Taking down Confederate monuments ‘won’t change a thing’
5/27/2021, 6 p.m.
Re Cityscape, Free Press May 20-22 edition:
The Richmond Free Press doth protest too much, methinks.
Social justice warriors in high dudgeon, sniffing out any hint of Confederate monuments hereabouts, had an “Aha!” moment, finding a stone placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy nearly 100 years ago beside the highway named after the “traitor” Jefferson Davis.
Of course, in spite of the Richmond Free Press’ weekly wishful thinking, Jefferson Davis was not any more a traitor for defending his homeland from invasion than George Washington was. Neither Jefferson Davis nor any other Confederate was tried for treason, much less convicted, even during the vindictive corruption of radical Reconstruction.
The fear was that Jefferson Davis would be acquitted and the true treason of President Abraham Lincoln would be brought to light for bringing on an unconstitutional war. President Lincoln did not recognize that the Confederate States were out of the Union, so he committed treason under Article III, section 3 of the Con- stitution by invading them, which is the sole definition of treason in the U.S. Constitution. You may look it up.
Nonetheless, you may cast about such specious accusations until you are blue in the face, and tear down every Confederate monument on the planet Earth, but it won’t change a thing. It most certainly hasn’t imparted any wisdom to some of the writers at the Richmond Free Press.
H.V. TRAYWICK
Richmond
