General Lee and His Heirs

Southerners scored a sentimental victory last week when the House, following the Senate, voted to restore full citizenship to General Robert E. Lee, a mere 110 years after he had applied for it. Another old Southern question was not so tranquilly disposed of, namely the question of black citizens' right to vote.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had largely settled the issue, imposing fed eral supervision on any state where fewer than half the voters were registered and literacy tests were required.

Six Southern states fell into that category. After the passage of the act, black registration in the South rose from 1 million to 3.5 million, and black officeholders from 72 to 1,600. But the act expires on Aug. 6. In dispute was whether to extend it and for how long.

President Ford, apparently appealing to Southern audiences, weighed in with a statement that any extension should apply equally to all states, a theoretically admirable suggestion with little practical purpose. (And the new measure does extend coverage to other groups such as Indians, Latins in the Southwest and Asiatics in Hawaii.) Though the South claims that the Voting Rights Act represents a kind of reverse discrimination, there may be no other way of continuing to restrain pressures against black voting. Except for one minor compromise -- extending the act for seven years instead of the ten years voted by the House -- Senate liberals apparently had the votes to beat off any amendments and pass the renewal.

General Lee, whose application for citizenship included a pledge to "faith fully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves," would not have objected.

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