Should Robert E. Lee Have Been Tried For Treason?

[Bicoastal]

29. The hindsight of history makes geniuses out of us all...

Did you know that when people talked about The United States before the civil war, they meant it as plural--as in, "The United States are having an election this year?" And that when Americans spoke of their country, they meant the state they grew up and lived in?

The fact is, since there was really no other nation to compare it to up until that time, both in terms of geographical size and democratic law, people really had a hard time imagining the USA as a cohesive country until after the civil war. People on both sides of the Mason-Dixon were usually more loyal to state than country because that was the only world they really knew; there was no mass media or transportation back then to make all Americans seem connected. As the country got bigger and more populous, the Presidents and the federal government became less and less powerful until you had 20 years of no-names like Tyler, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan, who seemed almost beside the point. Lincoln, of course, changed all that.

I give Lee the benefit of a doubt. He stuck by Virginia, right or wrong, because that's what people did at the time. He also lost his US military rank and his home, so its not like he escaped unscathed. We also had quite a lot of Southerners who would never have forgiven us if we had hanged him, and Lincoln wanted peace above all.