The ideological conflict culminating in the American Civil War is still relevant today. Contemporary ideological battles of the centralization of political power, the constitutional rule of law, political obligation, and the role of the Christian tradition in public affairs that are currently being waged were the core issues of North versus South 150 years ago. Robert E. Lee is still relevant because he understood the far-reaching ideological ramifications of the Civil War. He understood that should the Confederacy be defeated, America would be eventually transformed from a federal republic to the type of empire from which the leaders of the American Revolution sought to escape. Lee fought with all his might against the establishment of an empire in which the American people would cease to be self-governing, the ancestral constitutional rule of law decimated, and the Judeo-Christian tradition in public affairs eroded. By focusing on Lee, [this book] not only provides a sharpened understanding of the real causes of the American Civil War and the motivating factors behind Lee's decision to side with the South, but also reveals how that war was the watershed development in the transformation of these United States. -- From the publisher.

Defense of Traditional American Principles -- Confederate Constitutional Principles -- Political Obligation in a Federal Republic -- The Discerning Christian -- Lee's Two-front War -- Lee under Hostile Political Fire.