18thVirginia
Major
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
Seems to me that refusal to fight in what they considered a wrongful war was different from committing treason against the government, but that is just my opinion.
We seem to be venturing into Modern Politics, which was not my intent in noting what was going on at the time of the photo.
When I used to write grants, I always kept a wish list with catalogs and prices of things our agency needed in my bottom desk drawer, so that I'd be prepared in case we had a quick turnaround request. I don't think it's modern politics to wonder if legislators don't do something of the same thing, have some bill or resolution that they want and wait until the opportune moment when they pull it out and offer it, which is what Harry Byrd Jr. may have done with this resolution.
I only offer that because it seems important to look at different pieces of historical legislation with a more critical eye than it seems from some discussions, whether here or in a book. Was this resolution about healing a giant rift that had opened in the nation during the 1970s or was it just a vanity resolution to satisfy Virginians? So, when we're looking at some piece of legislation from the 1860s, what kind of assumptions do we make that maybe we need to look more critically at.
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