By Brian Bergin

I WRITE WITH an alternative to the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ proclamation, published in the Daily News-Record onApril 17, that April be recognized as Confederate History and Heritage Month.

What is most admirable and enduring about the United States of America is its Constitution, humanized by a stirring Declaration of Independence, enobled with a protective Bill of Rights, enhanced by periodic amendments, and rededicated eloquently by Abraham Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg.

But were it up to Confederate leaders, that Constitution would have been truncated at the 12th amendment, and the ideals of the Declaration of Independence indefinitely denied our people in the grief-laden name of preserving that most peculiar of institutions — human bondage.

The early pages of our history books are filled with the inspiring stories of national leaders, many of them conflicted slave-owners (Washington, Jefferson and Madison for example), who worked against their own class interests in the cause of expanding republican ideals.

In contrast, later pages of those same history books tell of other, seemingly wise and articulate leaders, who dedicated the best of their talents to restricting the spread of those evolving ideals — notables such as John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, and Alexander Stephens.

These men used their remarkable political skills and public personas for a cause that not only would have preserved slavery in the states where it existed, but also would have expanded it into territories where it had not yet taken root. Rather than supporting the gradual demise of slavery over time, secessionist leaders worked vigorously to encourage its growth.

As a result of this addiction to slavery, the nation was pushed into a bloody Civil War that resulted in the deaths of 620,000 men. For their intractability, the record shows that the Confederate States of America was responsible for the deaths of 360,000 Federal soldiers, a casualty list more extensive than that inflicted by either the Germans or Japanese in World War II.

Accordingly, I propose that April be declared, not Confederate History and Heritage Month, but rather a “Civil War Month of Remembrance.” April would be a time for the nation — North and South — to come together and contemplate the cause of the rebellion, the dramatic events of that war and its lingering effects on contemporary America.

The relevant Civil War events supporting an April memorial include: 

I find it hard to imagine how any right-thinking person who cherishes freedom and appreciates the sacrifices of the events of 1861–1865, could object.

Brian Bergin lives in Harrisonburg.