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Please correct the misspelling of Vera Cruz to Veracruz as the former only applies to New Spain and the latter to Mexico. I can't do that as the page is protected for vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.177.191.154 ( talk) 22:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Article- "the five extant descriptions of the episode"
Five? I know of three and only one of those has a name attached to it. What/where are the other two? - BorderRuffian —Preceding undated comment added 22:34, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
continuing- "...as well as the existence of an account book that indicates the constable received compensation from Lee on the date that this event occurred." (my emphasis)
Neither the anonymous letters nor the Norris account give a specific date of the alleged whipping - so the account book and the incident cannot be correlated by date. Furthermore, the account book says nothing about "whipping slaves." - BorderRuffian
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The correct is "Radical Democratic" Jota Dias ( talk) 16:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
User BorderRuffian has taken issue with a paragraph under the Norris case that is properly attributed to two reliable sources. While BR may favor a different interpretation, in fact the 4th paragraph makes it clear that this controversial issue has been treated differently by different biographers. It says, "Biographers of Lee have differed over the credibility of the account of the punishment as described in the letters in the Tribune and in Norris's personal account. Five different historians are then cited with their different takes.
It defeats the purpose of offering different explanations if it is appropriate to tag one paragraph three times with "dubious". Elizabeth Brown Pryor is a legitimate historian and has received positive reviews for her work. If hers was the only position offered, there MIGHT be justification for his tagging. However this is not the case and singling this out for a POV attack is unwarranted.
No reliable sources have been cited to support that Pryor was wrong (see BR's earlier comments above). He only offers his opinion on Pryor's analysis. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 19:56, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Levin C. Handy - General Robert E. Lee in May 1869.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on January 20, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-01-20. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich ( talk) 10:14, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
There are two instances in this article where a space is present between . and U in "U.S." while all 13 other instances omit the space. They are:
The caption of the early military portrait of Lee, which reads: >Lee at age 31 in 1838, as a Lieutenant of Engineers in the U. S. Army
In the second paragraph under heading "Texas": >Twiggs immediately resigned from the U. S. Army and was made a Confederate general.
These may ought to be addressed for the sake of consistency.
Uniqueeunuch ( talk) 16:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Lee was a great "Southern" hero of the civil war?
I don't doubt he was a hero to those who support(ed) the confederacy. The evidence for that is indeed substantial.
However, the term 'southerners' may be too broad here. Surely black southerners or southerners opposed to the confederacy (and there were lots of them) may not consider Lee a hero or any kind of icon. On the contrary, they may regard him as a pro-slavery traitor. It is not POV-pushing to point this out or to qualify the statement somehow. My suggestion is to insert the word 'white' into the sentence, but other words may work as well. Substitute 'Confederate' for 'Southern' - that works as well. 'Southern' and 'Confederate' are not synonymous.
Thoughts?
DMorpheus2 ( talk) 14:42, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
User Huberthof has been getting around these past couple of days with his newly created account, and seems to be on this mission to remove flags and insignia from numerous articles, mostly those of American military people. This users cites a guideline about flags in infoboxes (which btw says nothing about insignia), but ignores the fact that every guideline stipulates "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.". Famous military people are such exceptions. Other editors have taken exception to this apparent mission to remove flags and insignia, mostly from the articles of prominent Americans, as evidenced on Huberthoff's Talk page. Imo, we should return these items to the infoboxes. Some of these articles, like George Washington Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant have had these items when they were approved for GA and FA status, with no issues all of this time. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 21:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
From 1856 letter to wife
Have any reliable sources rephrased this in modern English? I am having trouble understanding the part between the commas. Is this like "I believe there are few who will acknowledge slavery is evil" or something different? ScratchMarshall ( talk) 22:28, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
No. This means "except for a few, people would acknowledge that slavery is evil." 172.56.34.2 ( talk) 01:03, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
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please change: Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American general known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.
to: Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American colonel known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.
Comment: there is north America, central American, and south American and they all have general. In this context saying a Confederate General as an American would be like saying a Canada general is an American General. This would be technically correct but misleading in this context. Pickfoll ( talk) 22:53, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
Not done Virginians are/were Americans regardless of whether they happened to be in the Confederacy or not.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk)
23:04, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
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I'm requesting that the following sentence[: "When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command"] be amended by changing the clause "despite his desire" to "despite his initial desire".
This change will more accurately reflect Lee's role as a Confederate General. I have seen people use the current wording to wrongfully state that Lee was, throughout his life, opposed to secession. TEEdits ( talk) 20:49, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
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20:52, 15 August 2017 (UTC)information in following article needs to be incorporated in this entry https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/ please let me know how i can assist, thank you
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Dnpagano ( talk) 17:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
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17:36, 16 August 2017 (UTC)I'm requesting either removal of or additional citation be provided for the sentence "But his popularity grew even in the North, especially after his death in 1870." The current source is, according to it's own description, a personal website. This subjective statement should be backed at least by a peer-reviewed academic source if not primary source material.
Description of the source material: http://thomaslegion.net/intro.html
Ricbecker ( talk) 15:00, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
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References from this article should be present on this page - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
This page glosses over one view of Robert E. Lee without putting forth the anti-Confederacy view. If this page is going to display Robert E. Lee on the revisionist history side, there should also be a place (above the revisionist history) for the truth. This page should not have one interpretation. The main quote in question that I would edit, is the "evidence" that Lee was anti-slavery. Where Lee says that it is a moral and political evil, he directly contradicts this with believing that it is a blessing for black Americans to be enslaved so that they may be "enlightened" by white culture and Christianity. This should be included before the pro-Lost Cause interpretation. 65.196.66.136 ( talk) 14:22, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
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I have a factual addition I feel would be helpful to Wiki users (especially younger ones) regarding Robert E. Lee's Wiki page under the "In popular culture" section.
Suggested addition: The song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, written by Robbie Robertson in 1969, (Joan Baez also recorded a cover of the song that became a top-five chart hit in late 1971), includes the lyric, "Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"
Thank you! Spartan head ( talk) 16:09, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
I'm requesting that the following sentence in the second paragraph of the article that reads, "During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis." be amended to read, "During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis." Slynnny7 ( talk) 15:10, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
This is regarding this revert. The source added is a biography from the African American Registry, which I am not familiar with. The problem I have is that content from the last paragraph is almost verbatim with this Wikipedia article. This content is in the Archive.org copy from April 5, 2016, which is the oldest one there. This doesn't necessarily mean that much, since they could've rearranged their site, but it's not a good sign. This exact phrasing has been in this Wikipedia article for substantially longer, going back (arbitrarily) to at least to April 2015. The only source listed at that site is a Biography.com page, which currently mentions almost nothing about his post-war life, making this an unlikely shared source. Since it's extremely plausible this was taken from Wikipedia, instead of the other way around, this is a WP:CIRCULAR risk and should not be used. Grayfell ( talk) 04:30, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
So with this revert [1], a badly written and unsourced lede section was restored, and a thoroughly sourced and rewritten lede was reverted under the cryptic edit summary "the citation issue has still not been resolved". Could the editor who reverted me please explain why? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 02:57, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
In 1865, after the war, Lee was paroled and signed an oath of allegiance, asking to have his citizenship of the United States restored. Lee's application was misplaced; as a result, he did not receive a pardon and his citizenship was not restored. [1] In 1865, Lee became president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia; in that position, he supported reconciliation between North and South. [2] Lee accepted "the extinction of slavery" provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but publicly opposed racial equality and granting African Americans the right to vote and other political rights. [3] [4] [5] Lee died in 1870. In 1975, the U.S. Congress posthumously restored Lee's citizenship effective June 13, 1865. [1] Lee opposed the construction of public memorials to Confederate rebellion on the grounds that they would prevent the healing of wounds inflicted during the war. [2] Nevertheless, after his death, Lee became an icon used by promoters of " Lost Cause" mythology, who sought to romanticize the Confederate cause and strengthen white supremacy in the South. [2] Historian Eric Foner writes that at the end of his life, "Lee had become the embodiment of the Southern cause. A generation later, he was a national hero. The 1890s and early 20th century witnessed the consolidation of white supremacy in the post-Reconstruction South and widespread acceptance in the North of Southern racial attitudes." [4] Later in the 20th century, particularly following the civil rights movement, historians reassessed Lee; his reputation fell based on his failure to support rights for freedmen after the war, and even his strategic choices as a military leader fell in scrutiny.
References
Irondome, do you intend to participate in this discussion that you started? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 15:46, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
@ Moxy: Yes, my deletion of the tag was a bit hasty. I had thought that most of the quotes were from Lee and that they did not run a length and were not from copyrighted sources, so I'm doing some rewriting, using Wikipedia's voice, while keeping the existing sources. Apologies. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 18:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Noticed lots of non academic sources from news papers has been added as of late. I will try to find real sources for this stuff. There really is no need for sources of this nature when we have lots of scholarly publications out there.- Moxy ( talk) 16:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Noticed lots of non academic sources from news papers has been added as of late. I will try to find real sources for this stuff. There really is no need for sources of this nature when we have lots of scholarly publications out there.- Moxy ( talk) 16:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
This has now been renamed "Lake Roland Park" as of 2015. See the article about Lake Roland (park) to verify this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.134.96.96 ( talk) 10:58, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
The wording at the section 'Battle of Gettysburg' seems like it uses slang, especially in the first paragraph: "The critical decisions came in May–June 1863, after Lee's smashing victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville." This says that he had a smashing victory, but other words could be used to describe this. Should we change it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.99.161.117 ( talk) 09:35, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Noticed lots of non academic sources from news papers has been added as of late. I will try to find real sources for this stuff. There really is no need for sources of this nature when we have lots of scholarly publications out there.- Moxy ( talk) 16:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
I wish to add context to extensive quotes featuring Eric Foner, but User:Snooganssnoogans chose to revert without discussion. Here is an opportunity to discuss collegially.
1) add historical context:
"He never spoke out against slavery.” requires the qualifier, "as a professional soldier subordinate to civilian rule sustaining slavery in the United States."
Snooganssnoogans asserted that the source does not support the context of Lee's U.S. Army career, but Foner does observe that Lee was a career Army officer, a professional U.S. soldier, which means he was subordinate to the civilian rule establishing and sustaining slavery in the United States. Professional officers of the U.S. military were then as now, dismissed for actively participating in political troubles of the day. This is commonly known information which can be added to the Foner quote to provide context. Some disagree with the principle so much they may assert that even the account of this practice makes no sense to them, but military subordination to civilian rule is a keystone of republican rule in successful nation-states. Military who wish to be political need to resign and then participate as civilians. As the president of Washington College, Lee explained that he was a Virginian before the Civil War, and afterwards became an American, supporting the regime that emancipated slaves.
2) add historical context:
"Lee’s former slave Wesley Norris about the brutal treatment to which he had been subjected.” requires context, "...for running away two years before his promised emancipation. He was not sold South, but gained his freedom along with the other slaves held by Lee prior to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.” -- from the same source.
The punishment was not arbitrary or capricious. What does Foner say the comparative practice for punishing runaways was in the South Carolina low country, the Louisiana bayous and for sailors at sea? Perhaps he is silent, a sin of scholarly omission which the WP narrative can partially correct by adding context to the Norris complaint. Lee did not actively seek out slave ownership, and he was not happy with its effects on owners. Good historical method requires avoiding anachronisms judging the past by the present alone. We now see the whipping post, abolished for whites in the U.S. on land by the 1850s, as cruel and unusual punishment. And we are of course correct in that judgement, as were the 19th century legislators who abolished it on land and at sea. The historian still asks the question, What was the context? We are correct to suppress slavery in our own time as an evil oppression of human nature, and legislators abolishing it in the 19th century were correct to do so. The historian still asks, What was the context? TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:21, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
(1) User:A D Monroe III, The expectation for serving U.S. Army officers was and is that they will have no public political participation in policy making. Lee made no such public statement on slavery. That is not synthesis, that is reliably sourced, logically connected narrative that belongs in the same sentence. User:Joefromrandb, WP:Synthesis requires a conclusion unrelated to the evidence, -- but there is no prohibition for a sequence of evidentiary statements reliably sourced. The WP narrative in an article is not confined to mirroring single sources.
The asserted fabrication that “many [serving officers] did not” remain silent on abolishing slavery is merely anachronistic nonsense. User:A D Monroe III cannot name three such officers during Lee’s U.S. Army career. There is no source for a claim of public statements on slavery for regular U.S. Army officers serving under the "dough faced" pro-slavery northern Democratic presidents of Lee’s career prior to 1861. In Michael Fellman’s “The Making of Robert E. Lee” (2000) p.137, he observes a change in Lee’s rule of abstaining from public pronouncements on policy. In 1863, even before Chancellorsville, Lee began to advance, “for the first time, a political understanding of the war, quite unlike his previous apolitical belief in duty.” p. 137
(2) User:A D Monroe III, the reductio ad absurdum that Norris’ hair color was equivalent to his freedom is ridiculous. Lee granted freedom as promised in spite of Norris' runaway crime. That reflects on Lee's character — it is not “irrelevant” to the relationship which included insubordination and running away, punishment and manumission. --- In my view, Lee had no right to keep the slaves five years to work off estate indebtedness; he was remiss for considering slaves as property, subordinate to the financial claims of indebtedness of his father-in-law, because the rights of personal labor supersedes those of inanimate property, and the slaves had been promised freedom on the death of their master the father-in-law. I just cannot find a source to extend my contemporary judgement retroactively to the period under discussion.
The Norris manumission by Lee in 1862 was within Union lines while the later Emancipation Proclamation would not have applied to Norris in Alexandria (Arlington) County. And Norris gained freedom after acquiring skills as a railroad maintenance worker, which one may presume he used to work on the Union Army's railroads for pay to overthrow the Confederacy. The context alternative, in the tens of thousands from Virginia, would have been selling Norris into permanent slavery as a field hand in the cotton belt Gulf states. For Norris, neither alternative was equivalent to his hair color as proposed by A D Monroe III to illustrate "irrelevance". Discussion of freedom or slavery for the runaway slave is relevant. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 10:20, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source.If the conclusions implied here are explicitly stated in the source, present them, and we're done. If not, then we've been flogging a dead horse. -- A D Monroe III( talk) 15:31, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I propose: Replace the sentence of “he never spoke out against slavery” in the lead paragraph of “Lee’s views on race and slavery” with the following passage using citations from Skelton, Fellman and Foner as linked above in the discussion on “Snooganssnoogans reverting edits":
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle. (Skelton) Lee himself considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service until two years into the Civil War, and then as a Confederate calling for universal sacrifice on the part of the public.(Fellman) Prior to the Civil War, Lee seems never to have spoken out publicly on the subject of slavery.(Foner)
sources:
TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 14:57, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Dear User:Snooganssnoogans Out of chronological manipulation of narrative sequence to promote Foner instead of relating the life of Lee as it unfolded is bad style and suggests some intent other than clarity of expression because it is so unconventional and strained.
The Foner quoted reference should not be the lead of the section in any event. Foner holding forth with his anachronistic personal preferences for the U.S. Army officer corps in the antebellum era is not germane to an unbiased accounting of Lee's professional silence on political matters. Other "white Southerners" who spoke out for abolition in the 1850s were not West Point regular officers. Lee's silence connotes only s resolve to support and defend the Constitution as written, which did at the time did include the institution of slavery,--- a crime against humanity then and now in my contemporary judgement. The sourced context of Lee's silence has been discussed above relative to an editorial correction, and all reservations brought up in discussion are met: that is, references in the proposal now specifically address the practice of the U.S. Army officer corps of the time, and Lee's personal adherence to them before the Civil War is noted in a reliable source.
The custom of the time among enterprising slave holders was in fact to rent surplus field hand and artisan slaves among nearby plantations so as to separate families except on Sunday when they would reunite by way of passes issued to the slave away from home. The source does not address the issue, and in any case, it does not state the counter-factual “not the custom of the time” which has been inexplicably inserted offhandedly by an editor without reference to the cited source. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 07:32, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
If Lee only rented out slaves v sending them away forever, we should be clear on that point. If we are referring to two or more sources with varying accounts we can say, 'Source A says this', however, source B says that', and let the readers decide matters of morality for themselves. Also, is there any source claiming Lee split up slave families permanently in no uncertain terms? Seems if Lee's alleged practice was common knowledge it wouldn't have been difficult for anyone to demonstrate. In any event, if Pryor is using the idea of renting out slaves to hold up her claim that Lee "separated families" then I would recommend looking to other sources to see if Pryor is not 'piling on' Lee's practice with her own conjecture. We should also be careful not to cherry pick and promote one unusual account by ignoring the other average accounts. At any rate, we don't need a direct quote from Lee to make the given statements, so long as they are clearly backed up by a RS. I'm not seeing anything written by TVH that amounts to OR, or any source (i.e.Skelton, Fellman, Fortin, Foner) that is less than reliable. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 18:42, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
It's a point often made about Lee as aloof from political debates. 1) "He epitomized the nonpolitical tradition in the U.S. military, and his lifelong attempt to remain aloof from the political turmoil about him would be emulated by twentieth-century soldiers..." John Taylor, Duty Faithfully Performed: Robert E. Lee and His Critics (1999) Page 223. 2) " Lee believed in God's time, not man's, and God's disposition, not human politics. So when it came to grappling with the issue of slavery, he could not comprehend why men could not leave well enough alone....on major public conflicts, Lee had no active position." . [Fellman, The Making of Robert E. Lee - Page 76]. 3) " From early manhood Lee held a low opinion of politicians, and believed military men should stay out of politics." William Davis, Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee (2015). Rjensen ( talk) 19:25, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
User:Snooganssnoogans insists on repeatedly misrepresenting sources by half-truth. It is truly difficult to keep up. Lets take one of the latest. The Fellman source says two things, not one. One point is that Lee was “apolitical”, publicly silent on political matters “previously”, prior to the Civil War. That means ipso facto that there is nothing on the public record to be related about race or slavery, as confirmed by Foner — except for some reference to private letters, or reasonable reference to Lee’s Congressional testimony after the Civil War (more on that later).
But it is relevant and of interest to the general reader that Lee was silent on political matters as a matter of republican principle of duty to the constituted civilian authority, not as a character flaw “unlike some white southerners” speaking out for abolition in the 1850s. I understand what Foner would have had, given his personal professorial preference a hundred and fifty years later, regardless of the ideal of duty to abide by the required military oath to uphold a Constitution then including slavery. But that is all about Foner, not about Lee.
WP:SYNTH does not say that two or three related ideas cannot be placed in adjacent sourced sentences. WP is to have an encyclopedic style, and not simply mirror direct quotes in disjointed sequence. Use of one source does not require excluding related informational material from another source in the same paragraph.
SYNTHESIS requires a conclusion apart from the sources which is not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Foner explicitly says Lee was silent on the subject of slavery as a serving U.S. Army officer before the Civil War. Fellman says Lee’s principled duty as he saw it was to be apolitical prior to the Civil War (as does Taylor and Davis per User:Rjensen). Kelton says U.S. Army officers from West Point had an ethic of duty to be apolitical, “aloof from any party and sectional strife” — which is not UNLIKE Lee’s apolitical silence while a serving U.S. Army officer, rather the citation explains it.
Unlike the User:A D Monroe III assertion above, there is no WP:SYTNTH in the proposed passage because there is no conclusion drawn in the proposed language not included in the sources and consistent with one another. All elements of the three sentences proposed are sourced and all are related to give context to Lee’s silence on the question of slavery and abolition “unlike some white southerners” — as a matter or principle, not implied character flaw that Foner advances in a personalized speculation for a newspaper interview. There is no editorial conclusion drawn. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:11, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
reach or imply a conclusion(my emphasis). I've agreed that it's possible to include all the info above if done properly, so that nothing is implied that wasn't in the source explicitly. I haven't seen a proposal that fits that. Rather than repeatedly re-interpreting SYNTH, can we just step back and get a clear statement of the actual change proposed, and work on that? Y'know, make some progress towards consensus? -- A D Monroe III( talk) 15:15, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
User:A D Monroe III: Neither the source of the Army corps apolitical ethos, nor the source of Lee being apolitical implies a conclusion of Lee speaking out on slavery, — rather they logically support and explain the third source attesting to his public silence on the subject of slavery. There is no WP:SYTH implied conclusion in the proposal NOT explicitly found in the sources among the three sources.
Foner's implied conclusion — observing “some white Southerners” spoke out for abolition as opposed to Lee’s silence unexplained by Foner — is that there is a shortcoming or flaw in Lee’s character for not conforming to contemporary abolitionist mores — while Lee lived under a Constitutional regime permitting slavery and actively served as a regular Army officer sworn to uphold that Constitution. We should explain Lee's silence at the time in terms of the time if reliable sources allow it.
Let’s incorporate Rjensen, Snooganssnoogans and my earlier sources as follows to replace the lead sentence attributed to Foner in a newspaper article alone:
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle and Lee adhered to the principle. (Skelton, 1992, p. 285)(Davis, 2015, p. 46) He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service (Fellman, 2000, p. 137)(Taylor, 1999, p. 223), and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. (Foner in Fortin NYT Aug 18, 2017)(Fellman, 2000, p. 76, 137)
And also, place the three anachronistic paragraphs of the section "Lee's views on race and slavery" in chronological order, rather than trying to POV push in the WP article by promoting an extended quote from of an historian's newspaper interview not subject to peer review. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 10:58, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
Let's try to stick to the subject of the proposal on explaining Lee's silence on slavery prior to the Civil War, without going off into the subject of his Congressional testimony yet. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 21:51, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
The proposal before us as WP editors has two supporting reliable sources for each element of the narrative text proposed documenting Lee’s silence on slavery -- in the section titled "Lee's views on race and slavery", and explaining it, not as an implied character flaw compared to “some Southerners” supporting abolition, but as (1) a principle widely held in the U.S. Army's West Pointer office corps, (2) a belief adhered to by Lee during the time, and (3) observed by him in his behavior as a serving regular officer.
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle and Lee adhered to the principle. (Skelton, 1992, p. 285)(Davis, 2015, p. 46) He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service (Fellman, 2000, p. 137)(Taylor, 1999, p. 223)(Pryor, 2008, p.284), and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. (Foner in Fortin NYT Aug 18, 2017)(Fellman, 2000, p. 76, 137).
And of course, the section requires a chronological ordering to reflect the various phases of Lee's life, since it is common knowledge that people change over the course of their life circumstances, without necessarily holding to the same views from birth or expressing those views in the same way under all circumstances. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 21:51, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
So now with the addition of the Pryor citation, we have seven reliable sources to meet the User:Snooganssnoogans objection, "If Lee did not comment on slavery because of his principled belief that officers should be apolitical it needs to be sourced." It seems that a week to review the passage explaining Lee's public silence on race and slavery should be sufficient, considering her continuing participation in the article mainspace and at Talk. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:40, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
The proposal on Lee’s silence incorporating contributions from User:Snooganssnoogans, User:A D Monroe III. User:Rjensen, User:Gwillhickers, and TVH is as follows, with sources, direct quotes and verifiable links where possible.
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle and Lee adhered to the principle. [1] [2]He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service. [3] [4] [5], and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. [6] [7]
TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 09:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
At the section "Lee's views on race and slavery", we can remove the extended block quote deprecated for WP style, and write encyclopedically on the subject from his December 27, 1856 letter from Texas, using a more extensive passage from the same letter than is now available in the block quote from Emory M. Thomas to better reflect Lee's views:
Lee acceded to the inevitability of slavery under the U.S. Constitution during his own time, but he believed it to be an institution of “moral and political evil” detrimental to both slave and master. He saw slavery as "a painful discipline", but Lee hoped for better things for the "colored race", and that with prayerful support, the "sure influence of Christianity" would bring about the final abolition of human slavery as an act of God’s doctrine on earth. In any case, Lee did not believe that an end of slavery should come at the hands of unlawful violent action by Abolitionists whether in civil war or servile insurrection, nor did he believe the institution of slavery should be preserved by secession of Southern states and the destruction of the Union.
Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history by A. L. Long, p. 82-83, from a letter of Lee's from Texas to his son dated December 27, 1856.
This allows for the replacement of the entire paragraph including the characterization of Lee's "primary" concern in a newspaper interview that is not peer reviewed. Unlike the off-handed remark to a reporter, we can see on inspection of the letter, that Lee's primary concern to his son on the subject of slavery was that they pray for God's doctrine to be effected on earth in a "miracle" ending slavery. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 17:57, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Let’s look at one of User:Snooganssnoogans misrepresentations of the sources. Rather than look at a book review link which does not support her assertion and POV pushing, let’s look at the book reviewed and the author cited. In Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his private letters, Elizabeth Brown Pryor notes that Lee’s private views were "entirely unremarkable”.
On page 151, she says, "No visionary, Lee nearly always tried to conform to accepted opinions. His assessment [of racial matters and slavery] was in keeping with the prevailing views of other moderate slaveholders, and a good many prominent Northerners.”
Let’s leave wp:cherry picking and POV pushing aside, hold off on the edit warring, and come to Talk with sourced contributions for discussion. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 13:11, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
User: Snooganssnoogans and User: Gwillhickers: Here are SEVEN salient points from Lee’s Texas letter, written in an encyclopedic style from the text of A. L. Long’s “Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history”. It comprehends Snooganssnoogans' THREE favorites in a spirit of collegial wp:good faith:
(1) Lee acceded to the inevitability of slavery under the U.S. Constitution during his own time, but (2) he believed it to be an institution of “moral and political evil” detrimental to both slave and master.
(3) While Lee’s “feelings [were] strongly enlisted in behalf” of the “colored race”, he expressed a greater concern for the damage being done whites under slavery. (4) He saw slavery as "a painful discipline” and associated it with improving the “African race” by Christianization during its time of captivity.
(5) But Lee hoped for better things for the "colored race", and that with prayerful support, the "sure influence of Christianity" would bring about the final abolition of human slavery as an act of God’s doctrine on earth in a hoped for “miracle” at a time of God’s own choosing.
In any case, (6) Lee did not believe that an end of slavery should come at the hands of unlawful violent action by Abolitionists whether in civil war or servile insurrection, (7) nor did he believe the institution of slavery should be preserved by secession of Southern states and the destruction of the Union.
Interestingly, while my write up is more comprehensive, as seven among Lee’s points are greater than three, --- Snooganssnoogans persists in the complete fabrication that it is my draft which somehow “deliberately omits” material. The POV pushing by Snooganssnoogans misrepresentation literally would have editors believe that three amounts to a number greater than seven. Nonsense. At some level editors must have a command of common sense and good will, contributing to the article together in a collegial manner. Thus this version of the proposed encyclopedic entry is meant to promotes the three elements of Lee's Texas letter that Snooganssnoogans is particularly interested in. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 18:42, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
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WP:primary sources can be used at Wikipedia unlike WP:Original Research.
1) At wp:primary sources, it explains, "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” — So in the following proposal, care will be taken to make straightforward, descriptive statements accessible to anyone with a seventh grade education.
2) WP:PRIMARY SOURCES further explains, "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.” So the proposal carefully avoids any interpretation of the primary source material. —For instance, Lee instructs his son that their prayers might bring about the eventual end of slavery for the “colored race”, but NO conclusion will be drawn that generally in patriarchal Antebellum Virginia society, fathers presumed to instruct family members in their prayer life.
3) Unlike WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH which draws conclusions not found in scholarly peer reviewed or even newspaper accounts cherry picking scholarly snippets, we see at the wp:primary sources POLICY: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.” — So no exceptional claim will be made on any account, only seven descriptive sentiments directly found in the primary sources, Lee’s Texas letter to his son in 1856 and Lee's testimony to Congress in 1868.
Lee believed slavery to be an institution of “moral and political evil” detrimental to both slave and master, but he acceded to the inevitability of slavery under the U.S. Constitution during his own time. While Lee’s “feelings [were] strongly enlisted in behalf” of the “colored race”, he expressed a greater concern for the damage being done whites under slavery. Additionally he saw slavery as "a painful discipline” for those enslaved, associating it with improving the “colored race” compared to African cultures by Christianization during its time of captivity. [1] But Lee hoped for better things for African Americans, and that with prayerful support, the "sure influence of Christianity" would bring about the final abolition of human slavery as an act of God’s doctrine on earth in a hoped for “miracle” at a time of God’s own choosing. Regardless of slavery’s ultimate extinction as God’s "doctrine", Lee did not believe that an end of slavery should come at the hands of unlawful violent action by Abolitionists whether in civil war or servile insurrection, [2] nor did he believe the institution of slavery should be preserved by secession of Southern states and the destruction of the Union. [3]
This proposed language encompassing seven of the points in Lee’s letter relating to his views on race and slavery makes the wp:cherry picked sourcing from a newspaper article pushing a POV redundant, so it and the excerpted block quote noting only three of the relevant points made in Lee’s letter is to be replaced with a more complete account of the letter's contents with a carefully worded edit in encyclopedic style for general readership. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 17:52, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Without any challenge or exception made for a week here at Talk, the edit is made in article mainspace. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 13:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Talk page contributors: @ Smmurphy, Dimadick, Snooganssnoogans, TheVirginiaHistorian, Moxy, Daniel Case, Gedcke, IAC-62, Neutrality, Dr.K, Anythingyouwant, Elonka, Princewilliam3, Darthkenobi0, Shadowfax0, Alexandre8, Bilsonius, Johnlumea, Kelvan.f, GenkiNeko, Deisenbe, A D Monroe III, Gwillhickers, Rjensen, and Infrogmation: You are receiving this notice for an RfC at Talk:Robert E. Lee of a proposed restatement of a wp:primary source which is contains more points than the existing block quote from the same letter. The primary source is a 1856 letter of Lee’s to his son from Texas as found at Long, A. L., Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history (1886), p. 82-83. Opponents have seen wp:original research in the proposal as drawing conclusions not found in the primary source. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 10:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Talk page contributors: @ Smmurphy, Dimadick, Snooganssnoogans, TheVirginiaHistorian, Moxy, Daniel Case, Gedcke, IAC-62, Neutrality, Dr.K, Anythingyouwant, Elonka, Princewilliam3, Darthkenobi0, Shadowfax0, Alexandre8, Bilsonius, Johnlumea, Kelvan.f, GenkiNeko, Deisenbe, A D Monroe III, Gwillhickers, Rjensen, and Infrogmation: You are receiving this notice for an RfC at Talk:Robert E. Lee of a proposed restatement of a wp:primary source which is contains more points than the existing block quote from the same letter. The primary source is a 1856 letter of Lee’s to his son from Texas as found at Long, A. L., Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history (1886), p. 82-83. Opponents have seen wp:original research in the proposal as drawing conclusions not found in the primary source. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 09:31, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
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On the subject of Lee, race and slavery, let’s consider what we can take from a revisionist historian first as he speaks in a scholarly work reviewed in the Journal of American History as "well written, persuasive and ... authoritative". I paraphrase:
Both Robert and his wife Mary Lee were disgusted with slavery, but they also defended it against Abolitionists until a distant day of African repatriation might bring freedom to the enslaved. Countering southerners who argued for slavery as a positive good, Lee in his well known analysis of slavery from an 1856 letter to Mary called it a moral and political evil. [1] Even before what Michael Fellman called a “sorry involvement in actual slave management”, Lee judged the experience of white mastery to be a greater moral evil to the white man than blacks suffering under the “painful discipline” of slavery which introduced Christianity, literacy and a work ethic to the heathen African. [2] Lee protested he had sympathetic feelings for blacks, though they were subordinate to his own racial identity, and he believed blacks should be freed eventually at some unspecified future date. But in any case emancipation would sooner come from a Christian impulse within masters before “storms and tempests of fiery controversy” such as was occurring in “Bleeding Kansas” as Lee wrote his letter. [3]
TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 14:19, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Next, let's look at the insight a mainstream historian might give us on the nature of Lee's religious belief as it pertained to race and slavery. I paraphrase.
Lee did not see slavery as a problem susceptible to a political solution, he saw it as a moral and religious issue, a part of God’s plan just as Lee thought of all events on earth as a demonstration of God’s will. This spiritual submission was a part of Lee’s strong religious belief, even though as Michael Korda notes, it is difficult for moderns to understand how a 19th century figure could view something as immoral and unjust such as slavery to be a part of God’s will on earth. [1]
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
Please correct the misspelling of Vera Cruz to Veracruz as the former only applies to New Spain and the latter to Mexico. I can't do that as the page is protected for vandalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.177.191.154 ( talk) 22:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Article- "the five extant descriptions of the episode"
Five? I know of three and only one of those has a name attached to it. What/where are the other two? - BorderRuffian —Preceding undated comment added 22:34, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
continuing- "...as well as the existence of an account book that indicates the constable received compensation from Lee on the date that this event occurred." (my emphasis)
Neither the anonymous letters nor the Norris account give a specific date of the alleged whipping - so the account book and the incident cannot be correlated by date. Furthermore, the account book says nothing about "whipping slaves." - BorderRuffian
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The correct is "Radical Democratic" Jota Dias ( talk) 16:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
User BorderRuffian has taken issue with a paragraph under the Norris case that is properly attributed to two reliable sources. While BR may favor a different interpretation, in fact the 4th paragraph makes it clear that this controversial issue has been treated differently by different biographers. It says, "Biographers of Lee have differed over the credibility of the account of the punishment as described in the letters in the Tribune and in Norris's personal account. Five different historians are then cited with their different takes.
It defeats the purpose of offering different explanations if it is appropriate to tag one paragraph three times with "dubious". Elizabeth Brown Pryor is a legitimate historian and has received positive reviews for her work. If hers was the only position offered, there MIGHT be justification for his tagging. However this is not the case and singling this out for a POV attack is unwarranted.
No reliable sources have been cited to support that Pryor was wrong (see BR's earlier comments above). He only offers his opinion on Pryor's analysis. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 19:56, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Levin C. Handy - General Robert E. Lee in May 1869.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on January 20, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-01-20. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich ( talk) 10:14, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
There are two instances in this article where a space is present between . and U in "U.S." while all 13 other instances omit the space. They are:
The caption of the early military portrait of Lee, which reads: >Lee at age 31 in 1838, as a Lieutenant of Engineers in the U. S. Army
In the second paragraph under heading "Texas": >Twiggs immediately resigned from the U. S. Army and was made a Confederate general.
These may ought to be addressed for the sake of consistency.
Uniqueeunuch ( talk) 16:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Lee was a great "Southern" hero of the civil war?
I don't doubt he was a hero to those who support(ed) the confederacy. The evidence for that is indeed substantial.
However, the term 'southerners' may be too broad here. Surely black southerners or southerners opposed to the confederacy (and there were lots of them) may not consider Lee a hero or any kind of icon. On the contrary, they may regard him as a pro-slavery traitor. It is not POV-pushing to point this out or to qualify the statement somehow. My suggestion is to insert the word 'white' into the sentence, but other words may work as well. Substitute 'Confederate' for 'Southern' - that works as well. 'Southern' and 'Confederate' are not synonymous.
Thoughts?
DMorpheus2 ( talk) 14:42, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
User Huberthof has been getting around these past couple of days with his newly created account, and seems to be on this mission to remove flags and insignia from numerous articles, mostly those of American military people. This users cites a guideline about flags in infoboxes (which btw says nothing about insignia), but ignores the fact that every guideline stipulates "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.". Famous military people are such exceptions. Other editors have taken exception to this apparent mission to remove flags and insignia, mostly from the articles of prominent Americans, as evidenced on Huberthoff's Talk page. Imo, we should return these items to the infoboxes. Some of these articles, like George Washington Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant have had these items when they were approved for GA and FA status, with no issues all of this time. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 21:37, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
From 1856 letter to wife
Have any reliable sources rephrased this in modern English? I am having trouble understanding the part between the commas. Is this like "I believe there are few who will acknowledge slavery is evil" or something different? ScratchMarshall ( talk) 22:28, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
No. This means "except for a few, people would acknowledge that slavery is evil." 172.56.34.2 ( talk) 01:03, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
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please change: Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American general known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.
to: Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was an American colonel known for commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865.
Comment: there is north America, central American, and south American and they all have general. In this context saying a Confederate General as an American would be like saying a Canada general is an American General. This would be technically correct but misleading in this context. Pickfoll ( talk) 22:53, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
Not done Virginians are/were Americans regardless of whether they happened to be in the Confederacy or not.
—
Berean Hunter
(talk)
23:04, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
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I'm requesting that the following sentence[: "When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in April 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command"] be amended by changing the clause "despite his desire" to "despite his initial desire".
This change will more accurately reflect Lee's role as a Confederate General. I have seen people use the current wording to wrongfully state that Lee was, throughout his life, opposed to secession. TEEdits ( talk) 20:49, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
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20:52, 15 August 2017 (UTC)information in following article needs to be incorporated in this entry https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/ please let me know how i can assist, thank you
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Dnpagano ( talk) 17:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
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17:36, 16 August 2017 (UTC)I'm requesting either removal of or additional citation be provided for the sentence "But his popularity grew even in the North, especially after his death in 1870." The current source is, according to it's own description, a personal website. This subjective statement should be backed at least by a peer-reviewed academic source if not primary source material.
Description of the source material: http://thomaslegion.net/intro.html
Ricbecker ( talk) 15:00, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
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References from this article should be present on this page - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
This page glosses over one view of Robert E. Lee without putting forth the anti-Confederacy view. If this page is going to display Robert E. Lee on the revisionist history side, there should also be a place (above the revisionist history) for the truth. This page should not have one interpretation. The main quote in question that I would edit, is the "evidence" that Lee was anti-slavery. Where Lee says that it is a moral and political evil, he directly contradicts this with believing that it is a blessing for black Americans to be enslaved so that they may be "enlightened" by white culture and Christianity. This should be included before the pro-Lost Cause interpretation. 65.196.66.136 ( talk) 14:22, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
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I have a factual addition I feel would be helpful to Wiki users (especially younger ones) regarding Robert E. Lee's Wiki page under the "In popular culture" section.
Suggested addition: The song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, written by Robbie Robertson in 1969, (Joan Baez also recorded a cover of the song that became a top-five chart hit in late 1971), includes the lyric, "Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"
Thank you! Spartan head ( talk) 16:09, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
I'm requesting that the following sentence in the second paragraph of the article that reads, "During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to President Jefferson Davis." be amended to read, "During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis." Slynnny7 ( talk) 15:10, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
This is regarding this revert. The source added is a biography from the African American Registry, which I am not familiar with. The problem I have is that content from the last paragraph is almost verbatim with this Wikipedia article. This content is in the Archive.org copy from April 5, 2016, which is the oldest one there. This doesn't necessarily mean that much, since they could've rearranged their site, but it's not a good sign. This exact phrasing has been in this Wikipedia article for substantially longer, going back (arbitrarily) to at least to April 2015. The only source listed at that site is a Biography.com page, which currently mentions almost nothing about his post-war life, making this an unlikely shared source. Since it's extremely plausible this was taken from Wikipedia, instead of the other way around, this is a WP:CIRCULAR risk and should not be used. Grayfell ( talk) 04:30, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
So with this revert [1], a badly written and unsourced lede section was restored, and a thoroughly sourced and rewritten lede was reverted under the cryptic edit summary "the citation issue has still not been resolved". Could the editor who reverted me please explain why? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 02:57, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
In 1865, after the war, Lee was paroled and signed an oath of allegiance, asking to have his citizenship of the United States restored. Lee's application was misplaced; as a result, he did not receive a pardon and his citizenship was not restored. [1] In 1865, Lee became president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia; in that position, he supported reconciliation between North and South. [2] Lee accepted "the extinction of slavery" provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but publicly opposed racial equality and granting African Americans the right to vote and other political rights. [3] [4] [5] Lee died in 1870. In 1975, the U.S. Congress posthumously restored Lee's citizenship effective June 13, 1865. [1] Lee opposed the construction of public memorials to Confederate rebellion on the grounds that they would prevent the healing of wounds inflicted during the war. [2] Nevertheless, after his death, Lee became an icon used by promoters of " Lost Cause" mythology, who sought to romanticize the Confederate cause and strengthen white supremacy in the South. [2] Historian Eric Foner writes that at the end of his life, "Lee had become the embodiment of the Southern cause. A generation later, he was a national hero. The 1890s and early 20th century witnessed the consolidation of white supremacy in the post-Reconstruction South and widespread acceptance in the North of Southern racial attitudes." [4] Later in the 20th century, particularly following the civil rights movement, historians reassessed Lee; his reputation fell based on his failure to support rights for freedmen after the war, and even his strategic choices as a military leader fell in scrutiny.
References
Irondome, do you intend to participate in this discussion that you started? Snooganssnoogans ( talk) 15:46, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
@ Moxy: Yes, my deletion of the tag was a bit hasty. I had thought that most of the quotes were from Lee and that they did not run a length and were not from copyrighted sources, so I'm doing some rewriting, using Wikipedia's voice, while keeping the existing sources. Apologies. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 18:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
Noticed lots of non academic sources from news papers has been added as of late. I will try to find real sources for this stuff. There really is no need for sources of this nature when we have lots of scholarly publications out there.- Moxy ( talk) 16:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Noticed lots of non academic sources from news papers has been added as of late. I will try to find real sources for this stuff. There really is no need for sources of this nature when we have lots of scholarly publications out there.- Moxy ( talk) 16:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
This has now been renamed "Lake Roland Park" as of 2015. See the article about Lake Roland (park) to verify this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.134.96.96 ( talk) 10:58, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
The wording at the section 'Battle of Gettysburg' seems like it uses slang, especially in the first paragraph: "The critical decisions came in May–June 1863, after Lee's smashing victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville." This says that he had a smashing victory, but other words could be used to describe this. Should we change it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.99.161.117 ( talk) 09:35, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Noticed lots of non academic sources from news papers has been added as of late. I will try to find real sources for this stuff. There really is no need for sources of this nature when we have lots of scholarly publications out there.- Moxy ( talk) 16:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
I wish to add context to extensive quotes featuring Eric Foner, but User:Snooganssnoogans chose to revert without discussion. Here is an opportunity to discuss collegially.
1) add historical context:
"He never spoke out against slavery.” requires the qualifier, "as a professional soldier subordinate to civilian rule sustaining slavery in the United States."
Snooganssnoogans asserted that the source does not support the context of Lee's U.S. Army career, but Foner does observe that Lee was a career Army officer, a professional U.S. soldier, which means he was subordinate to the civilian rule establishing and sustaining slavery in the United States. Professional officers of the U.S. military were then as now, dismissed for actively participating in political troubles of the day. This is commonly known information which can be added to the Foner quote to provide context. Some disagree with the principle so much they may assert that even the account of this practice makes no sense to them, but military subordination to civilian rule is a keystone of republican rule in successful nation-states. Military who wish to be political need to resign and then participate as civilians. As the president of Washington College, Lee explained that he was a Virginian before the Civil War, and afterwards became an American, supporting the regime that emancipated slaves.
2) add historical context:
"Lee’s former slave Wesley Norris about the brutal treatment to which he had been subjected.” requires context, "...for running away two years before his promised emancipation. He was not sold South, but gained his freedom along with the other slaves held by Lee prior to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.” -- from the same source.
The punishment was not arbitrary or capricious. What does Foner say the comparative practice for punishing runaways was in the South Carolina low country, the Louisiana bayous and for sailors at sea? Perhaps he is silent, a sin of scholarly omission which the WP narrative can partially correct by adding context to the Norris complaint. Lee did not actively seek out slave ownership, and he was not happy with its effects on owners. Good historical method requires avoiding anachronisms judging the past by the present alone. We now see the whipping post, abolished for whites in the U.S. on land by the 1850s, as cruel and unusual punishment. And we are of course correct in that judgement, as were the 19th century legislators who abolished it on land and at sea. The historian still asks the question, What was the context? We are correct to suppress slavery in our own time as an evil oppression of human nature, and legislators abolishing it in the 19th century were correct to do so. The historian still asks, What was the context? TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:21, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
(1) User:A D Monroe III, The expectation for serving U.S. Army officers was and is that they will have no public political participation in policy making. Lee made no such public statement on slavery. That is not synthesis, that is reliably sourced, logically connected narrative that belongs in the same sentence. User:Joefromrandb, WP:Synthesis requires a conclusion unrelated to the evidence, -- but there is no prohibition for a sequence of evidentiary statements reliably sourced. The WP narrative in an article is not confined to mirroring single sources.
The asserted fabrication that “many [serving officers] did not” remain silent on abolishing slavery is merely anachronistic nonsense. User:A D Monroe III cannot name three such officers during Lee’s U.S. Army career. There is no source for a claim of public statements on slavery for regular U.S. Army officers serving under the "dough faced" pro-slavery northern Democratic presidents of Lee’s career prior to 1861. In Michael Fellman’s “The Making of Robert E. Lee” (2000) p.137, he observes a change in Lee’s rule of abstaining from public pronouncements on policy. In 1863, even before Chancellorsville, Lee began to advance, “for the first time, a political understanding of the war, quite unlike his previous apolitical belief in duty.” p. 137
(2) User:A D Monroe III, the reductio ad absurdum that Norris’ hair color was equivalent to his freedom is ridiculous. Lee granted freedom as promised in spite of Norris' runaway crime. That reflects on Lee's character — it is not “irrelevant” to the relationship which included insubordination and running away, punishment and manumission. --- In my view, Lee had no right to keep the slaves five years to work off estate indebtedness; he was remiss for considering slaves as property, subordinate to the financial claims of indebtedness of his father-in-law, because the rights of personal labor supersedes those of inanimate property, and the slaves had been promised freedom on the death of their master the father-in-law. I just cannot find a source to extend my contemporary judgement retroactively to the period under discussion.
The Norris manumission by Lee in 1862 was within Union lines while the later Emancipation Proclamation would not have applied to Norris in Alexandria (Arlington) County. And Norris gained freedom after acquiring skills as a railroad maintenance worker, which one may presume he used to work on the Union Army's railroads for pay to overthrow the Confederacy. The context alternative, in the tens of thousands from Virginia, would have been selling Norris into permanent slavery as a field hand in the cotton belt Gulf states. For Norris, neither alternative was equivalent to his hair color as proposed by A D Monroe III to illustrate "irrelevance". Discussion of freedom or slavery for the runaway slave is relevant. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 10:20, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source.If the conclusions implied here are explicitly stated in the source, present them, and we're done. If not, then we've been flogging a dead horse. -- A D Monroe III( talk) 15:31, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I propose: Replace the sentence of “he never spoke out against slavery” in the lead paragraph of “Lee’s views on race and slavery” with the following passage using citations from Skelton, Fellman and Foner as linked above in the discussion on “Snooganssnoogans reverting edits":
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle. (Skelton) Lee himself considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service until two years into the Civil War, and then as a Confederate calling for universal sacrifice on the part of the public.(Fellman) Prior to the Civil War, Lee seems never to have spoken out publicly on the subject of slavery.(Foner)
sources:
TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 14:57, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Dear User:Snooganssnoogans Out of chronological manipulation of narrative sequence to promote Foner instead of relating the life of Lee as it unfolded is bad style and suggests some intent other than clarity of expression because it is so unconventional and strained.
The Foner quoted reference should not be the lead of the section in any event. Foner holding forth with his anachronistic personal preferences for the U.S. Army officer corps in the antebellum era is not germane to an unbiased accounting of Lee's professional silence on political matters. Other "white Southerners" who spoke out for abolition in the 1850s were not West Point regular officers. Lee's silence connotes only s resolve to support and defend the Constitution as written, which did at the time did include the institution of slavery,--- a crime against humanity then and now in my contemporary judgement. The sourced context of Lee's silence has been discussed above relative to an editorial correction, and all reservations brought up in discussion are met: that is, references in the proposal now specifically address the practice of the U.S. Army officer corps of the time, and Lee's personal adherence to them before the Civil War is noted in a reliable source.
The custom of the time among enterprising slave holders was in fact to rent surplus field hand and artisan slaves among nearby plantations so as to separate families except on Sunday when they would reunite by way of passes issued to the slave away from home. The source does not address the issue, and in any case, it does not state the counter-factual “not the custom of the time” which has been inexplicably inserted offhandedly by an editor without reference to the cited source. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 07:32, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
If Lee only rented out slaves v sending them away forever, we should be clear on that point. If we are referring to two or more sources with varying accounts we can say, 'Source A says this', however, source B says that', and let the readers decide matters of morality for themselves. Also, is there any source claiming Lee split up slave families permanently in no uncertain terms? Seems if Lee's alleged practice was common knowledge it wouldn't have been difficult for anyone to demonstrate. In any event, if Pryor is using the idea of renting out slaves to hold up her claim that Lee "separated families" then I would recommend looking to other sources to see if Pryor is not 'piling on' Lee's practice with her own conjecture. We should also be careful not to cherry pick and promote one unusual account by ignoring the other average accounts. At any rate, we don't need a direct quote from Lee to make the given statements, so long as they are clearly backed up by a RS. I'm not seeing anything written by TVH that amounts to OR, or any source (i.e.Skelton, Fellman, Fortin, Foner) that is less than reliable. -- Gwillhickers ( talk) 18:42, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
It's a point often made about Lee as aloof from political debates. 1) "He epitomized the nonpolitical tradition in the U.S. military, and his lifelong attempt to remain aloof from the political turmoil about him would be emulated by twentieth-century soldiers..." John Taylor, Duty Faithfully Performed: Robert E. Lee and His Critics (1999) Page 223. 2) " Lee believed in God's time, not man's, and God's disposition, not human politics. So when it came to grappling with the issue of slavery, he could not comprehend why men could not leave well enough alone....on major public conflicts, Lee had no active position." . [Fellman, The Making of Robert E. Lee - Page 76]. 3) " From early manhood Lee held a low opinion of politicians, and believed military men should stay out of politics." William Davis, Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee (2015). Rjensen ( talk) 19:25, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
User:Snooganssnoogans insists on repeatedly misrepresenting sources by half-truth. It is truly difficult to keep up. Lets take one of the latest. The Fellman source says two things, not one. One point is that Lee was “apolitical”, publicly silent on political matters “previously”, prior to the Civil War. That means ipso facto that there is nothing on the public record to be related about race or slavery, as confirmed by Foner — except for some reference to private letters, or reasonable reference to Lee’s Congressional testimony after the Civil War (more on that later).
But it is relevant and of interest to the general reader that Lee was silent on political matters as a matter of republican principle of duty to the constituted civilian authority, not as a character flaw “unlike some white southerners” speaking out for abolition in the 1850s. I understand what Foner would have had, given his personal professorial preference a hundred and fifty years later, regardless of the ideal of duty to abide by the required military oath to uphold a Constitution then including slavery. But that is all about Foner, not about Lee.
WP:SYNTH does not say that two or three related ideas cannot be placed in adjacent sourced sentences. WP is to have an encyclopedic style, and not simply mirror direct quotes in disjointed sequence. Use of one source does not require excluding related informational material from another source in the same paragraph.
SYNTHESIS requires a conclusion apart from the sources which is not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Foner explicitly says Lee was silent on the subject of slavery as a serving U.S. Army officer before the Civil War. Fellman says Lee’s principled duty as he saw it was to be apolitical prior to the Civil War (as does Taylor and Davis per User:Rjensen). Kelton says U.S. Army officers from West Point had an ethic of duty to be apolitical, “aloof from any party and sectional strife” — which is not UNLIKE Lee’s apolitical silence while a serving U.S. Army officer, rather the citation explains it.
Unlike the User:A D Monroe III assertion above, there is no WP:SYTNTH in the proposed passage because there is no conclusion drawn in the proposed language not included in the sources and consistent with one another. All elements of the three sentences proposed are sourced and all are related to give context to Lee’s silence on the question of slavery and abolition “unlike some white southerners” — as a matter or principle, not implied character flaw that Foner advances in a personalized speculation for a newspaper interview. There is no editorial conclusion drawn. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:11, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
reach or imply a conclusion(my emphasis). I've agreed that it's possible to include all the info above if done properly, so that nothing is implied that wasn't in the source explicitly. I haven't seen a proposal that fits that. Rather than repeatedly re-interpreting SYNTH, can we just step back and get a clear statement of the actual change proposed, and work on that? Y'know, make some progress towards consensus? -- A D Monroe III( talk) 15:15, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
User:A D Monroe III: Neither the source of the Army corps apolitical ethos, nor the source of Lee being apolitical implies a conclusion of Lee speaking out on slavery, — rather they logically support and explain the third source attesting to his public silence on the subject of slavery. There is no WP:SYTH implied conclusion in the proposal NOT explicitly found in the sources among the three sources.
Foner's implied conclusion — observing “some white Southerners” spoke out for abolition as opposed to Lee’s silence unexplained by Foner — is that there is a shortcoming or flaw in Lee’s character for not conforming to contemporary abolitionist mores — while Lee lived under a Constitutional regime permitting slavery and actively served as a regular Army officer sworn to uphold that Constitution. We should explain Lee's silence at the time in terms of the time if reliable sources allow it.
Let’s incorporate Rjensen, Snooganssnoogans and my earlier sources as follows to replace the lead sentence attributed to Foner in a newspaper article alone:
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle and Lee adhered to the principle. (Skelton, 1992, p. 285)(Davis, 2015, p. 46) He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service (Fellman, 2000, p. 137)(Taylor, 1999, p. 223), and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. (Foner in Fortin NYT Aug 18, 2017)(Fellman, 2000, p. 76, 137)
And also, place the three anachronistic paragraphs of the section "Lee's views on race and slavery" in chronological order, rather than trying to POV push in the WP article by promoting an extended quote from of an historian's newspaper interview not subject to peer review. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 10:58, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
Let's try to stick to the subject of the proposal on explaining Lee's silence on slavery prior to the Civil War, without going off into the subject of his Congressional testimony yet. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 21:51, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
The proposal before us as WP editors has two supporting reliable sources for each element of the narrative text proposed documenting Lee’s silence on slavery -- in the section titled "Lee's views on race and slavery", and explaining it, not as an implied character flaw compared to “some Southerners” supporting abolition, but as (1) a principle widely held in the U.S. Army's West Pointer office corps, (2) a belief adhered to by Lee during the time, and (3) observed by him in his behavior as a serving regular officer.
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle and Lee adhered to the principle. (Skelton, 1992, p. 285)(Davis, 2015, p. 46) He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service (Fellman, 2000, p. 137)(Taylor, 1999, p. 223)(Pryor, 2008, p.284), and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. (Foner in Fortin NYT Aug 18, 2017)(Fellman, 2000, p. 76, 137).
And of course, the section requires a chronological ordering to reflect the various phases of Lee's life, since it is common knowledge that people change over the course of their life circumstances, without necessarily holding to the same views from birth or expressing those views in the same way under all circumstances. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 21:51, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
So now with the addition of the Pryor citation, we have seven reliable sources to meet the User:Snooganssnoogans objection, "If Lee did not comment on slavery because of his principled belief that officers should be apolitical it needs to be sourced." It seems that a week to review the passage explaining Lee's public silence on race and slavery should be sufficient, considering her continuing participation in the article mainspace and at Talk. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 08:40, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
The proposal on Lee’s silence incorporating contributions from User:Snooganssnoogans, User:A D Monroe III. User:Rjensen, User:Gwillhickers, and TVH is as follows, with sources, direct quotes and verifiable links where possible.
By the time of Lee's career in the U.S. Army, officers of West Point stood aloof from party and sectional strife on such issues as slavery as a matter of principle and Lee adhered to the principle. [1] [2]He considered it his patriotic duty to be apolitical while in active Army service. [3] [4] [5], and Lee did not speak out publicly on the subject of slavery prior to the Civil War. [6] [7]
TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 09:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
At the section "Lee's views on race and slavery", we can remove the extended block quote deprecated for WP style, and write encyclopedically on the subject from his December 27, 1856 letter from Texas, using a more extensive passage from the same letter than is now available in the block quote from Emory M. Thomas to better reflect Lee's views:
Lee acceded to the inevitability of slavery under the U.S. Constitution during his own time, but he believed it to be an institution of “moral and political evil” detrimental to both slave and master. He saw slavery as "a painful discipline", but Lee hoped for better things for the "colored race", and that with prayerful support, the "sure influence of Christianity" would bring about the final abolition of human slavery as an act of God’s doctrine on earth. In any case, Lee did not believe that an end of slavery should come at the hands of unlawful violent action by Abolitionists whether in civil war or servile insurrection, nor did he believe the institution of slavery should be preserved by secession of Southern states and the destruction of the Union.
Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history by A. L. Long, p. 82-83, from a letter of Lee's from Texas to his son dated December 27, 1856.
This allows for the replacement of the entire paragraph including the characterization of Lee's "primary" concern in a newspaper interview that is not peer reviewed. Unlike the off-handed remark to a reporter, we can see on inspection of the letter, that Lee's primary concern to his son on the subject of slavery was that they pray for God's doctrine to be effected on earth in a "miracle" ending slavery. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 17:57, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
Let’s look at one of User:Snooganssnoogans misrepresentations of the sources. Rather than look at a book review link which does not support her assertion and POV pushing, let’s look at the book reviewed and the author cited. In Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his private letters, Elizabeth Brown Pryor notes that Lee’s private views were "entirely unremarkable”.
On page 151, she says, "No visionary, Lee nearly always tried to conform to accepted opinions. His assessment [of racial matters and slavery] was in keeping with the prevailing views of other moderate slaveholders, and a good many prominent Northerners.”
Let’s leave wp:cherry picking and POV pushing aside, hold off on the edit warring, and come to Talk with sourced contributions for discussion. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 13:11, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
User: Snooganssnoogans and User: Gwillhickers: Here are SEVEN salient points from Lee’s Texas letter, written in an encyclopedic style from the text of A. L. Long’s “Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history”. It comprehends Snooganssnoogans' THREE favorites in a spirit of collegial wp:good faith:
(1) Lee acceded to the inevitability of slavery under the U.S. Constitution during his own time, but (2) he believed it to be an institution of “moral and political evil” detrimental to both slave and master.
(3) While Lee’s “feelings [were] strongly enlisted in behalf” of the “colored race”, he expressed a greater concern for the damage being done whites under slavery. (4) He saw slavery as "a painful discipline” and associated it with improving the “African race” by Christianization during its time of captivity.
(5) But Lee hoped for better things for the "colored race", and that with prayerful support, the "sure influence of Christianity" would bring about the final abolition of human slavery as an act of God’s doctrine on earth in a hoped for “miracle” at a time of God’s own choosing.
In any case, (6) Lee did not believe that an end of slavery should come at the hands of unlawful violent action by Abolitionists whether in civil war or servile insurrection, (7) nor did he believe the institution of slavery should be preserved by secession of Southern states and the destruction of the Union.
Interestingly, while my write up is more comprehensive, as seven among Lee’s points are greater than three, --- Snooganssnoogans persists in the complete fabrication that it is my draft which somehow “deliberately omits” material. The POV pushing by Snooganssnoogans misrepresentation literally would have editors believe that three amounts to a number greater than seven. Nonsense. At some level editors must have a command of common sense and good will, contributing to the article together in a collegial manner. Thus this version of the proposed encyclopedic entry is meant to promotes the three elements of Lee's Texas letter that Snooganssnoogans is particularly interested in. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 18:42, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
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WP:primary sources can be used at Wikipedia unlike WP:Original Research.
1) At wp:primary sources, it explains, "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge.” — So in the following proposal, care will be taken to make straightforward, descriptive statements accessible to anyone with a seventh grade education.
2) WP:PRIMARY SOURCES further explains, "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.” So the proposal carefully avoids any interpretation of the primary source material. —For instance, Lee instructs his son that their prayers might bring about the eventual end of slavery for the “colored race”, but NO conclusion will be drawn that generally in patriarchal Antebellum Virginia society, fathers presumed to instruct family members in their prayer life.
3) Unlike WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH which draws conclusions not found in scholarly peer reviewed or even newspaper accounts cherry picking scholarly snippets, we see at the wp:primary sources POLICY: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.” — So no exceptional claim will be made on any account, only seven descriptive sentiments directly found in the primary sources, Lee’s Texas letter to his son in 1856 and Lee's testimony to Congress in 1868.
Lee believed slavery to be an institution of “moral and political evil” detrimental to both slave and master, but he acceded to the inevitability of slavery under the U.S. Constitution during his own time. While Lee’s “feelings [were] strongly enlisted in behalf” of the “colored race”, he expressed a greater concern for the damage being done whites under slavery. Additionally he saw slavery as "a painful discipline” for those enslaved, associating it with improving the “colored race” compared to African cultures by Christianization during its time of captivity. [1] But Lee hoped for better things for African Americans, and that with prayerful support, the "sure influence of Christianity" would bring about the final abolition of human slavery as an act of God’s doctrine on earth in a hoped for “miracle” at a time of God’s own choosing. Regardless of slavery’s ultimate extinction as God’s "doctrine", Lee did not believe that an end of slavery should come at the hands of unlawful violent action by Abolitionists whether in civil war or servile insurrection, [2] nor did he believe the institution of slavery should be preserved by secession of Southern states and the destruction of the Union. [3]
This proposed language encompassing seven of the points in Lee’s letter relating to his views on race and slavery makes the wp:cherry picked sourcing from a newspaper article pushing a POV redundant, so it and the excerpted block quote noting only three of the relevant points made in Lee’s letter is to be replaced with a more complete account of the letter's contents with a carefully worded edit in encyclopedic style for general readership. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 17:52, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Without any challenge or exception made for a week here at Talk, the edit is made in article mainspace. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 13:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Talk page contributors: @ Smmurphy, Dimadick, Snooganssnoogans, TheVirginiaHistorian, Moxy, Daniel Case, Gedcke, IAC-62, Neutrality, Dr.K, Anythingyouwant, Elonka, Princewilliam3, Darthkenobi0, Shadowfax0, Alexandre8, Bilsonius, Johnlumea, Kelvan.f, GenkiNeko, Deisenbe, A D Monroe III, Gwillhickers, Rjensen, and Infrogmation: You are receiving this notice for an RfC at Talk:Robert E. Lee of a proposed restatement of a wp:primary source which is contains more points than the existing block quote from the same letter. The primary source is a 1856 letter of Lee’s to his son from Texas as found at Long, A. L., Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history (1886), p. 82-83. Opponents have seen wp:original research in the proposal as drawing conclusions not found in the primary source. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 10:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Talk page contributors: @ Smmurphy, Dimadick, Snooganssnoogans, TheVirginiaHistorian, Moxy, Daniel Case, Gedcke, IAC-62, Neutrality, Dr.K, Anythingyouwant, Elonka, Princewilliam3, Darthkenobi0, Shadowfax0, Alexandre8, Bilsonius, Johnlumea, Kelvan.f, GenkiNeko, Deisenbe, A D Monroe III, Gwillhickers, Rjensen, and Infrogmation: You are receiving this notice for an RfC at Talk:Robert E. Lee of a proposed restatement of a wp:primary source which is contains more points than the existing block quote from the same letter. The primary source is a 1856 letter of Lee’s to his son from Texas as found at Long, A. L., Memoirs of Robert E. Lee: his military and personal history (1886), p. 82-83. Opponents have seen wp:original research in the proposal as drawing conclusions not found in the primary source. TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 09:31, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
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On the subject of Lee, race and slavery, let’s consider what we can take from a revisionist historian first as he speaks in a scholarly work reviewed in the Journal of American History as "well written, persuasive and ... authoritative". I paraphrase:
Both Robert and his wife Mary Lee were disgusted with slavery, but they also defended it against Abolitionists until a distant day of African repatriation might bring freedom to the enslaved. Countering southerners who argued for slavery as a positive good, Lee in his well known analysis of slavery from an 1856 letter to Mary called it a moral and political evil. [1] Even before what Michael Fellman called a “sorry involvement in actual slave management”, Lee judged the experience of white mastery to be a greater moral evil to the white man than blacks suffering under the “painful discipline” of slavery which introduced Christianity, literacy and a work ethic to the heathen African. [2] Lee protested he had sympathetic feelings for blacks, though they were subordinate to his own racial identity, and he believed blacks should be freed eventually at some unspecified future date. But in any case emancipation would sooner come from a Christian impulse within masters before “storms and tempests of fiery controversy” such as was occurring in “Bleeding Kansas” as Lee wrote his letter. [3]
TheVirginiaHistorian ( talk) 14:19, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Next, let's look at the insight a mainstream historian might give us on the nature of Lee's religious belief as it pertained to race and slavery. I paraphrase.
Lee did not see slavery as a problem susceptible to a political solution, he saw it as a moral and religious issue, a part of God’s plan just as Lee thought of all events on earth as a demonstration of God’s will. This spiritual submission was a part of Lee’s strong religious belief, even though as Michael Korda notes, it is difficult for moderns to understand how a 19th century figure could view something as immoral and unjust such as slavery to be a part of God’s will on earth. [1]