Robert E. Lee was a traitor or a patriot?

Question

Give reasons for your answer.

Answer 1

Neither.

Robert E. Lee took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the USA. He was an officer in the Army.

He then resigned his commission and left the Army and became the military leader of an armed rebellion against the USA.

He did NOT violate his oath as an officer because he resigned his commission. However he is still considered persona non grata at West Point.

He received the same general amnesty that all of the troops of the south received so did not prison time.

Had I gotten him in my cross hairs DURING the war, I would have taken him out just I would any enemy soldier. After the war he was once again one of us.

(Besides, we turned his plantation into Arlington National Cemetery so he got punished enough.)

Answer 2

"One must always perform their duty. No one has the right to expect more of you, and you should never demand less of yourself."
General Robert E. Lee

Answer 3

A patriot of ol Virginia of course. He felt duty bound to follow the flag of his state although he had sworn allegiance to old glory.

Answer 4

Patriot

He served his State to defend his community, before we striped powers away from the state governments that was more important to the people.

Answer 5

He fought valiantly for our country during the Mexican-American war and was responsible for the lock and dam system used on the Mississippi for over a century. He fought not for slavery (he had freed the few slaves his wife owned ten years before the war), he fought for Virginia because he was raised by friends and relatives all over the state. And even then he tried to lessen the death and destruction of war even when he invaded the North.

Answer 6

I cannot think of Lee as a traitor. It was a difficult choice for him to leave the Union but when Virginia seceded he felt he had no choice. I suppose he may be faulted for putting the good of his home state above the good of the Country, but that was the question, what was the good of the Country?. If the United States is a federation of states and states rights are being violated, what is the right thing to do? So no, Lee was not a traitor, he was a patriot following his conscience.

Answer 7

If your state suceeded from the Union would you fight your brother and sister? I do not think so. Lee anguished over the fact he was breaking his oath and the night of his decision to stay with his beloved Virginia he could be heard walking up and down the hardwood floors by his wife. General Sherman burned the South can he be considered a war criminal?

Answer 8

The common view would think as neither but a torn man fighting for what he was believed to be correct; whih would be a Patriot beetween those choices. I believe that within the Constitution as written the seccesion of the Southern States to form the Confederacy was a legal action so he could not be a traitor since he was a citizen of the Confederate States and not the United States. I am not making moral judgments on the reason or slavery but rather based on nothing in the Constitution grants the power to stop states from leaving the US to the federal government and per the Constitution all other powers not granted to the federal government reside with the state. So he was primarily a patriot who fought for his state and his country against his former country and did so reluctantly. He actually remained in the US military after the states starting seceeding and did not resign and return to Virginia until the oath was changed and he was asked to take the new one; the difference was the defend and protect the Constitution was changed to defend and protect the union; it was changed back after the war. Of the two choices he was a patriot to his state and, probably in his mind, to the US Constitution also since he thought that seccession was authorized and legal for the states to do which meant the US was breaking it's Constitution, which he had sworn to defend, by trying to stop those states from doing it by foce. R. E. Lee did not believe in slavery and owned none-he had inheritted them from his family and had freed them when he had the power to do so but he was a strong believer in states rights and limiting the power of the federal government. Right or wrong he believed himself a patriot and few, out side of radicals, ever accused him of ever being anything other then an honorable man who had to choose between two bad choices.