Editor, Gazette-Journal:

In his letter (“The implication is ‘immoral’,” Sept. 30 Readers Write), David W. Callis states “Anyone with an IQ of a gnat may quickly ascertain that the war in the 1860s was not over slavery.”

I would like to direct Mr. Callis’s and others attention to the speech made by Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, on March 21, 1861. In this speech, Mr. Stephens states, in part, “our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea (equality of races); its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior rate—is his natural and moral condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

To place one’s sign at the base of this flag is to align oneself with the foregoing.

We all need to study our history.

Mary O. GibsonMathews, Va.
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