{"id":1664,"date":"2017-05-23T12:16:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T16:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1664"},"modified":"2017-05-23T12:16:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T16:16:03","slug":"robert-e-lee-american-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2017\/05\/robert-e-lee-american-hero.html","title":{"rendered":"Robert E. Lee: An American Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

The movement is underway to erase from the public square all remnants of the Confederacy. The most recent victory on this score occurred in New Orleans this past weekend when a statue of General Robert E. Lee, the last of four monuments that the city razed over the last couple of weeks, was brought down.<\/p>\n

As I have written in a previous article<\/a>, the campaign against all public monuments to the Confederacy is a campaign against the West.\u00a0 It is a campaign against the European heritage of Western peoples.\u00a0 Confederate veterans and sympathizers like Lee are the easiest marks at the moment, but the logic of the crusade to demonize Confederate heroes points inescapably toward the cleansing from the Western world of all <\/em>white figures from our past who fail to satisfy the left\u2019s contemporary \u201cprogressivist\u201d litmus test.<\/p>\n

And this would include virtually every white historical personage.<\/p>\n

Every patriotic American who is in the least concerned with protecting Western civilization generally and American history specifically from those who want to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d them should be fighting tooth and nail to safeguard public symbols of the Confederacy. It is a disgrace that those \u201cconservative\u201d pundits with national profiles have failed to do so.<\/p>\n

However, that the movement against public remnants of the Confederacy promises to lead to a slippery slope is only one reason that decent people everywhere should resist it mightily.\u00a0 More importantly, it is an effort to rid the world of monuments of genuinely good people.\u00a0 Robert E. Lee emblematizes this.<\/p>\n

Personally and professionally, privately and publically\u2014by all accounts, Lee must be among the finest human beings that has ever walked the Earth. \u00a0And for the longest time, until relatively recently, he was recognized as such by Southerner and Northerner alike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced on national television that a portrait of Lee was among four portraits that he had hanging in his office.\u00a0 When challenged as to why he honored a rebel, Ike responded swiftly and unequivocally.\u00a0 Lee, he said, was \u201cone of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation,\u201d \u201cselfless almost to a fault,\u201d \u201cnoble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 Continuing, Eisenhower remarked: \u201cFrom deep conviction I simply say this: a nation of men of Lee\u2019s caliber would be unconquerable in spirit and soul.\u201d He concluded by adding that Americans, as a country, would be \u201cstrengthened and our love of freedom sustained\u201d just insofar as \u201cpresent-day American youth\u201d aspired to \u201cemulate\u201d Lee\u2019s \u201crare qualities [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

President Theodore Roosevelt lauded Lee as \u201cthe very greatest of all the great captains that the English-speaking peoples have brought forth.\u201d Lee\u2019s gracious example in defeat helped to \u201cbuild the wonderful and mighty triumph of our national life, in which all his countrymen, north and south, share.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared Lee \u201cone of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still others<\/a> praised Lee:<\/p>\n

Winston Churchill said that \u201cLee was the <\/em>noblest American who had ever lived and one of the greatest commanders known to the annals of war\u201d (emphasis added).<\/p>\n

Harry Truman referred to Lee a \u201cgreat man.\u201d He gave his mother a portrait of Lee and committed one of Lee\u2019s prayers to memory.<\/p>\n

President John F. Kennedy\u2019s comments on Lee are especially insightful inasmuch as they remind us of Lee\u2019s stellar cultural pedigree. \u00a0Kennedy said that as \u201ca New Englander, I recognize that the South is still the land of Washington, who made our Nation\u2014of Jefferson, who shaped its direction\u2014and of Robert E. Lee who, after gallant failure, urged those who had followed him in bravery to reunite America in purpose and courage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson invoked Lee<\/em> in an attempt to reassure Southerners that he was not trying to undermine their states\u2019 rights.\u00a0 \u201cIf we are to heal our history and make this Nation whole, prosperity must know no Mason-Dixon line and opportunity must know no color line.\u00a0 Robert E. Lee, a great son of the South, a great leader of the South\u2014and I assume no modern day leader would question him or challenge him\u2014Robert E. Lee counseled us well when he told us to cast off our animosities and raise our sons to be Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Ford too celebrated Lee: \u201cAs a soldier, General Lee left his mark on military strategy.\u00a0 As a man, he stood as the symbol of valor and of duty.\u00a0 As an educator, he appealed to reason and learning to achieve understanding and to build a stronger nation. The course he chose after the war became a symbol to all those who had marched with him in the bitter years towards Appomattox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford concluded: \u201cGeneral Lee\u2019s character has been an example to succeeding generations, making the restoration of his citizenship an event in which every American can take pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Carter said of Lee that \u201che was a soldier whose affection for his home and family called him to a life of service that often meant hardship, loneliness, and long separation from those he loved and even from the Nation which he most loved.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Reagan described Lee as \u201cthis southerner who criticized secession and called slavery a great moral wrong\u201d and who \u201cwould become himself an American legend [.]\u201d\u00a0 Reagan held up Lee as a symbol of hope, for following \u201cthe dissolution of his cause, he would work to bind up the Nation\u2019s wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee wasn\u2019t just a great public figure. He was close to unique among famous Americans insofar as he combined in his character the most beautiful of public and personal excellences.<\/p>\n

In his anthology, What is a Man? <\/em>Professor Waller Newell\u2014no friend of the Confederacy and an admirer of Lincoln\u2014notes that the 16th<\/sup> President and Lee supply \u201ca fascinating study in contrasts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike Lincoln, who \u201cwas a troubled husband and a distracted father,\u201d Lee was \u201ca model gentleman, father, and leader of youth in his private and post-war life.\u201d He was as \u201cwarm and loving\u201d a father as he was \u201cfirm.\u201d\u00a0 He was \u201cidolized\u201d by his children.\u00a0 Newell mentions that Lee\u2019s \u201cfatherly care extended from his own children to the young men at Washington College, where he ended his life as a much loved president.\u201d<\/p>\n

A country that permits a magnificent man like Robert E. Lee to be demonized is a country that is on the road to ruin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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