Its lead historian, Conner Williams of Yale, calls Confederates traitors and King George III called the American Colonists traitors too, so Confederates are in Good Company
In the secession debate in the South in the year leading up to states seceding, the most widely quoted phrase came from the Declaration of Independence:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The "Form of Government" destructive of the ends of self-government in the South was the federal government dominated by the Northern majority that had sent terrorists like John Brown into the South to murder, rape and rob Southerners. Ohio and Iowa protected Brown's terrorist sons from extradition to Virginia to stand trial then Northerners celebrated Brown as a hero when brought to justice.
Before that it was Hinton Helper's The Impending Crisis that called for the throats of Southerners to be cut in the night. The Republican Party - the party of the North pledged against the South - as Wendell Phillips proudly proclaimed, printed hundreds of thousands and distributed them coast to coast as a campaign document in 1860.
There was also massive taxation that caused Southerners to pay three-fourths of the country's taxes while three-fourth of the tax money was being spent in the North. Henry L. Benning, for whom Fort Benning, Georgia used to be named, said "Eighty-five millions is the amount of the drains from the South to the North in one year, - drains in return for which the South receives nothing."
Benning then predicted the bloody war with precision:
The North cut off from Southern cotton, rice, tobacco, and other Southern products would lose three fourths of her commerce, and a very large proportion of her manufactures. And thus those great fountains of finance would sink very low. . . . Would the North in such a condition as that declare war against the South?
That's not something Connor Williams would understand because he is a politicized historian working for a political commission established by the most historically ignorant, virtue signaling, characterless politician in American history, Elizabeth Warren, his fellow New Englander, who claimed she was an Indian for years to game the Affirmation Action system at Harvard when she is as white as the pure driven snow.
The real traitors are traitors to truth and falsifiers of history as exemplified by the naming commission, which knew the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery symbolized the reconciliation of North and South, but deliberately left that out of their report to Congress.
The reconciliation theme is not a "my interpretation of history versus theirs." It is indisputable and was established by Arlington National Cemetery itself - in numerous places and in great detail - in their application for ANC's Historic District to be on the National Register of Historic Places. That application was approved in 2014.
How could reconciliation not be the theme when four presidents - William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson - with veterans North and South, blessed it and enthusiastically participated in its construction and dedication. Another president, Warren G. Harding, sent a message of condolence to the Arlington funeral of the Confederate Monument's famous sculptor, Moses Ezekiel, himself a VMI Confederate soldier.
The year before the Confederate Memorial was dedicated, 1913, was the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg with its famous handshakes across the wall by the old Union and Confederate veterans.
The Confederate Memorial was the brainchild of former Union soldier and later president, William McKinley, who said:
. . . every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate civil war is a tribute to American valor . . . And the time has now come . . . when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers . . . The cordial feeling now happily existing between the North and South prompts this gracious act and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in this year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.
But this is what naming commission vice chair Ty Seidule said in his hate screed, Robert E. Lee and Me, on page 162:
Of the thousands of monuments around the country to the Confederacy, the one in Arlington National Cemetery angers me the most. Every year, the commander in chief sends a wreath, ensuring the Confederate monument receives all the prestige of the U.S. government. That's why it riles me so much. . . .
Seidule admits that the Confederate Memorial stands for reconciliation, but if he had put that in the naming commission's report to Congress, it would be obvious that the Confederate Memorial is not in the naming commission's remit, therefore they could not have it destroyed and satiate Seidule's personal hatred.
In Robert E. Lee and Me, Seidule continues on page 162:
I know both political parties and white citizens in the North and South brought the country back together after the tremendous bloodletting and destruction of the Civil War. The posts named for Confederate officers during World War I also served to knit white America back together as it fought a common foe. And it worked, but we must recognize that reconciliation came at a steep and horrifying cost. African Americans paid the price with lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the loss of the franchise. The price for white reconciliation remains far too high. (Bold emphasis added.)
It is clear, by the public admission of the naming commission's vice chair, that the Confederate Memorial and all the Army bases named for Confederates came about because of the reconciliation of our great country and therefore NONE of them are in the naming commission's remit as is required for the naming commission to have any say about their future.
In other words, the naming commission, based on lies caused by the deliberate omission of historical facts, arguably illegally, stated that the Army bases named for Confederates are in their remit and should be changed, and Moses Ezekiel's world-class 109 year old monument in Arlington National Cemetery should be destroyed.
A law suit should be filed immediately on these grounds.
The Army bases and the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery are not in the naming commission's remit. They do not commemorate the Confederacy. They commemorate the reconciliation of our country and to everybody except Ty Seidule, that is a good thing.
We should make this a fight to remove the horribly damaging Wokeness now in our military that has caused the United States Navy to use a drag queen for recruiting, and blesses men in women's barracks and showers. How out of touch with reality can you get.
Below are two articles annihilating the historical fraud that Confederates are traitors. Confederates are the heroes of American history, heirs to the Founding Fathers, who fought a good fight on constitutional principle then rejoined our country with enthusiasm. That's why 44% of the United States military has historically been recruited in the South.
One of the articles I wrote as a letter-to-the-editor of the Charleston Post and Courier responding to a person who had called the crew of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, traitors. The Hunley was the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship in combat.
The second is from Lloyd Garnett, recently published on the Abbeville Institute blog as "The 'Confederates Were Traitors' Argument Is Ahistorical."
Following Garnett's piece are several important links to Defend Arlington and the fight to prevent the degradation of Arlington National Cemetery, which would occur if the 109 year old Confederate Reconciliation Memorial is destroyed, leaving over 500 graves in concentric circles around a mangled shaft in our nation's most sacred burial ground.
This will tear the fabric of our nation in such a way that it can never be repaired.
