Thanks to David Kiracofe and Tom Powers for their response to my meessage on this subject. It is clear that the framers intended a 'tight' definition of treason. It is also clear that Lee's decision to go with Virginia was based on the matter hitting home personally - with his own family and hearth under the gun.

Lee might have been the greatest racist who ever lived, but that was not overtly his reason for going against the Union. We are not always aware of our prejudices and other influences for decisions and behavior consciously, nor do we necessarily percieve them as others might. Lee at least in good faith was not acting deliberately because he held keeping slaves more important than the Union, or could not concieve living in a Union without them.

My purpose in speaking of myself in terms of the issue of loyalty - patriotism was expressed by its seeming convulusion and longwindedness. It is actually a difficult thing to reason out your allegiances. Such are not entirely conscious, or even rational things. We function as part of several communities, distinct and yet not separate. Lee finally chose which one had the most immediate, or greater, demand on his sense of duty based on very personal concerns - the potential threat to home and hearth - even with his sense that secession was treason. It was harder when before it had been simple. Virginia in the Union meant no opposing, contrary allegiances, no matter how divisive the issue. Virginia outside of it forced questions we safely avoid, quite apart from whether we would even consider them legitimate or not.

I have read criticism of Lee for confusing the Articles of Confederation with the U. S. Constitution, as in the question of a "perpetual" union. His confusion as to this phrase's source is less important next to the difficulty it must have been to sort out its meaning for him. I do not know if he was even aware of the Enlightnment concept of a 'state of nature' (something some might see anarchy in, as in Calhoun's reasoned counterarguments to yhat and other elements of what some might take as the very rationale for the American Union).

Nor do I know how much Patrick Henry was consciously thinking about it when he declared the matter to be a question of liberty or death. Also, I do not know how aware Lee was of the Constitution's definition of treason. Most people have a 'gut' sense of the latter more than anything. What I do know is that his (and Henry's) was an unenviable position nonetheless. I am less so convinced about Calhoun and/or his successors of 1860-61. Perhaps that is my prejudice against their vision of America. For them and Lee 'state' and 'interest' were one, but I have less problem with the 'interest' (and share the'state') allegiance of Lee.

---
Jarl K. Jackson





On Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:58:09
 Charles L. Dibble (MSN 914) wrote:
>The following from the diary of President Rutherford B. Hayes is interesting
>in light of the current discussion on this List:
>****************************************************************************
>***********************************************
>
>         PUBLIC ESTEEM--APRIL 1891-JANUARY 1892
>
>
>
>  APRIL 27, 1891.  Monday.-Reached Steubenville to attend
>
>the G. A. R. State Encampment about 7:30 P. M.  [...]
>
>  May  1.  Friday.- [...]    During the G. A. R. Encampment the weather was
>simply
>
>perfect.  The people of the town were patriotic and generous.
>
>The only thing to disturb was the disposition of one or two men
>
>to scold the South - to discuss irritating topics in an ill-
>
>tempered way. This is in bad taste, is bad policy, and bad on
>
>principle. Silence on that which breeds ill temper is the true
>
>course. The Southern people are our countrymen. They dis-
>
>played great endurance and courage, great military traits of
>
>character during the war. Let us now as soon as possible bring
>
>them into good relations with those who fought them. Let us
>
>become one people.
>
>  May 2.  Saturday.-At the G. A. R. [State Encampment]
>
>there was a little demagoguery in the way of keeping alive the
>
>bitterness of the war. A motion was made and carried against
>
>the purchase of Chickamauga battlefield, against Rebel monu-
>
>ments, etc., etc. The truth is, the men of the South believed in
>
>their theory of the Constitution.     There was plausibility, per-
>
>haps more than plausibility, in the States' rights doctrine under
>
>the terms and in the history of the Constitution.  Lee and Jack-
>
>son are not in the moral character of their deeds to be classed
>
>with Benedict Arnold.  They fought for their convictions, for
>
>their country as they had been educated to regard it.  Let them
>
>be mistaken, and treated accordingly.  Their military genius and
>
>heroism make the glory of the Union triumph.
>
>--- from http://www.ohiohistory.org/onlinedoc/hayes/chapterlii.html  [August
>31, 2001]
>****************************************************************************
>**********************************
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
>[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Jarl K. Jackson
>Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 11:19 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Virginian and American patriotism
>
>
>The question of state, over beside/with, or against, national patriotism is
>an interesting one. A man like Robert E. Lee could use his loyalty to
>justify or rationalize - words not necessary meant to have negative
>connotations - his chosing to follow Virginia out of the the Union. This
>although he seems to have sincerely believed (in his own way at least - also
>with necessarily negative connotations) that secession was bad, the Union
>was good, and (in some way, though perhaps not as we see it) slavery was
>wrong as well.
>
>At the same time, other Virginians, other Southerners, in fact could
>consider it loyalty to the Union certainly, and perhaps also to thier native
>state, to not secede when that state did. George (_?_) whose last name
>escapes me at the moment, could find it so in staying in the US Army,
>becoming the 'Rock of Chickamauga' and being (sadly, ungraciously) rejected
>by his Virginia family after that war.
>
>There is a letter written by John S. Mosby to a friend after the war in
>which he explains how though opposed to slavery, he and many others could go
>with, and fight for Virginia. Many would condemn the likes of him for
>"treason," and many do criticize Lee - often going too far in tearing him
>off the old pedestal - for having thoughts and perceptions, holding views
>best understood (if understood at all) in the context of time and place.
>
>This is not to absolve "sinners" of their wrongs, though the Constitution's
>provision on treason, as with everything else, is open to some
>interpretation. Rather, to accept that some perspective needs to be
>maintained. Historians and others are as likely to lose that in favor of
>discrediting sincere and thoughtful men, as some others these days are of
>giving them to much of perhaps the wrong kind of credit.
>
>For myself, I am a native-born son of Virginia currently residing in
>Florida. I consider myself an American as I do a Virginian, and yes, I am a
>Floridian as well. I try be to an active, concerned citizen of the local,
>state, and national communities of which I am a part, recognizing both
>shared and divergent interests between and among these, and a concerned
>child of the Old Dominion as well.
>
>Whether under the right circumstances I would recognize a 'state of nature'
>to be in effect, or a proper dissolution of the Union to have occurred is a
>question I cannot now, and hope to never have to answer.
>---
>Jarl K. Jackson
>
>
>
>
>
>On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 18:49:34
> David Kiracofe wrote:
>>My thanks to Constantine Gutzman for clarifying Henry's remark -- I am
>>indebted.  It was laziness on my part to call up the example -- it does
>>SOUND like a polar opposite from the Randolph quotation -- but of course
>>it is no reflection of Henry's allegiances, but of the constitutional
>>dilemma of the early 1770s.  Anyhow, I stand by my main point that
>>antebellum Americans did not see holding a patriotic allegiance to their
>>native states as contradictory to their loyalty as Americans -- indeed,
>>for many state identity was the lens through which they saw themselves as
>>Americans.
>>
>>David Kiracofe
>>College of Charleston
>>
>>On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 18:00:53 -0400 Constantine Gutzman wrote:
>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "David Kiracofe" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 1:58 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Hampton (Virginia) National Cemetary: 757.723.7104
>>>
>>>
>>> > In regard to the recent discussions of state versus national loyalties,
>>> > the truth seems to lie somewhere between the two poles of "my country
>is
>>> > Virginia" (Randolph of Roanoke) and "I am not a Virginian but an
>>> > American" (Patrick Henry -- please excuse the rough paraphrasing).
>>>
>>> One must be careful in order to interpret Henry's famous statement
>>> accurately.  Henry's statement here represented one side in a debate
>>> within
>>> Virginia, that over the question what George III's constructive
>abdication
>>> as King of Virginia legally meant.  Some people, such as Thomas
>>> Jefferson ,
>>> insisted that the king's abdication merely opened up the possibility of
>>> naming a new governor; for them, there was no state of nature.
>>> Others, like
>>> Henry (and, unless memory fails, John Page -- it has been a while since I
>>> read this material), said that since every officeholder in Virginia, from
>>> the county courts to the House of Burgesses, held his office
>>> mediately from
>>> the king, the end of the House of Hanover in Virginia meant that no
>>> officer
>>> in Virginia held legitimate governmental power anymore.  Virginia, as
>>> Henry
>>> understood the matter, rested in a perfect Lockean state of nature, along
>>> with the other rebellious colonies.
>>>
>>> Seemingly, most Virginians opted for Jefferson's argument:  The colonial
>>> government continued to operate, insofar as it could, until the
>>> adoption of
>>> the May Convention's 1776 Virginia Constitution.  It was much easier
>>> simply
>>> to allow the militia, the county courts, etc., to continue to operate
>>> as if
>>> nothing had happened than it would have been to assume there was no law
>of
>>> any kind in Virginia until a representative body could be convened to
>>> create
>>> new, republican institutions.  Henry's statement came in the context
>>> of his
>>> insistence in the same speech that there was no law anymore in (formerly)
>>> British North America (Canada excepted), so there were no longer any
>>> boundaries among the colonies.  (Those boundaries, too, had all been
>drawn
>>> by the kings -- or, in a couple of cases, by Cromwell's Parliament.)
>>> Henry
>>> found himself in the awkward situation of being an American, not a
>>> Virginian, at a particular moment, but that was a diagnosis based on his
>>> political theory, not a statement reflecting the relative strengths of
>his
>>> affections.
>>>
>>> Constantine Gutzman
>>> Department of History
>>> Western Connecticut State University
>>>
>>> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
>>> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>>
>>
>>
>>David Kiracofe
>>
>>To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
>>at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html
>>
>
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