Letter to the Editor In Response to Mr. Trottier on the Confederate Memorial

By Kitty Discher

Age 20

On May 30th, Mr. Martin Trottier expressed his displeasure at President Obama’s observance of the Confederate Memorial on Memorial Day. I would like to address a small part of the problems with Mr. Trottier’s complaint.

First, why should a custom observed by past presidents now be reversed? Why should Mr. Obama fail to carry on established traditions, and why should his observance of this tradition be upsetting? It is arrogant to presume the president should disregard this tribute because of the probability he disagrees with the cause memorialized at the Confederate Memorial.

My second concern is this: What proofs have you that the Confederate soldiers weren’t fighting for freedom and to carry on the ideas set forth in the Constitution? To my knowledge they were pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in defense of the Constitution, and the principles of liberty fought for and won in the First War for Independence. They were attempting to keep the true America – the true Constitutional Republic – alive, contrary to our Northern brethren who insisted on continually breaking the laws laid down by our founders. The idea taught to the past several generations that my Southern ancestors were greedy, slave-beating, ignorant, arrogant, and wealthy bigots fighting to keep their slaves is a false, ignorant, and severely doctored one.

I’d like to point out the irony of Mr. Trottier’s insinuation that the Federal armies were attempting to keep the Union together, whereas the Confederate armies were trying to tear the Union apart. Though the Confederates did secede, it was only as a last resort. They were pushed to it by the continual breaching of the Supreme Law of the Land by the Northern States. Also, it seems odd that Mr. Lincoln’s idea of keeping together a freedom-based Union of freedom-loving people was to forcibly coerce 11 sovereign states and their citizens to be a part of the so-called freedom loving Union, falling under un-Constitutional tariffs and laws.

In conclusion, Sherman’s March to the Sea, endorsed and tolerated by Lincoln, was in no imaginable way a swift ride to put down military insurrection and spread the doctrine of brotherly love to fellow countrymen. The total destruction of civilian homes and cities, the murder of our elderly and sick, the assault of our women, the starvation of our children, the murder and pressing of the Southern Negroes into the Union Army was a strong contrast to the peaceful and strictly military invasion of General Lee into Pennsylvania. (See the many eye-witness accounts of Sherman’s atrocities, and General Lee’s General Order No. 72)

I close with this quote from the New York Tribune on December 17, 1860. “If it (Declaration of Independence) justifies the secession from the British empire of 3,000,000 of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of 5,000,000 of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861. If we are mistaken on this point, why does not some one attempt to show wherein why?”

I join with Mr. Trottier in thanking all those who sacrificed for our country and our freedoms! Their sacrifice shall not be forgotten.