Letter to the editor: Walter Williams dishonors our nation

Columnist Walter Williams is quite an intelligent man. Unfortunately, he has also become the willing stooge of the white revisionist plantation mindset.

In his column “Historical ignorance and Confederate generals” (July 24, TribLIVE), Williams makes the truly vile statement that “Confederate generals fought for independence from the Union just as George Washington fought for independence from Great Britain.”

This is an extremely warped, apples-and-oranges comparison between those patriots who struggled for principles and ideals and those who stood for an economic “slaveocracy” that insisted on keeping others in chains. Williams, a professor of economics himself, should be able to recognize the differences between the colonials who meant to escape the burden of capricious taxes and those servants of a plantation economy based on the free labor of slaves.

Then Williams relies on some word salad mumbo-jumbo about constitutional rights to allege that rebels against the U.S. government waged war for a noble cause. What insidious pap!

Here is another variant that Williams ignores: The patriot militia was attacked by the Redcoats with a killing volley on Lexington Green. The Confederates began the Civil War by besieging Fort Sumpter. The Continentals were fighting on the defensive against the armed assault of British tyranny. A pugnacious South was waging war to preserve King Cotton held up by the forced and free labor of those held in permanent bondage.

It is the difference between light and darkness, right and wrong, and liberty and naked oppression. Williams’ column is a dishonor to our nation and an undiluted disgrace. Historical ignorance, indeed!

Jim Harger

New Kensington