Leadership, Treason, and Burden of History: The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Lee - With Allen Guelzo

In this edition of the popular podcast series "Thinking in Public," Albert Mohler speaks with Professor Allen Guelzo, Director of the James Madison Program Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship and Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University about his book "Robert E. Lee: A Life." This important work surveys the complex life and legacy of Robert E. Lee.
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[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Guelzo's book on the Reformed Episcopalians makes more sense to me now. Clearly Guelzo favored the high church Anglo-Catholics and the Tractarians in that book.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

This interview is informative because it reveals the continuing prejudices of Yankees against the South.

[@jude999]

Gary Gallagher the same way.

[@timothymeehan181]

Yeah. Like they/the south fought to extend, perpetuate & nationalize slavery all over this continent? Oh, sorry, I meant “State Rights”……to build a slave empire…

[@bobtaylor170]

For Lee to have been a traitor, he would have had to assist the efforts of an already established power against the United States. The Confederate States of America hardly qualified as an already established power. Lee was a rebel, but he wasn't a traitor. Allen Guelzo, this is a thorough disappointment.

[@lesreed2124]

Excellent discussion! Thank you for taking on this subject.

[@LBGirl1988]

"I don't know how to analyze a man who has turned his hand against his country, his flag and his oath..." Does this writer have the same issue with George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, etc.????? This writer is by birth and academia, biased. But I enjoy his conversation even though I find his bias a bit uncomplicated and one-dimensional as well as a heavy dose of liberal arts academic snobbery. It also bothers me that he doesn't seem to understand that Robert E. Lee was the son of Lighthorse Henry Lee, a famous Revolutionary War general, as well as being the grandson-in-law of Martha and George Washington which he acknowledges but doesn't seem to "understand." It's like he doesn't understand the mindset of someone whose father was a rebel so therefore it is not real.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

No secession, no war.

[@darrellhamner4608]

No northern invasion no war

[@avenaoat]

@@darrellhamner4608 The slave sytem states had not wanted to spread the slave system to the future Western states (Kansas) no Northern reaction against Southerners. Not to forget the Knights_of_the_Golden_CircleK who (+ more Southern polticians) wanted to founded a slave system empire in the Caribic islands, in Central America and wanted to annex Mexico. Lincoln was in those Congressmen who fought against to annex Mexico for an independent Mexico between 1847-1849!

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

I do not know what happened to Mohler but I think it began sometime before he signed the Manhattan Declaration.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Lee attended Episcopal services before several battles. He was a low church Episcopalian. That in itself proves he was a man of Evangelical faith.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Popularity is not the test of truth.

[@oceantree5000]

Thank y’all for having Dr Guelzo on your show. Very much appreciate his voice/

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Oh, oh. Now we're at the Episcopal issue.

[@darrellhamner4608]

If Lee was a traitor explain the difference between him and Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, et al. Oh I remember, they won.

[@charleshinesjr.2360]

There WAS a traitor. His name was Abraham Lincoln. He trashed the Constitution in dozens of unspeakable ways. He destroyed the foundational free and voluntary Union that the Founders had created and replaced it with a forcible Union, like the Soviet Union, held together with the point of a bayonet. (Read the 14th Amendment, created at the end of the war.) A forcible Union was just what the American Revolution was fought to separate (secede) from. In 1814-15 when three Yankee States threatened to secede from our new Union and form a Northern confederation with Canada, Jefferson said: "It is but the younger brother differing from the older. By all means, let them go." Hamilton said: "It would be unthinkable for the general government to coerce a State". Madison and Adams made concurring but more lengthy statements regarding the Rights of the States. (or what the "victor's history" today refers to as the "MYTH of the Lost Cause").

[@YuDynasty]

This was such a great interview with so much to process in the mind and heart. Plus, Dr. Allen Guelzo’s voice is smooth like butter!

[@jude999]

Lee not a traitor, faithful to his state. We were founded as a Federated Republic.

[@KevinSubra]

Wonderful and insightful discussion. Very helpful and thought-provoking. Thank you!

[@christaselig6735]

I love Allen Guelzo and am reading this book now--thrilled to see this and have been waiting and hoping for it.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Check out the Abbeville Institute instead.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Lee was a hero even in surrender.

[@timothymeehan181]

Yeah. Just like Albert Speer… Oy..😞

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

@@timothymeehan181 Who is Albert Speer? And what does he have to do with General Robert E. Lee? Lincoln was a fool. His war against the South cost about 600,000 American lives.

[@bjohnson515]

A few Facts Fact... Virginia, as well as NY and RI ....ratified the Constitution with the proviso "right to resume powers" delegated to the federal experiment if they felt harmed by the arrangement. Fact... When Lee took his oath at West Point it was to the United States, and to protect and defend THEM.....plural..ie to the States United. When that was no longer the case, when the States were no longer "united" where exactly was his allegiance as applied by his oath? Was not his allegiance equally to the Southern States who left as well as to the Northern States? This point is driven home as the oath was rewritten in 1861 by West Point authorities. Fact... VA did not secede until "harmed", ie they were forced to provide troops to make war on the Deep South (which had previously seceded), partake in an embargo of the Deep South, and to allow federal troops to traverse and use VA ports to make war on the Deep South. Not until then did they secede. Fact.. Lee attached himself to the defense ....the DEFENSE ....of Virginia even before Virginia became part of the Confederate States. Fact... Virginia had been an entity for more than a Century prior to the Federal Government's existence. Nearly half the Presidents to date had come from VA, and the land for part of the District of Columbia was provided by Virginia.

[@charleshinesjr.2360]

Well put and historically CORRECT.

[@danielkitchens4512]

Gettysburg the last invasion? What about jubal early invasion of Maryland 1864 and attack on the district of Columbia?

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Wait. I thought West Point was an engineering school? Now you're back to it is a military school?

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

What about the slave owners in Maryland and Kentucky, states that never seceded? The war was over secession, not slavery.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

@@frankfrederico4342 The reason for secession is IRRELEVANT. THE WAR WAS OVER THE RIGHT TO SECEDE. NO SECESSION, NO WAR. It is simple LOGIC. Lincoln invaded the South as a war of aggression with the stated purpose of RESTORING THE UNION. The fact of the matter is that the issue of slavery would have been resolved without a war but Lincoln decided to use force to restore the union. The main issue was and will ever be the rights of states to secede. Sic semper tyrannus!

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

@@frankfrederico4342 Your concession proves the point. The war was over secession, NOT SLAVERY. Otherwise Lincoln would have freed all slavescas soon as he entered office.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

@@frankfrederico4342 Recent years? Hogwash. We have known all along that the Southern states wanted to maintain slavery because it sustained their economy. But northern tariffs and stacking the deck so that the North could maintain control of the House of Representatives was another issue. Guelzo is a self righteous hypocrite. The 3/5s ruling was meant to keep the North in control of the House. It did not say that slaves were only 3/5s human. The North was fighting to maintain its industrial and economic and revenue domination of Southern states. The majority in the North were not Abolitionists. Guelzo is obviously a Democrat who supports Crying Chuck.

[@stayclean777]

@@ThomasCranmer1959 The war.was over secession, NOT SLAVERY." Here's a tough one: What was secession over?

[@stayclean777]

@@ThomasCranmer1959 "Otherwise Lincoln would have freed all slaves as soon as he entered office." Lincoln didn't believe the Constitution allowed him to abolish slavery, except as a wartime emergency, which is why passage of the 13th Amendment was necessary.

[@marshaprice8226]

Historians are analyzing what these people did in their time. That doesn’t qualify as “continuing prejudice of the Yankees against the South”. Southerners display the same animus against the North when they talk about secession and the war. The “continuing prejudice” goes in both directions. As for a comparison of what Lee did with what Washington, et al, did, they knew that the British regarded what they were doing as treason and they risked being executed if captured. Lee seems not to have regarded his decision in that light.

[@mwduck]

Wasn't it Hillary who climbed Mt. Everest?

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Check out the Abbeville Institute instead.

[@oceantree5000]

Rather- check out both and broaden your horizons. Fan of both vectors here, neither of which aligns w my own views. Still find them both valuable- and Dr Guelzo’s work is arguably far more respectable, and credentialed.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

​@@oceantree5000Guelzo is a lying Marxist and a purveyor of CRT.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

So West Point was not really a military school. Maybe that explains why Custer and McClellan were terrible generals?

[@jimbuford4147]

Lee considered himself first a citizen of VA. In that sense it would have been treason had he raised his arm against that state.

[@oceantree5000]

Guelzo argues against this very point, very interestingly.

[@jimbuford4147]

@@oceantree5000 One has to remember the Civil War was not far removed from the Articles of Confederation which was a loose federation of states to the U S Constitution. The idea of states rights was still very powerful. In fact at the time of the Civil War most states considered they were primary and the federal government secondary in importance and power.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Guelzo is theologically trained in what???? High church Tractarianism?

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Yah but you know Lee was not a believer? LOL

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Why is Mohler fawning over this pseudo-intellectual? Mohler also fawned over Jimmy Carter when he interviewed Carter but Mohler did not challenge Carter even once on Carter's neo-orthodox theology. Mohler treated Carter as a brother in Christ, which he obviously is not.

[@oceantree5000]

Guelzo is not only an eminent historian, but theologian.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

@@oceantree5000 Appealing to authority is a logical fallacy. Guelzo is not only a high church Anglo-Catholic but he is also a dishonest historiography who is pushing a distorted version of the causes of the war of Northern Aggression. There is nothing in the US Constitution that forbids secession.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Lincoln was an agnostic. Lee was a believer.

[@timothymeehan181]

Ironic then, nay? That an agnostic saw the evils of slavery and sought to limit and then end it, whereas the “believer” fought to perpetuate it?

[@moonshine4u96]

Where does the “treason” come in? And so much historiography here. Historiography is speculation, and speculation is not history.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

All histioriography involves interpretation and speculation. Mathematics and logic are much more objective than subjective.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Guelzo is a Schumer supporter? That says everything. Schumer is a born liar and a propagandist for Marxism.

[@oceantree5000]

He clearly defines treason, on a constitutional basis. Ca. 5:37.

[@moonshine4u96]

@@oceantree5000 as it applies to who?

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Oh my. So Lee was a dunce for the Confederacy? ROTFL!!! This is a classic study on why historiography is more about revisionism and propaganda than objective observation.

[@stayclean777]

Despite being an eminent authority you should try to learn something.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Secession is not treason.

[@oceantree5000]

That’s not at all the argument he makes. He uses the Constitutional definition of treason. Ca. 5:37.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

I thought the war was over slavery, not the union? The Federalist papers prove that the right to secession was not a settled matter. Furthermore, this belittling of states rights and Southern culture is clearly ignorance on Guelzo's part.

[@oceantree5000]

Not ignorance; difference of opinion.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

@@oceantree5000 A very tendentious and biased opinion indeed.

[@gordonsheaffer1863]

@@ThomasCranmer1959 Cornerstone speech-- (mic drop)

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

This video only proves that Mohler has gone woke.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Thanks but I will spend my time reading something more worthy of my time.

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

Guelzo is clearly biased.

[@timothymeehan181]

….by the historical facts?

[@ThomasCranmer1959]

@@timothymeehan181 The facts are interpreted wrongly by Guelzo and in fact he disagrees with many facts. First off, the secession was not unconstitutional. Secondly, Luncoln started the war to force the seceded states back into the union. 3rdly, the war was never about freeing the slaves. Would you care to discuss other facts Guelzo conveniently skips over?