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from The Atlantic
[Information from this site may not be reliable.]
Arlington, Bobby Lee, and the 'Peculiar Institution'
It's taken as a matter of fact among many Southern apologists that Lee was adamantly opposed to the institution of slavery, or even that he had a strong abolitionist bent. (The phrase "Robert E. Lee was an abolitionist" pings several hundred hits on teh Google.) This position rests almost entirely on a single line plucked from a letter Lee wrote to his wife in December 1856, reproduced in Douglas Southall Freeman's landmark, four-volume biography of Lee, published in the 1930s: "In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country." But it's a highly-selective quote that cuts against the context of the larger letter.
________Arlington, Bobby Lee, and the 'Peculiar Institution'
It's taken as a matter of fact among many Southern apologists that Lee was adamantly opposed to the institution of slavery, or even that he had a strong abolitionist bent. (The phrase "Robert E. Lee was an abolitionist" pings several hundred hits on teh Google.) This position rests almost entirely on a single line plucked from a letter Lee wrote to his wife in December 1856, reproduced in Douglas Southall Freeman's landmark, four-volume biography of Lee, published in the 1930s: "In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country." But it's a highly-selective quote that cuts against the context of the larger letter.
from The Spokesman-Review
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