Usually a sensible fellow. This was an idiotic comment. Fortunately men like Lincoln and Grant were far wiser.
Idiocy
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Just like MacArthur not trying Hirohito as the war criminal he actually was. But to do so would have been our best interests. An otherwise just action is not just when to do so would cause far greater harm.
The comment is doubly dumb, because Davis was not guilty of treason in the first place. He was guilty of secession, which was no crime at all. Hanging him would have been the equivalent of a lynching. I wish Americans would get over their third grade understanding of the Civil War.
National Review hasn’t recruited quality people in about 20 years. They have some still associated with them who signed on in happier times, though one of these (Victor Davis Hanson) has cut ties with the publication and appears there because they pay the fee for his syndicated column.
Side note: Then there is the modern idiocy of renaming military bases in the South because they were named for Confederate officers. They were named in the first place as a gesture of reconciliation. Although I admit that the modern leftist wants to continue to punish a whole section of the country, it is obviously part of their derangement to think they can correct the shortcomings of history.
It brings to mind the recent name-changing obsession involving military bases and Confederate generals. A significant sign of reconciliation thrown away for no good reason for gobbledygook.
I think if you had rounded up and hanged even some of the Confederates it would have reinforced the idea of Northern aggression. Would we have had the Wild South in addition to or instead of the Wild West? Or perhaps large populations of the South would have gone West as the spirit of unrestrained reconstruction (re-education?) ran roughshod over the region? When people no longer have faith that their government can be changed, they will escape it if possible. Not that such things happen anymore…