Re: True American spirit
From: vaproto@optonline.net
http://lists.topica.com/lists/SouthernHeritage/read/message.html?mid=1721381611&sort=d&start=3572
Chuck,
Regarding the “restoration” of American citizenship to Robert E. Lee as mentioned in the newsletter: considering how Lee felt about the Union invaders by the time he died (and everybody knows the quote about “those people”), one has to wonder if he would have considered such “restoration” a favor or not. He just might have preferred to remain a citizen of the Confederacy even if that nation no longer existed.
Actually, by the end of reconstruction, most Southern white males had received the right to vote and by extension their citizenship. Wade Hampton was elected Governor of South Carolina and many former Confederates served in the Congress. I don’t know if Jefferson Davis was ever “received” back into the United States, but I am also of the belief that he had no desire to be so under the circumstances. Certainly, Virginia participated in the Presidential election of 1872, so that presupposes that most Confederates from that state were no longer disenfranchised at that time. But, of course, Lee died in 1870.
Val Protopapas
