The Progress of Historical Revisionism at Washington and Lee
By Iain MacLeod ‘22
It is difficult to discuss controversial aspects of history without simultaneously addressing historical revisionism. This concept is usually either criticized as corruptive or defended as essential to the evolution of one’s understanding of history. This article will address the implications of historical revisionism as it occurs at Washington and Lee University, and to do so effectively I will first consider the nature, merits, and foundations of revisionism in general.
There are two frameworks for defining historical revisionism. The first manifests as the adjustment of our understanding of history to reflect new information. Under this definition the operative goal is to maintain an objective view of what occurred in the past and why, based on historical evidence. The second framework identifies some subsection of the total historical record for transmission to society at large. This conception does not aim to provide a complete picture of the past, but instead uses selective historiography to support political or ideological imperatives in the present day. Omissions of known historical evidence are acceptable if they serve to eliminate real or perceived inconsistencies between the complete historical record and the desired ideology or political vision.
It should be noted that the premises of these two definitions are fundamentally at odds with one another. The relevant question is whether history should be an objective pursuit aiming to understand the past accurately (if incompletely), or a subjective one based in an effort to advance ideological ends. To answer this question, the need for the incorporation of authentic and relevant[1] newly discovered information into the historical record is self-evident. On the other hand, any totalitarian regime from the last century demonstrates the long-term consequences of reducing history to an extension of political or ideological aims. Thus, the final judgment of modern historical revisionism depends on which of these frameworks is operative when the term is used today. In practice, it is the subjective framework that is widely in use.
For the sake of an example, I will briefly address the institution of slavery. In the current American consciousness, slavery is almost exclusively presented as an antebellum American institution perpetrated by those of European descent against those of African descent. While reckoning with this dark past is essential for every American, the singular presentation of the institution ignores its prolific nature across history.[2]
Revered as they are as the founders of Western Civilization, the Greeks and Romans practiced various forms of slavery liberally against a broad range of ethnicities,[3] [4] while tribes on the African continent also routinely enslaved those taken prisoner in tribal wars.[5] The 20th century saw an epidemic of de facto slavery perpetrated by Marxist regimes against their working classes even as they claimed to be acting in the best interest of the proletariat.[6] Even today, slavery is still widespread across the world in various forms of forced labor, which includes sex trafficking.[7] [8]
As economist Thomas Sowell noted in his book Discrimination and Disparities, the confined representation of slavery as a primarily American problem cripples one’s ability to recognize that slavery was common and largely accepted worldwide in one form or another until the 18th century, and that its reduction has been a slow process that has never been fully completed. This historical reality suggests that slavery is a danger inherent to any person or group of people who attain too much power over another person or group, regardless of other circumstances. Yet according to the narrow presentation of slavery prevailing in America today, one might be, and many have been, led to believe that slavery is the legacy of one specific group of people, as opposed to a stark reminder of the fundamentally flawed nature of humanity.[9]
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Having established that modern historical revisionism is a perilous subjective phenomenon, the obvious next question is: what ideology and political vision underpins it? While conservative pundits decrying revisionist history most frequently refer to “wokeness,” “social justice ideology,” or “Critical Race Theory” (CRT), these labels (while partially correct) are overly simplistic. None of these three bogeymen exist in a vacuum. Rather, all three are symptoms or evolutions of a parent ideology known as Critical Theory (CT). While it is challenging to summarize CT, it can be traced to a few primary influences.
Critical Theory was first developed by a group of early to mid-20th century German scholars known as the Frankfurt School who modelled themselves off the Marx-Engels institute in Russia. The Frankfurt school’s worldview was based primarily on the ideas of Hegel and Karl Marx.
The Frankfurt School had a problem in the 20th century: the communist economic revolution and proletarian overthrow of the bourgeoisie that Marx had predicted did not occur, except in Russia, where it resulted in the deaths of millions of rich and poor alike under the Soviet Union. Unwilling to consider the possibility that Marxist collectivism was a shibboleth, the Frankfurt School adapted the concept of cultural hegemony, developed in the early 20th century by Antonio Gramsci, into a new “Critical Theory,” a social methodology of Marxism. Critical Theory’s twist on traditional Marxism is to postulate that the masses are deceived by a false perception of individual agency embodied in religion, capitalism, family values, and Western Civilization generally. Such concepts supposedly have no substance except as tools of domination wielded by an inherently oppressive hegemonic ruling class to ensure the maintenance of its own power.
In the wake of Hitler’s rise in Germany, many of the Frankfurt School’s thinkers relocated to American universities to continue their careers. Even as the United States waged its cold war with the hard edge of communism, these thinkers sowed the seeds of their social iteration of Marxism in the American educational system. Critical Theory was further adapted in the mid-20th century by political theorist Herbert Marcuse, who postulated that the proletariat at large was comprised of smaller groups, or “minorities,” who are presumed to be inherently oppressed by cultural hegemons, as in earlier forms of CT. This new iteration of Critical Theory attempted to retroactively rewrite history by reductively framing all social changes as counter hegemonic movements based upon a minority designation.
In terms of concrete goals, Critical Theory is an effort to create a counter-hegemony of social collectivism that could, through the complete deconstruction of all non-collectivist social systems, create a socially and economically equitable society akin to that envisioned by Marxian communism. The difference is that “social justice” and “equity” are redefined in terms of abstract concepts such as “power” and “influence,” in addition to economic interests such as “capital.” It is very important to understand that within the Critical Theory paradigm, “social equity” is not equality before the law as established in the U.S. Constitution, but rather, equality of outcomes – a fundamental tenet of Marxism.[10]
Recent historical examples of legislated outcome-based equity include the Soviet Union, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and Communist China. The historical legacy of outcome-based equity is the enslavement of huge populations to the collectivist whims of their self-styled liberators. Given the consequences of social collectivism, it seems remarkable that outcome-based equity as the basis of society remains so popular.
Enter historical revisionism. Given the marked historical absence of successful large-scale social collectivism, the idea of Critical Theory’s permanence and relevance is achieved through the retroactive deconstruction of objective history, and the reconstitution of historical narratives in terms of oppressor-oppressed dichotomies based in Critical Theory. Returning to the example of slavery, it is now clearer why the institution is framed almost exclusively in terms of its American variant. As long as it is kept in a vacuum and global variations of slavery across time are minimized or ignored, southern plantation slavery appears consistent with CT’s offshoot, Critical Race Theory.
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Defenses of subjective historical revisionism tend to take the form of moral suasion based in a partisan view of historical events and their significance. Critical Theories and pro-Confederate Lost Cause ideology both adopt this approach. While such obfuscations muddy the waters of debate on revisionism, the inescapably historical nature of Washington and Lee’s campus provides a path to cut through this rhetorical red tape. The responsibility of preserving and presenting both W&L’s institutional history and its contributions to American history at large fall upon the university’s Board of Trustees as firmly as does their responsibility to educate current and future generations of college students.
This does not mean that all outcomes exhibiting symptoms of a revisionist motive can bypass moral and ideological considerations. For example, the question of whether images of George Washington and Robert E. Lee should remain on W&L Diplomas cannot be resolved solely on historical grounds (although such considerations are relevant). That said, when it comes to the preservation and presentation of historical sites on campus, historical revisionism can be isolated somewhat from ideological rhetoric and considered objectively as a process, not just an outcome.
When considering historical preservation on W&L’s campus, the natural first place to look is Lee Chapel, or, as it is now officially called, University Chapel. Unfortunately, the change in title only scratches the surface of the many recent changes to the structure and its presentation. The removal of all plaques from the Chapel’s auditorium is a well-known and controversial phenomenon within the university community, although the plaques do not appear to be permanently gone. According to Drewry Sackett, Executive Director of Communications and Public Affairs for W&L: “The majority of the plaques are being stored in the University Chapel. A handful of the heaviest plaques are being stored off-site. We expect that most of the plaques will be displayed in the future museum of history.”[11]
Concerns that changing the Chapel’s name could affect its National Historic Landmark status also appear to be unfounded. According to Director of Institutional History Lynn Rainville: “Changing the Chapel’s name did not affect its status as a National Historic Landmark, nor is the university working to have the Chapel’s National Historic Landmark, or National or State Historic Registry, status revoked.”[12]
That being said, there has been a fundamental administrative shift in the representation of the Chapel’s historical significance of which the W&L community at large is not aware. When I further asked Dr. Rainville if the university considered the Chapel to be historically significant to the Civil War Era, she referred me to her own response to the same question and said: “No. As a post-bellum structure whose original intent was unrelated to the Civil War, the University Chapel’s historical significance lies outside the Civil War era.”[13]
This claim directly contradicts the Chapel’s National Historic Landmark designation, issued in 1961, which explicitly references the Civil War as one of the Chapel’s points of significance.[14] When I asked whether the University was seeking to have the basis of the National Historic Landmark designation changed to reflect this shift in policy, Dr Rainville responded: “No.”[15]
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There are three problems with this characterization of the Chapel’s significance. First, the Chapel must logically be considered historically significant to the Civil War if only because Robert E. Lee, unquestionably one of the most important historical figures in that war, is buried in the Chapel.
Second, representing the Chapel as a postbellum structure fails to account for the delayed readmission of seceded states to the Union and the implications of this fact on setting a concrete date for the war’s end. Traditionally, the Civil War is represented as having ended with the successive surrenders of Lee and Johnston at Appomattox and Durham Station in April 1865. However, formerly seceded states were not readmitted to the Union in 1865 but were, with the exception of Tennessee, organized into five military districts under U.S. Army occupation under the First Reconstruction Act of 1867. The former states were required to draft new state constitutions ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment and barring former Confederates from holding office prior to readmission into the United States.[16]
Virginia achieved readmission to the Union on January 26, 1870, after comprising Military District Number One for almost three years.[17] Considering that the South was treated as an occupational zone pending new state constitutions during the late 1860’s, there is a strong historical argument to be made that the Civil War did not actually end until Georgia’s final readmission to the Union on July 15, 1870, and that the Chapel, constructed in 1868, should be considered a wartime structure.[18]
The third problem with the current administrative characterization of the Chapel’s significance is the ahistorical argument that its “original intent” had no bearing upon the Civil War, leaving the Chapel with no historical significance to the Civil War. This doctrine of “original intent” is easily refutable.
Using that same “original intent” framework, a building like Independence Hall would not be historically significant to the American Founding because it was not originally intended to be the site of America’s Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and, later, the Constitutional Convention. Similarly, Mount Vernon should not be preserved in its late-18th century state because it was not originally intended as a museum complex dedicated to the life of our nation’s first president. Likewise, the Alamo would not be historically significant because it was not originally intended as the site of Santa Anna’s massacre of Texas revolutionaries.
Returning to Washington and Lee, the first public use of the doctrine of “original intent” occurred in the Board of Trustees’ announcement of the future of Washington and Lee University on June 4, 2021, with reference to the Chapel. Their email said: “Lee Chapel will be renamed ‘University Chapel,’ in keeping with its original 19th-century name of ‘College Chapel.’ The board will oversee and approve interior changes to restore its unadorned design and physically separate the auditorium from the Lee family crypt and Lee memorial sculpture.”[19]
This announcement foretold the removal of all plaques from the Chapel auditorium. Far from expanding the presentation of history to reflect newly discovered information, this action compromised the historical integrity of the site by removing historical artifacts from their original location and enabling incorrect dual interpretations of the plaques’ and Chapel’s histories when they ought to be considered together, literally and figuratively.
Dr. Rainville’s complete denial of any connection between the Chapel and the Civil War takes this doctrine of “original intent” one step further by ignoring the Chapel’s symbolic role in promoting reconciliation between the Civil War’s belligerents. Throughout the remainder of Lee’s presidency after its construction, the Chapel was at the center of his efforts to educate students both practically and morally. Outside of successive generations of W&L students themselves, the Chapel is the most potent remaining symbol of his efforts to promote reconciliation after his surrender at Appomattox.
For example, soon after his arrival in Lexington in 1865, Robert E. Lee arranged with local ministers to rotate in leading church services and commissioned the Chapel when the room in Washington Hall originally used for church services proved insufficiently large. He led by example in attending these (voluntary) services both in their original location on campus and in the Chapel after its completion each morning, before retiring to his office in the Chapel’s basement to attend to college business.[20] The Chapel also was, and has continued to be, used for other university events. It is deeply tied to Washington & Lee’s Honor System, as the place where incoming freshman are introduced to this unique bond of trust, and where public Honor Trials have traditionally been conducted for undergraduates.[21]
Regardless of the exact methodology for establishing the historical significance of the Chapel, it is indisputable that the National Park Service explicitly referenced the Civil War in establishing basis for the Chapel’s National Historic Landmark designation. The fact that the Washington and Lee administration is not trying to have the basis of the site’s National Historic Landmark status changed is a de facto concession that denying the Chapel’s significance to the Civil War is motivated not by history, but by ideology.
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In their email on June 4, 2021, the Board of Trustees did not acknowledge Washington and Lee’s nature as a historical site distinct from its nature as a place of higher learning, thus abdicating their responsibility to preserve history for its own sake. In another incident of ahistorical exposition, President Dudley unilaterally represented Robert E. Lee as a Confederate and symbol of racial oppression in an official email headlined “Priorities, Actions, and Next Steps” from June 23, 2020.[22]
These official communications and the subsequent rhetorical and physical changes to the presentation of the Chapel reflect Washington and Lee’s administrative alignment with a revisionist interpretation of Robert E. Lee’s life and legacy. This revisionist narrative emphasizes Lee’s four years as a Confederate general, while downplaying or ignoring altogether his exceptional pre-Civil War career in the U.S. Army,[23] his limited but firm condemnation of slavery as immoral,[24] [25] his audacious promotion of conditional emancipation within the Confederacy in early 1865,[26] and his efforts to promote education and national reunion after the Civil War.[27]
Furthermore, the revisionist narrative defines Lee’s legacy almost exclusively through his posthumous adoption as the patron saint of the pro-Confederate Lost Cause. While nascent from Appomattox onward, the Lost Cause mythology did not fully take shape until well after Lee’s death, and his canonization was far more reflective of an effort by the movement’s architects to render it more palatable than it was of any desire of Lee’s to be remembered as its hero. Lee had no intention of becoming the face of postbellum southern nationalism and retired instead to the presidency of a small college in an isolated area, promoted reunion, cooperated with federal authorities, and punished students for verifiable acts of lawlessness or interference in the affairs of freedmen.[28] [29]
The W&L administration’s paradigm shift in the preservation and presentation of the Chapel tends to obscure the connection between it, Lee, and his efforts towards reconciling the Civil War’s belligerents after his surrender at Appomattox. This reduces the clear tension between the revisionist narrative of Lee’s legacy and historical reality by rendering Lee’s connection to the Chapel as distant as possible. It should also be noted that this rhetorical shift aligns very closely with the framework for historical revision based in Critical Theories that I established earlier.
Why the Board of Trustees has conceded so far to the brave new world of historical erasure as to abdicate their responsibility of historical preservation is unclear. The Board has chosen not to respond directly to most assertions of historical deconstruction at Washington and Lee, even as they have gone out of their way to address the concerns of those advocating for revisionist deconstruction. This should alarm defenders of historical preservation and the objective interpretation of history. Critical Theories are premised on the complete deconstruction of traditional institutions, and its promotors never stop calling for more concessions until the entire incumbent system has been dismantled and completely eliminated.
Robert E. Lee is a remarkable and admirable man in many ways. He is also a cautionary tale, an example of what can happen when one follows personal loyalties so guilelessly as to be co-opted into a perceived champion of ideas that one finds distasteful or even wrong. The lessons of his triumphs, his failures, and his rectification of those failures are essential aspects of American History. If the erasure of Lee’s legacy as a college president is completed as it has begun, then we will remember only his sins, forget his endeavors for redemption, and be the worse for it.
[1] Not all new information will always be authentic and relevant; there might be questions over whether or not an archeological artifact is real or fake, or, for example, whether a letter written by one historical figure to another should be considered as relevant to the actions of the recipient at a later time.
[2] Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities (New York, Hachette Book Group, 2019), 219-222.
[3] “Slavery in ancient Greece: what was life like for enslaved people?” historyextra.com, History Extra: The official website for BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed, Accessed February 4, 2022, https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/slavery-ancient-greece-life-society/
[4] “Slavery in Ancient Rome,” britishmuseum.org, The British Museum, Accessed February 4, 2022, https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/nero-man-behind-myth/slavery-ancient-rome
[5] Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, 221.
[6] Ibid, 221-222.
[7] Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, “What is Modern Slavery?” state.gov, U.S. Department of State, Accessed February 4, 2022, https://www.state.gov/what-is-modern-slavery/
[8] “Human Trafficking,” migrationdataportal.org, Migration Data Portal, Updated May 6, 2021, https://www.migrationdataportal.org/themes/human-trafficking
[9] Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, 219, 221.
[10] Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzales, “Critical Race Theory, the New Intolerance, and its Grip on America,” Heritage.Org, The Heritage Foundation, December 7 2020, https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/report/critical-race-theory-the-new-intolerance-and-its-grip-america/#_ftnref154 The four preceding paragraphs outlining Critical Theory are most directly based upon the two sections of this report titled “Critical Theory” and “Critical Theory and its Early Applications.” That said, there are references to other parts of the report, which is well worth reading in total and perusing for its 100+ sources on Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, and other issues contained therein.
[11] Email from Ms. Drewry Sackett to myself, received Monday, December 13, 2021, at 12:48 PM.
[12] Email from Dr. Lynn Rainville to myself, received Friday, January 7, 2022, at 1:04 PM.
[13] Email from Dr. Lynn Rainville to myself, answering questions I asked in a prior email: “Do you consider the University Chapel historically significant to the Civil War era?” “No.” “If so, why, and if not, why not?” “As a post-bellum structure whose original intent was unrelated to the Civil War, the University Chapel’s historical significance lies outside the Civil War era.” “Is it true that the University does not consider the University Chapel to be historically significant to the Civil War era?” “See above.” received Friday, January 21, 2022, at 11:27 AM.
[14] “Virginia NHL Lee Chapel, Washington and Lee University” catalog.archives.gov, National Archives Catalog, Accessed February 2, 2022, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41679071
[15] Email from Dr. Lynn Rainville to myself, received Friday January 21, 2022, at 11:27 AM.
[16] Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York, HarperCollins, 1988), 43-45, 261, 276-277.
[17] “Reconstruction,” lva.virginia.gov, Library of Virginia, Accessed February 4, 2022, https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/civil-war/reconstruction.htm
[18] Gregory P. Downs, After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2015), 1-8. While representing the war as ending at Appomattox has remained situationally convenient for both northern historiographers and defenders of Lost Cause ideology (for different reasons of course), Downs’ book outlines the practical inaccuracy of the mainstream representation of the war’s end both thoroughly and directly.
[19] Email from the Board of Trustees to the “W&L” [Washington and Lee] Community, Friday, June 4, 2021, at 10:47 AM.
[20] R. David Cox, Lee Chapel at 150: A History (Buena Vista, Mariner, 2018), 14-16, 18-19, 38-39.
[21] Ibid 37-40, 73-75, 167, 185-186, 211-213, 218-220, 226, 234, 238-240.
[22] Email from President Will Dudley to the “W&L” [Washington and Lee] Community, “some of you have expressed the conflict you feel between your love of W&L and your concern about our prominent association with Robert E. Lee, whose presidency transformed the university, but who also led the Confederate army in defending slavery and has come to symbolize the defense of racial oppression that we unequivocally reject.” Tuesday, June 23, 2020, at 1:26 PM.
[23] Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee (New York, Norton, 1995), 49-54, 125-133, 140-142, 161-162, 180-183.
[24] Ibid, 173.
[25] Allen C. Guelzo, Robert E. Lee: A Life (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2021), 144-146.
[26] Ibid, 345-348.
[27] Thomas, Robert E. Lee, 375, 396-397, 399-400.
[28] Ibid, 375, 381, 383-384, 386-388, 391-392.
[29] Ollinger Crenshaw, General Lee’s College: The Rise and Growth of Washington and Lee University (New York, Random House, 1969), 171-172, 175, 177-178, 181.