Lee, in 1870, said this on
getting rid of slavery(REL by Freeman, vol. IV, p. 401):
“So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the south. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.”
If Lee was only about defending slavery, as his less-than-well-informed detractors would have us believe, then once the Deep South seceded, he would have hot-footed it to South Carolina, and volunteered his services to Go. Pickens. Yet, for some reason, he did not.
If Lee was all about keeping After Virginia seceded and thoughtless people were celebrating, Lee said “I must say, that I am one of those dull creatures that cannot see the good of secession.” John S. Mosby:
Memoirs, 379.
In a letter to his son in January 1861, Lee wrote, “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 honour for its preservation. …Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. I shall mourn for my country and for the welfare and progress of mankind. If the Union is dissolved and the Government disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and, save in defense will draw my sword on none.” So, Lee, before the war even started, was declaring that he did not support secession, but he also opposed the Federal government unconstitutionally using force to keep together peoples who had legally and constitutionally declared they preferred separation. This was a
quintessentially Virginian position.