But sure it can't be illegal to confiscate the property of militant terrorists like Lee, who led an armed insurrection against a democratic government?
You know, there are some places in the South of the U.S. where you'd get your teeth punched out for making such a comment. General Lee is still regarded as a hero to many in the South.
Robert E. Lee was no terrorist, nor was he leading an insurrection against the U.S. Government. What happened in that the Southern states had broken away to form their own nation, the Confederate States Of America. They had their own Congress and President (Jefferson Davies). the reason the war started was that Fort Sumter refused to surrender to the South and the South fired on it.
The reason Lee ended up fighting for the South was simple, Virginia, his home state, joined the Confederacy. He thought long and hard about it, before making his decision. The U.S. Military had been good to him, but he loved his home state first. Had Virginia gone the other way, Lee would have been fighting for the Union.
Lee may have fought for the losing side, but he certainly wasn't a terrorist.
It wasn't even his, it was his wife--the step-great-granddaughter of George Washington (through his wife Martha's first marriage). It was known as the Custis-Lee Mansion. The United States has designated the mansion as a National Memorial to Lee, a mark of widespread respect for him in both the North (who wanted him to command the Union Army) and South. The grounds of Arlington themselves are, of course, amongst the most sacred in the country.
Lee's father-in-law died in 1857 and the house and Arlington estate was left to Mary Custis Lee for her lifetime and thence to the Lees' eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee. In May 1861, the Union soldiers took over Arlington, making it the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. In 1864, the federal government confiscated the house and property because the property's owner, Mary Anna Custis Lee, had not paid her property tax in person and purchased it for less than $27,000. As the nearby cemeteries were overflowing with war dead, Arlington's spacious grounds, so close to DC, were selected as the next mass cemetery.
Robert E. Lee and his wife chose not to contest the federal government's seizure of their home. In 1870, after his father's death, the Lee's eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, who had been the rightful inheritor according to his grandfather's will, filed a lawsuit against the United States government to regain his property. In 1882, the Supreme Court finally ruled on the case in a 5-4 decision and found that the estate had been "illegally confiscated" in 1864 and ordered it returned, along with 1,100 acres of surrounding property. In 1883, Custis Lee sold the mansion and property to the U.S. government for $150,000 (roughly equal to $3.5 million today) at a signing ceremony with Secretary of War, Robert Todd Lincoln.
Anyway, an article about Sophie's fight to get the property back:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/world/europe/19castle.html?pagewanted=allThe last 2 paragraphs: "The Ministry of Culture spends more than $800,000 a year to maintain the castle, about the same as the property earns from ticket sales and rental fees for occasional functions. The castle's chapel is popular for weddings.
It is classed as a national cultural historic monument, which means that were von Hohenberg to recover the castle, she would not even be able to move the furniture without approval from the state landmark authorities."
