Lincoln, ensured that America remained one country.
“General Lee was the model Southerner who fought for his home but was reconciled to defeat. He was the Hector of the American Iliad. The heroism of the Confederate Army became part of the larger American epic, which is why American soldiers also flew the Confederate battle flag in World War II and Vietnam.
“To revile Lee and white Southerners is to renounce the terms of the Confederate surrender. It is to say that white Southerners and their descendants should not be considered part of the Union. The new America will treat them as a conquered people rather than, as Lincoln believed they were, wayward sons. To use a leftist word, it “reimagines” Southern whites as outside the polity, whose feelings and interests don’t count, and whose heritage is a source of shame.”
Gregory Hood
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Dover Beach 