Good morning. In this next edition of our America 250 series, we’re moving forward into the 19th century to look at two giants of American history, but for very different reasons.

In the past half-decade, a burning hatred has ignited against Robert E. Lee, as angry agitators rush to tear down his statues and erase him from the American memory. However, Lee was not only a military genius but a man of upstanding courage and patriotism. We'll get into why he deserves to be remembered as a hero in our stern defense of the man.

Our second essay will debunk popular leftist ideas about race and victimhood as we shine a spotlight on Booker T. Washington, one of the great men of America’s post-slavery era.

For most of American history, Robert E. Lee was regarded as an American hero of upstanding courage and military genius. This consensus largely held across the political and ideological spectrum.

It is only in the last decade that many have attempted to reduce Lee's legacy to the fact that he commanded Confederate forces during the Civil War, defending a regime dedicated to preserving the immoral practice of slavery. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, multiple Lee monuments were torn down in a sweeping rage to erase the past.

His enemies are not only wrong in their iconoclasm but also fail to understand who Robert E. Lee was.

Long before the Civil War, Lee devoted more than three decades to the United States Army. A graduate of West Point, he distinguished himself during the Mexican-American War, a conflict that resulted in the acquisition of vast territories that would become California, Nevada, Utah, and large portions of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Lee's exceptional performance earned him repeated promotions and eventually led to his appointment as superintendent of West Point itself.

When Virginia seceded in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln's administration considered him for command of Union forces. Instead, Lee resigned his commission and followed his home state. This was an agonizing choice for him, forcing him to side with a movement opposed to the country he once fought for.

Whether one agrees with that decision or not, it was rooted in a conception of loyalty that was common among Americans of his era. Lee had expressed reservations about both slavery and secession (he once called slavery "a moral and political evil" in a letter to his wife), yet he believed he could not take up arms against his home state, of which his ancestors were some of its earliest inhabitants.

As commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee became one of history's most respected military leaders. Even Winston Churchill praised his military genius. More importantly, after the Confederacy's defeat, Lee did not encourage bitterness or resistance. He urged reconciliation with the victors and accepted the war's outcome, and devoted the remainder of his life to education as president of Washington College.

Perhaps the strongest defense of Lee came from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who kept Lee's portrait in his office. Responding to those who criticized him for displaying the portrait, Eisenhower wrote that Lee was "a poised and inspiring leader" and concluded, "a nation of men of Lee's calibre would be unconquerable in spirit and soul."

Most Americans do not honor Robert E. Lee because he led the struggle for secession and the upholding of slavery. They honor him because he embodied duty, courage, self-sacrifice, and reconciliation in one of the nation's darkest hours.

If America is looking for an antidote to the modern politics of victimhood and racial pessimism, it should rediscover Booker T. Washington.

Washington was born into slavery in Virginia in 1856. He never knew his father. After emancipation, he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines as a young boy while teaching himself to read.

Desperate for an education, he traveled hundreds of miles — much of it on foot — to attend the Hampton Institute in Virginia. He cleaned classrooms and performed manual labor to pay his tuition. From those humble beginnings, Washington would go on to become the most influential black leader in America.

In 1881, Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. What began as a few dilapidated buildings grew into one of the nation's premier educational institutions.

By the time of his death, Tuskegee sat on thousands of acres, educated more than a thousand students, and produced generations of teachers, businessmen, and many more categories of successful Americans. Washington chose not to harbor racial hatred despite growing up as a slave.

What made him such a formidable and towering figure was his belief that true freedom demanded education, self-discipline, economic independence, and strong moral character. Washington exemplified all of these, leading to a drastic increase in his fame and prominence in both America and Europe.

In fact, his rise was so extraordinary that he truly became one of the most famous Americans of the era. During his nationwide speaking tours, Washington regularly traveled by train across the country and encountered huge numbers of his supporters.

In his autobiography, Up From Slavery, he recounts how white Americans would frequently approach him at stations and on trains simply to shake his hand, thank him for his work, and express their admiration. Industrial titans like Andrew Carnegie sought his counsel. President Theodore Roosevelt famously hosted him for dinner, provoking outrage from Southern segregationists who could not tolerate a black man receiving such public respect.

Washington's life is a direct repudiation of many of the modern Left’s — and indeed many of all Americans’ — assumptions about race in America. Only by American meritocracy was Washington able to rise, a man who was born into the worst possible circumstances but ascended through sheer perseverance and a refusal to cling to resentment and hate.

Though some tried, Washington was not beaten down by white Americans. Indeed, it was only with the support and admiration of many white Americans that he succeeded so enormously.

While he faced hostility from segregationists and racial absolutists, he also earned the respect of millions who recognized his intellect and achievements. Washington refused to answer hatred with hatred, choosing instead to appeal to the better angels of the American character.

More than a century after his death, America could benefit greatly from once again embodying this message.

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