If History Has Taught Us Anything, It’s That Robert E. Lee Considered Violence in Defense of White Supremacy Unconscionable

I’m pleased to see Rich Lowry call for taking Confederate monuments down. But the throat-clearing is a particularly strange product of the Robert E. Lee Apologist Industrial Complex:

Robert E. Lee wasn’t a Nazi, and surely would have had no sympathy for the white-supremacist goons who made his statue a rallying point in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend.

Let’s review a few basic facts:

• Robert E. Lee was a white supremacist. As Adam Serwer puts it, [w]hite supremacy does not “violate” Lee’s “most fundamental convictions.” White supremacy was one of Lee’s most fundamental convictions.”
• Robert E. Lee was a cruel slaveowner who broke up the families of his slaves and brutally tortured escapees.
• Lee, who could have chosen to remain loyal to the United States, chose instead to be a prominent military leader of a treasonous movement dedicated to the preservation of chattel slavery.

Are you “sure” that Lee would have been appalled by white supremacist goons marching in Virginia? I am quite sure he would have celebrated them. I must concede, however, that Lee — while he willingly joined a cause with significant ideological overlap — was technically not  Nazi. Or Maoist. Or a supporter of Francisco Franco. Or a member of Smashmouth.