Dialogue with Robert E.Lee and Abraham Lincoln

Meeting of the Minds Dialogue: ROBERT E LEE and Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln: General?

Robert E. Lee: Mr. President. It's been a long time!

Abraham Lincoln: Long, indeed! We spent a lot of time on opposing sides but both with our own cause. It's nice to see we both are in the same place on this side of life.

Robert E. Lee: I agree! Not that I have ever had any doubt about you. Such a noble man, whose life was cut short. I often wondered how things would have come together differently, after the war, if Booth had not taken you from the world.

Abraham Lincoln: There is a purpose and plan in all things – even your choices. You were the best general – one of the best this nation, even divided, would ever see. I admired your choice to stay with your native state, Virginia, even though you could have easily and more led our Union forces than any other officer. I remember the terrible feeling I felt when I learned that you would instead lead the army of the Confederacy. I knew then that the war would not be a quick –or an easy one.

Robert E. Lee: Despite the result, I would not change my course of action. Ironic though – to think I would lead United States Marines into Harper's Ferry to rescue our arsenals from that John Brown and a year-and-a-half later be leading the army against one that had been my own. So many of us felt that way. To have been brothers seemed to fuel our hatred once we were on opposite sides of the fence.

Abraham Lincoln: The tragedy of a war between its own people. Do you suppose it could have been avoided?

Robert E. Lee: I do not. Not at the rate it was going. The seeds of war were planted long before 1861. Why the very foundations of North and South were founded with extreme differences that date back to colonization, but those last ten years…one event right after another.

Abraham Lincoln: Let's not forget 1820- excluding slavery north of Missouri's southern line.

Robert E. Lee: The Missouri situation did keep us out of war. Had that not happened perhaps we would have resolved the issues long before the 1860s. I suppose you could say it delayed the war in one way - had we resolved it right then, maybe we could have stayed out of war.

Abraham Lincoln: There is a plan and a purpose. It was not the right time. It would take the 1850s to create the urgency for war.

Robert E. Lee: I suppose it started, literally, in 1850. When the balance of slave versus free states was upset by California entering the Union…

Abraham Lincoln: and the North was compelled to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law

Robert E. Lee: Then…the Kansas-Nebraska Act…

Abraham Lincoln: undoing the slavery boundary set by the Missouri Compromise…

Robert E. Lee: would fuel the fires, especially abolitionists and extremists, like John Brown, who would use this decision to drive his determination to commit crimes in their own way.

Abraham Lincoln: Bleeding Kansas. That little state had its own Civil War.

Robert E. Lee: The Dred Scot Decision did not help either. ??

Abraham Lincoln: No – it basically said to Mr. Scott he was not considered a person since he had no right to even bring the issue to court and technically was a slave anywhere – even a free state.

Robert E. Lee: The Fugitive Slave Law at its best. And of course, John Brown would resurface in Virginia – at the time.