At its June 7, 2018 monthly meeting, Arlington Public Schools (APS) revised its policy on the naming of schools, ostensibly to tighten the rules.
The actual purpose was to justify removal of Robert E. Lee’s name from Washington-Lee (W-L) High School on the grounds that as leader of the Confederate Army, Lee was a traitor to the United States.
While I agree that in defending the Confederacy Lee defended slavery, which was clearly wrong, Lee was no ordinary traitor. At the time he took up arms against the Union, the views that Lee espoused on slavery were precisely those of the Founding Fathers.
Had not George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson-all Virginia native sons and all slave holders-greased the skids of institutionalized slavery by agreeing to write it into the U.S. Constitution, Lee would not have taken up arms against his own nation. (more…)