Page 49 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

supreme commander of Confederate armies, the remaining Confederate forces capitulated
after his surrender. Lee rejected the proposal of a sustained insurgency against the Union and
called for national reconciliation.

In 1865, Lee became president of Washington College
(later Washington and Lee University) in Lexington,
Virginia; in that position, he supported reconciliation
between North and South. He accepted "the extinction of
slavery" provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but
publicly opposed racial equality and granting African
Americans the right to vote and other political rights. Lee
died in 1870. In 1975, the U.S. Congress posthumously

restored Lee's citizenship effective June 13, 1865.

Unlike many Southerners who expected a glorious war, Lee correctly predicted it as protracted
and devastating. He privately opposed the new Confederate States of America in letters in early
1861, denouncing secession as "nothing but revolution" and an unconstitutional betrayal of the
efforts of the Founding Fathers. Writing to George Washington Custis in January, Lee stated:
The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the
aggression and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for,
not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her
prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can
anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an
accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor
for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before
there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution
never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it
with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the
Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union," so expressed in the preamble, and
for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by
revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled.

Despite opposing secession, Lee said in January that "we can with a clear conscience separate"
if all peaceful means failed. He agreed with secessionists in most areas, such as dislike of
Northern anti-slavery criticisms and prevention of expanding slavery to new territories, and fear
of its larger population

References:
1. Relative Finder, associated with FamilySearch, and the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS)
2. Wikipedia.org
3. Learn more – History in Five: Robert E. Lee’s Difficult Decision
4. LDS Family Tree attached

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