The culmination of the five year effort which saw the passage of US Joint Resolution 23, begun on the centenary of the 1870 death Confederate general and increased interest in the figure as evinced by growing tourism to Georgia’s Stone Mountain memorial site and other commemorations, on this day in 1975 Gerald Ford (previously) signed into law a declaration championed by senator Harry Byrd of Virginia to posthumously restore citizenship to Robert E Lee. 
In 1865, after the civil war concluded Lee was paroled and took an oath of allegiance to the United States, petitioning for the revocation of citizenship to be nullified. Portrayed by proponents of the bill as clerical oversight on the part of secretary of state William Seward for not processing the pardon application, thus leaving him a stateless individual, while detractors thought such a symbolic gesture strengthened the mythology and romance of the Confederate cause and was a legitimising acknowledgement of Lee’s status as an icon and cultural hero—something which Lee himself rejected as counterproductive to healing the rift of fighting the war. After the civil war, Washington, DC appropriated Lee’s mansion and grounds in Arlington, Virginia and designated it the National Cemetery, in part so Lee and his family would never be able to return home.
one year ago: Trump assures Christian supporters that if they vote for him this once, they’ll never have to worry about voting again (with synchronopticรฆ) plus assorted links worth revisiting
twelve years ago: the Moses Bridge Stairs
thirteen years ago: smoking is derpy
fourteen years ago: the debt-ceiling and creative accounting
