Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I am writing to correct a statement made in a letter of July 30 (“Lee and Jackson were Virginia patriots”) which states the following: “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Confederacy had a right to secede.” The writer does not cite any case to support that statement.

In fact, the first time the court mentioned the issue was not until the case Texas v. White in 1869. “The Court considered the state’s secession from the Union to be inconsistent with the constitutional concept of ‘a perpetual Union.’”

Michael HorrellGloucester, Va.
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