Unlike Liberia it is on a great line of travel - it is a highway. As for slavery, Lincoln had long favored the “ colonization” option, first to Africa and then to Central America, noting: “It is nearer to us than Liberia - not much more than one-fourth as far as Liberia, and within seven days’ run by steamers. Lee’s Virginia accused the federal government of “perverting” its powers “not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.”įor Lincoln, his objective was, first and foremost, to preserve the Union. All of the 11 stats forming the Confederacy, mentioned slavery among the causes of their declarations of secession.
For the South, the primarily catalyst for war was slavery and its extension westward, and secondarily the issue of states’ rights and a host of economically oppressive federal tariffs and policies benefiting the more populous northern manufacturing states to the detriment of the agrarian South. Though the issue of slavery had been a contentious one for decades, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 was the breaking point, leading several Deep South states to secede and form a new country, the Confederate States of America. Marines, who recaptured the arsenal with no loss of life. In 1859, having returned East to settle the estate of his father-in-law, Lee was dispatched by the War Department to retake the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, which had been captured by radical abolitionist John Brown and his followers. Military Academy at West Point as its superintendent. In September 1852, Lee returned to the U.S. Serving under Major General Winfield Scott, he received three brevets for gallantry for leading efforts to seize or avoid Mexican strongholds. It was in 1846, during the Mexican War, that Lee first rose to prominence. As a result of the marriage, the Lees inherited both land and slaves.
In 1831, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, great-granddaughter of George Washington’s wife Martha and her first husband, Daniel P.
In 1825, Robert Lee received an appointment to West Point, graduating second in his class and entering the distinguished Engineer Corps. It was under these circumstances that Robert was raised by his mother, who instilled in him a strong sense of honor and duty. Sadly, Henry Lee’s reputation was tarnished by financial troubles, and he traveled to the West Indies when Robert was six years old, never returning. The elder Lee was a cavalry leader under General George Washington who was later elected governor of Virginia, and then to Congress. Lee was born on January 19, 1807, in northeastern Virginia, to Anne Hill Carter Lee and Revolutionary War hero Colonel Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee. Living as we do in a day when history is oft forgotten - or deliberately defamed and its monuments destroyed - it is worthwhile to consider the legacy of such an iconic American figure. Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Robert Edward Lee, best remembered as General-in-Chief of the Confederate army during the War Between the States.
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