TO THE EDITOR:
I am glad Mr. Hawisher has challenged my recent letter — both because discussion of historical issues is intrinsically valuable and because his representation of Robert E. Lee’s view of slavery is misleading.
Here are the facts. Lee became custodian of the so-called “dower” slaves emancipated under his father-in-law’s will. He took leave from his army command in 1858 to work as executor. George Washington Parke Custis’ estate was burdened with thousands in unpaid bills and the Arlington estate was in a state of dilapidation that would cost thousands to fix. Meanwhile, Lee was mandated as executor to emancipate the stipulated group of slaves within five years “as to my executors may seem most expedient and proper.” Custis’ son-in-law hoped that the said slaves would work during the interval to defray the substantial cost of their emancipation under Virginia law.
As Mr. Hawisher says, Lee was forced by a confusing passage in the Custis will to ask for judicial ruling — not “in an attempt to keep (the slaves) longer,” but because the testator’s intention was unclear.
“Had Custis intended to emancipate the slaves only after the estate paid the legacies and debts, or had he intended to free the slaves regardless within five years?”
I quote Jonathan Horn’s recent book, “The Man Who Would Not Be Washington,” which is not partial to Lee but is fair and balanced on the dilemma. My review of it, with further detail, may be found on the internet. Apparently, the Virginia courts never gave a clear answer. In any case, Lee’s purpose was not to prolong the enslavement of the dower slaves beyond its time in his own interest but to follow his father-in-law’s lawful intentions.
Mr. Hawisher quotes a letter to Mrs. Lee in which, indeed, Lee wrote a few years earlier that “the blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially and physically.” He fails, however, to cite Lee’s words in the same letter: “In this enlightened age, there are few, I believe, but what will acknowledge that slavery as an institution, is a moral and political evil in any country.” This, I suggest, sustains my statement that Lee “hated slavery but found himself deeply entangled in it.” His vexed role as executor was exactly such an entanglement, giving him yet further reason to despise an unwieldy and, for him unprofitable institution.
As for the motives of non-slaveholding Confederate troopers, Mr. Hawisher’s speculations are as worthy as any other, including mine. But speculations they remain. Perhaps he is better able than I to read the minds of the hallowed dead.
Edwin M. Yoder Jr.
