To the Editor:
It is unfortunate and, I daresay, disappointing that Mayor William Euille, an otherwise serious and thoughtful African American, apparently felt compelled to issue a proclamation, on behalf of the City Council, honoring the Confederate General Robert E. Lee (opinion, Jan. 23-29).
Euille should have considered the words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who upon hearing of Lee's death in 1870, wrote: "We can scarcely take up a newspaper that is not filled with nauseating flatteries of Lee, from which it would seem … that the soldier who killed the most men in battle, even in a bad cause, is the greatest Christian, and entitled to the highest place in heaven." Elsewhere Douglass added: "We feel no remorse at the passing of Robert E. Lee. During the war he did all he could to destroy the government, and since the war he has labored to keep alive the embers of sectional discord. He was also a base traitor who violated his constitutional oath - and he was a cruel slavemaster." What was true for Douglass in 1870 remains true today in 2014.
Craig Taylor
Alexandria