Dukes of Moral Hazard

On a bright day you can hardly see those stars and bars on the roof, and it's always sunny in Hazzardelphia.  But why can't you call it, say, the General Beauregard?

David Brooks writes ("The Robert E. Lee Problem", June 26 2015):

The debate about what I'll call the Charleston Bible study shooting, because even at this date if you assume it has something to do with race that could only hurt people's feelings, and I have this reputation for courtesy I have to keep up, has oddly transformed itself into a debate about the former Confederate States of America and their battle flag, which is not a trivial matter, because a flag is made of woven material and racism is a part of what it is woven from, though whether weft or warp is beyond my expertise.

That is, the fabric of the Confederate battle flag is a part of the fabric of American culture, which is transmitted down the generations by the things we say and don't say, and the objects we celebrate and don't celebrate, and if we want to pot down the racism on our national equalizer we may want to turn up the symbols that do not signify it and ease up on those that do, which might indicate turning down the flag, or at least pulling it down, which sounds like a no-brainer even though it's taken me a lot of words to get there, because that's so deeply enmeshed, or woven, into the fight to preserve slavery, since it's a battle flag and that's the battle.

But what I want to talk about is something much quirkier and more recherché, as is my wont, or used to be back when I was pretending to be interested in writing, that nobody so far has thought about, which is what to do about Robert E. Lee? Should we start naming schools and other institutions after this great Confederate general, or should he be repealed and replaced?

Because, frankly, nobody's been asking this question, even as General Andrew Jackson gets repealed or re-peeled off the twenty-dollar bill, and I'd like to know why, or rather I'm not at all interested in knowing why but I wouldn't mind making somebody else wonder about it.

The case in favor of Lee is that he was always a perfect gentleman, unfailingly courteous, unlike former labor secretary Frances Perkins, one of my heroes, who was of course always a lady, but occasionally somewhat rough-spoken, like so many New Englanders.

As a general he was always brave and usually brilliant. perhaps the finest general of the Civil War, or all of American history, in spite of his many catastrophic mistakes and overall loss of the war, which makes Grant seem in some respects better, to say nothing of Pershing, Marshall, and Eisenhower, another hero of mine. As a family man he was surprisingly relaxed and affectionate, even under the stress of having his feet tickled, and enjoyed flirting with lovely Southern belles by mail, with his invalid wife's encouragement.

As a public figure he opposed slavery, though not in such a way as to try to do anything about it, which would have been vulgar and showoffy, and thought the secession of the Southern states from the Union was a silly idea, but not so silly that he wouldn't sign up to lead the Confederate army. Nevertheless we should not judge him by the "presentist" standards of our own time. No one in his day thought to oppose slavery effectively, except for the abolitionist movement, the Republicans, most of the northern states, and 40% of the Virginia officers, some of them members of his own family, who decided to serve with the Union forces, as well as the enslaved African Americans, who can be regarded as a special interest group.

What, then, is the case against Lee? You may well ask! Some people, including an expert I emailed, feel that his breaking of his oath to the flag and government he had sworn to defend should be regarded as treason, and this seems like a compelling argument. Also, while he did not enjoy owning slaves, he persevered in it, perhaps from an overdeveloped sense of duty or an attachment to the Lost Cause.

My own view on this huge and virtually unexamined issue is that, as usual, both sides are at fault here and some kind of compromise is in order. For example, the monuments and memorials of the Confederacy that do not involve Lee personally should be retained, as a tribute to the bravery of the common soldiers who did not own any slaves but selflessly fought to preserve the liberty of the rich plantation owners. Institutions like Washington and Lee University, which Lee supported after the war was over, should continue to be named after him, but institutions with which he had nothing to do, like the Robert E. Lee Elementary Schools in San Diego, East Wenatchee, WA, Tullahoma, TN, Satsuma, AL, and Dallas, might try to find other names if it's convenient. Above all it is time for Bo and Luke Hazzard to come up with a new name for their car, hitherto known as the General Lee, because that just looks bad.

This is not a matter of changing history but rather of displaying how even-handed and humble we are, going the extra mile to show that prejudice is always unacceptable unless it is prejudice against people who are still alive.

More helpful information on the historical, slavery-opposing General Lee from Roy Edroso.

Update: Did I do this? I'll take the credit, if anybody wants to give it to me.