Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I will have to take issue with Mr. Broderson’s letter in the Jan. 5 Readers Write (“What the flag represents”), especially about his historical perspective.

First, the South did not start the war. Secession, which is not forbidden by the Constitution, is not a declaration of war. In fact, New England had threatened secession during the War of 1812. Mr. Lincoln, without permission of Congress or a declaration of war, invaded Virginia with a force of 75,000 troops.

Now, I know Fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor was fired upon by South Carolina earlier in 1861, but only after the Union broke an agreement to not reinforce the fort; also, no one on either side was killed or even wounded during that battle.

Although it may hurt our sensibilities in the 21st century, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens voiced a common belief held at that time; so common that Abraham Lincoln held a similar view. Mr. Lincoln was ambivalent on slavery; he thought it should be abolished eventually, but he did not free slaves in Union-held territories. He only freed those living in the Confederacy. If you cared to read the Confederate Constitution, you would see it had provisions for the ending of slavery.

Also, if Mr. Broderson would read history from some other view than that written by Northern authors, he would discover the Union Army really did some despicable things, much the same as the Russians are doing to Ukraine today. The real reason for the war was a strong feeling in the South of oppression by the North in the form of tariffs that heavily taxed the South to the great advantage of the North and that the South was becoming a permanent minority in Congress. The War for Southern Independence had the basic same reasons as The War for American Colonial Independence from Great Britain; taxes and no representation in Parliament. There are parallels in our time: Urban vs. Rural, Majority vs. Minority, and the Abolitionists of the 1850s, the “Woke” of our times. Extreme views often lead to Civil War. I can only hope we do not repeat the past.

Robert L. Petersen
Mathews, Va