I did say in my original post, "we are assuming that Lee would have been willing here to except such a calling. Which I don't thing he would have. But for the sake of discussion here we are saying that he would have done so." I would assume that for the sake of discussion, since we are dealing with a hypothetical senerio here anyway, that we would also assume that Lee would have been in a medical condition to have accepted the call, if he were to accept such service. We do have Senators in Congress today who are well into their 90's with all their medical problems. One, an ex-K.K.K. member from West Virginia, comes to mind.
The fact is that several ex-confederates who still had their Citizenship were elected to the U.S. Congress in 1865, in accordence to the laws at that time. But were denied their seats by the northern delegation in Congress in December 1865. A questionable action.
As we all know that Lee was "historically" denied an such oppertunity by having his citizenship rights denied until well after his death. Over a hundred years later in fact. Something that under the Constitution is again legally questionable.
Personally, I believe that was the real reason that citizenship was denied to certain southerners. Was to keep such persons as Lee and Davis from being elected to Congress repersenting the southern states, like Joe Wheeler and others were in the 1890's. Dening citizenship was not part of Lincoln's restoration plan for reuniting the country after the War.
My point in this discussion, is that Lee, post war between 1865 and his death in 1870, did enjoy having the respect of many people and was a highly regarded person, at least among the people of the south, particularly in Virginia.
And by the way, who was Grover Cleveland anyway? What claim to fame, besides being elected President, did he have? And why was he elected instead of his Republican counterparts? My question was how many could anyone name, republican or democrat, without looking them up in a history book. We use to have to memorize all the Presidents in grade school. I will bet you they don't it today.