This is a reblog of one of Don Merritt’s occasional political rants. Usually, Don does excellent Bible exposition. However, he sometimes veers off into politics, and those post are interesting too.
I agree with most of Don’s posts, but I would interested in hearing people express their opinions on this sentence.
Prior to the war however, he was an officer in the US Army, a graduate of West Point, and was actually offered overall command of US forces at the outset of that war, but he chose to renounce his oath of allegiance to the United States and chose instead to take up arms against the US, and if that doesn’t make him and so many others like him, traitors then I simply don’t know what to say!
Frankly, I don’t know if during colonial times the British required American official to take an oath of office. Nevertheless, King George III still itched to hang the men who signed the Declaration of Independence as traitors. Yet we know they were not traitors. They had to choose where their greater loyalties resided.
Men like Robert E. Lee faced a similar conundrum. Only he had nothing to do with the decision to rebel. All he could do is choose between the Union and Virginia.
Anyway, as angry as they were by the end of that long, bloody war, the people of the North never seriously considered hanging Southerners for treason. No doubt with so many dead they considered it.
Here is what the Constitution calls treason, from Article III, Section 3.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
I suppose Robert E. Lee fulfilled the requirements for treason, but I seriously doubt the people who drafted that section had civil war in mind. One of the reason for the Constitution was to avoid civil war. Because of slavery, the designs of the framers of the Constitution did not work as well as they might have wished.
Reader Advisory: This is an Opinion Piece that expresses the view of its author. If you are likely to be upset by a view of recent events that may differ from your own, please stop reading now, and we’ll see you tomorrow. If, however, you are not offended by a diversity of opinion then please feel free to continue, and for best results, please begin with the Prologue to this piece, if you haven’t already read it.
Over the past month or so, we Americans have borne witness to some rather bizarre cultural twists and turns that followed the horrific murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman as a few of his fellows stood by watching: I hope they throw the book at those guys.
I was, as you know by now, on a road trip when all of this began, and the first I heard in the wake…
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Citizen Tom 
That we have to arrive at the point of using a Disclaimer In order to Express a viewpoints .
Diversity without diversity of opinions is dictatorship
@alvarezgalloso
Well, I think if you want to make that case a better example might be the speech on some college campuses.
Agreed