REMOVING GENERAL LEE'S STATUE. (53)

Conrad73: got a Mancrush on that Guy,hmm?

GUZMAN1: Legally he's not a traitor.

President Ford restored Robert E. Lee's Citizenship After 100 Years.

On April 9, 1865, Union Commanding General Ulysses S. Grant accepted the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia near Appomattox Court House from its longtime commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee. The next day Grant signed a parole paper, allowing Lee and his staff officers to return to their homes without legal repercussions.

On May 29, 1865 President Andrew Johnson – who succeeded the assassinated Abraham Lincoln – issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to those former Confederates who participated in the "late Rebellion." This document was a general pardon, but did contain fourteen classes of persons who were barred from the general pardon. These persons, including Lee, were required to make a special application directly to the President.

Lee wrote to President Johnson on June 13, saying in part:

"Being excluded from the provisions of amnesty & pardon contained in the proclamation of the 29th Ulto; I hereby apply for the benefits, & full restoration of all rights & privileges extended to those included in its terms. I graduated at the Mil. Academy at West Point in June 1829. Resigned from the U.S. Army April '61. Was a General in the Confederate Army, & included in the surrender of the Army of N. Va. 9 April '65."

Consequently, Lee was provided with an Amnesty Oath form, which he filled out. Unfortunately, Lee was not fully pardoned, nor was his U.S. citizenship restored. He died 5 years later, still in a kind of limbo. He was buried in the chapel that bears his name at what is today Washington and Lee University.

In 1970, a worker in the National Archives was going through some State Department files from the post-Civil War era. In those files he discovered Lee's Amnesty Oath. Apparently, then-Secretary of State William Seward, having no intention of approving Lee's request for restoring his citizenship, gave Lee's original application to a friend. The agency then pigeonholed Lee's Amnesty Oath, and so matters rested for 100 years.

Five years later, U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr. (VA) introduced Senate Joint Resolution 23, a bill to restore Lee's U.S. citizenship. Passed by both chambers, the measure was signed by President Gerald Ford on August 5, in a ceremony at Arlington House – formerly the Custis-Lee Mansion – on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. In addition to a number of congressional members, about a dozen of Lee's descendants attended the ceremony, including Robert E. Lee V, the general's great-great grandson.