Opinion: Time to Change Names of Bases Honoring Confederate Traitors

Agreed.

Good comment SSG.

I agree SSGT the troops at least the one I have read about like Thomas Jackson were not big proponents of slavery but they had felt their loyaties were still with their state and Virginia had been huge out cry for succession and they followed their loyalties him and General Robert Lee didn't come to that choice likely.

To label them traitors puts them in the same category that the British thought about George Washington.

1stSgt Nelson Kerr - Why don't we start with the Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio, and also known as The Ordinance of 1787) was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States (the Confederation Congress), passed July 13, 1787. The prohibition of slavery in the territory had the practical effect of establishing the Ohio River as the boundary between free and slave territory in the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. This division helped set the stage for national competition over admitting free and slave states, the basis of a critical question in American politics in the 19th century until the Civil War.
Then we can continue to the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, and its popular sovereignty clause of the law led pro- and anti-slavery elements to flood into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, resulting in Bleeding Kansas.
Which then also leads us to John Brown (the abolitionist), who was actually found guilty of treason (treason against a state, but treason none the less). And who had previously been responsible for the murder of 5 people in Kansas. (and from your previous statement that you appear to approve of glorifying a murderer and convicted traitor because he was anti-slavery and an abolitionist?)

CPT Jack Durish - Correction, that monument pictured is at the Sartoga Battlefield. The memorial at West Point is actually a defaced plaque in the Old Cadet Chapel.

SSG Robert Webster - Thank you for the correction

If anything these statues should be placed in a Civil war museum were they can be protected and observed with respect to the history behind them.

Many did fight against their own families. Some of it was very painful. At Gettysburg one General in the confederate army sent his wedding ring across enemy lines because a they were in laws ( the two generals were married to sisters). He knew at least his widow would have his wedding ring. There was a belief that states freely joined the union and could freely leave. Are we trying any of the California exit folks for treason yet?

LTC David Brown - I know a lot did, especially in the border states, but that was the decision they had to make. It's easy for us to sit here and say "the south was on the wrong side of history". now.

LTC David Brown - We are not trying to try the fools in California because they have not tried to murder US troops, legal that is an essential distinction it only becomes treason then. the south not only shot first, they shot second also.