How to Deal Monuments to Robert E. Lee and more generally

The Charlottesville murder and injuries are clearly totally unacceptable and should be strongly criticized by all of us.

The Charlottesville violence makes my commentary about renaming or destroying monuments, buildings, etc. more important, albeit probably much more controversial than it otherwise would have been.  It seems odd to seem to be on the side of white supremacists, but my reasons for my belief likely differ from theirs.  Of course, no matter how strongly I might disagree with someone on some issues, there are other issues on which we likely can agree.

One of Yale’s residential colleges was named “Calhoun College” in honor of Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.  While at Yale, I visited Calhoun College frequently because a close friend lived there for three years.  Also, my wife (Tina) spent a week at Yale as part of an experiment in having females residing on campus the year before Yale went co-ed.  She resided in Calhoun College.

There were protests against the name of Calhoun College for several years.  I was not inclined to agree with the demands that the college be renamed.  When Yale signaled that it might rename the college, my first reaction was that Yale was caving in to student protestors instead of fulfilling its obligation to educate them.

Yale created a committee to establish principles to apply when a question of renaming a building arose (Report of the Committee Regarding Principles of Renaming) and another committee to apply those principles to the Calhoun College issue (Recommendation to Rename Calhoun College).

After reviewing those papers (which I recommend that you read at the above links), I concluded that Yale had given careful thought to the issue, created a valuable process/paper and had applied those principles appropriately in renaming Calhoun College to Grace Murray Hopper College, in honor of an eminent mathematician who led efforts to develop the first computer compiler language and later was “the person most responsible for the success of COBOL during the 1960s”, according to her biographer, Kurt Beyer[i].  She taught 10 years at Vassar (where she earned her BS degree in math and physics in 1928), before joining the Navy in WWII.  She eventually became a rear admiral.  Ms. Hopper received a master’s degree (1930) and a Ph.D. (1934) in mathematics from Yale.

With that background, I’d like to address the specific issue of monuments, schools, stamps and other tributes to Robert E. Lee.  Please note that my comments are specific to Robert E. Lee and do not extend to Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson or others in the Confederacy, nor to the Confederacy as a whole or its flag.

As explained more fully below, I believe Robert E. Lee was a true USA hero!  Lee gave very serious thought to his actions and made decisions based on carefully-pondered moral principles rather than his personal advantage.   He was a very reluctant secessionist and was the face of reconciliation after the war. Honoring Robert E. Lee is in our nation’s interest, as we would benefit greatly if more people mimicked his behavior.  My respect for Lee is independent of his decision; it is tied to his integrity in making his decision.  Who are we to question his decision made after deep, excruciating introspection? 

To me, Lee’s principal legacy is the importance of basing decisions on principles of honor, duty and integrity.   We have a dire need for people to make decisions based on such principles today.

Furthermore, honoring Robert E. Lee provides a remembrance that there were good people on both sides of the Civil War (as in other wars).  That thought-provoking benefit should not be expunged lightly.  We need to respect people with whom we disagree and to find areas of agreement.

I am distressed when I hear people describe Lee as a “traitor”.  Loyalty was a core value of his.  If a child’s parents divorce and the child is required to choose which parent with whom to live, is the child necessarily acting in a traitorous fashion to the parent the child does not choose?

Supporting diversity involves appreciating the uniqueness of every individual and trying to understand and respect their thought processes.  Tarnishing Lee solely because he was a part of the Confederacy is a violation of the fundamental principles of fairness and diversity.

In accordance with Yale’s guidelines, it would be easy to create plaques explaining why we honor Lee.  Doing so would have significant educational advantages, as well as dissolving some people's concerns about Lee statues.  Public input as to wording could be solicited and considered by a committee appointed to draft such wording.  The Charlottesville mayor (who is African-American) made an excellent suggestion along these lines.

If desired, a Robert E. Lee statue could be replaced with a statue in which he is not in military uniform. 

One of Yale’s principles is to try to judge the individual through the lenses available at the time of his/her life, rather than applying revisionist history.

During Lee’s life, people rarely traveled far from the place of their birth.  Local and state loyalties were predominant, which is very different from today’s transient habits and loyalties.

Lee was highly-respected in his lifetime, even by Northerners during and following the war.  Despite having no need to do so, Ulysses Grant invited Lee to visit him in the White House during Grant’s presidency.  Do we know better than Lee’s contemporaries?  In some cases, we might because more evidence may have developed over time than was known at that time.  But in Lee’s case, I don’t think damning evidence has been discovered since his death.

If he was a scoundrel, why did West Point name a barracks after him?  Why did the Army build Fort Lee?  Why did the Navy name a ballistic missile submarine in his honor?  Why did the US government mint several stamps in his honor?  Why did Teddy Roosevelt extol him?  If the statues are to be destroyed these other “honors” should also probably be removed and a lot of schools, roads and counties should be renamed.

To me, it seems unfair to accuse Lee of wrong- doing for choosing to defend his state, life-long friends, neighbors and family, rather than to bear arms against them.

Although he felt the North had acted improperly toward the South historically, Lee wrote that he “would defend any state” and “can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union” and that he was “willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.” 

“The Union vs. Virginia” presented him an impossible choice, leading him to state “I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia.”   

He wrote “If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?” 

Remaining in the Union’s army seems as though it would have been the easier and more profitable decision for him, but he opted for honor.  Envision a future world run by the United Nations.  In such a world, any action against another country might be perceived to be wrong, because all issues should be resolved by the UN.  In that world, razing a statue of Winston Churchill (because Churchill declared war on Hitler) would seem similar to razing a statue of Robert E. Lee because people today don’t think he should have favored his state over the Union. 

Lee played the role of a general, not of a politician.  When the South lost, he resisted suggestions that guerilla resistance continue.  He supported reconciliation, rejoiced that slavery was ended and chastised other Southerners who complained about the post-war situation.  

Lee had contributed significantly to the USA  before the Civil War (in the Mexican War and as Superintendent of the US Military Academy) and he contributed to it significantly afterwards (as a well-recognized advocate of reconciliation and as president of Washington and Lee University, where he was revered, apparently by all, including minority students, from 1865 to his death.)

In 1856, 6 years before the war started, Lee wrote to his wife “slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country”.  But he also felt that slavery was better for African-Americans than their lives in Africa. 

While a Confederate general, Lee supported his wife’s and daughter’s illegal school for slaves on their property.  He stated that education was important before freedom and voting rights could be granted and that education of African-Americans was beneficial for both races.  So although he felt slavery was better for African-Americans than their lives in Africa, he supported educating African-Americans to improve their lives (and to help everyone).

Lee’s father-in-law left him slaves, decreeing that they should be freed within 5 years.  Lee tried to rehabilitate his father-in-law’s debt-ridden estate but found it difficult, partly because the slaves had understood that they would be freed immediately, hence resisted his rule.  He had escaped slaves whipped.  But he freed the slaves after 5 years. 

He supported his wife’s and mother-in-law’s efforts to liberate slaves and send them to Liberia.

He suggested inviting slaves into the Confederate Army with a chance at freedom in return for meritorious service.  However, he allowed his army to capture free slaves, then arrange for them to be sold back into slavery.

Despite my strong respect for Lee, clearly there is room for criticism of Lee, through contemporary lenses and particularly through modern lenses.  Lee was a complex man but he seems to have consistently worked hard to live up to his moral code and should be respected and honored for doing so.  (As a young man, he went through West Point with no demerits, which underscores that he was a disciplined man of principle even at a young age.)

Destroying Lee statues is a slippery slope.  When one statue is censored/razed, the barrier to the next statue, book, movie, school name, stamp, etc., is diluted. 

I think it is clear Lee’s decision to side with Virginia did not reflect a desire to protect slavery.  Destroying commemorations of Lee is a slippery slope not only relative to Washington, Jefferson and others who owned slaves but also to many other people we honor.  No one is perfect; we can find reasons to justify destroying any monument --- and people will create such arguments if we encourage them to do so.

Ironically, Lee might support destroying the monuments honoring him or removing the Confederate markings.  In 1869, he refused to participate in a commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg, writing "I think it wiser ... not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered."  I would cite this as further proof that we should honor Lee as a statesman with tremendous integrity.

I think we have more important issues to discuss as a country than tearing down existing monuments.  These debates detract by taking time, media space and fracturing our population.  Defendants of Lee view statue destruction as an example of one part of the population trying to impose its views on another part of the community. 

If we are going to engage in such discussions, at least we should engage in orderly discussion based on principles similar to those enunciated by Yale.  Such orderly thought is critical to avoid the slippery slope mentioned above.  We should act with integrity and fairness rather than venom.

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[i] https://news.yale.edu/2017/02/10/grace-murray-hopper-1906-1992-legacy-innovation-and-service