The Patriots of ’76 And ’61.

Messrs. Editors:

Allow me to say a few words to “D. E. Hall” in your good and generous paper on the subject of the “rights of women” and the Confederate monument.

There is no reason why “A Maryland Woman” cannot devote a part of her precious time to questions that are agitating the public mind, even if she does have her family affairs to attend to. If she has a house to look after, children to take care of and a husband to feed, so much more honor is due to her for indulging in those patriotic sentiments that have made Maryland what it is today. If she employs a negro in her home, doubtless she realizes more than Mr. Hall does how unworthy they are to have a monument erected to their memory.

In regard to the Confederate monument standing here now, it does not any more represent the men who fought against their country and their flag than the Washington monument represents a man who took up arms against his country and his flag. But it represents the noble heroes who faced disease and death and overwhelming numbers, who fought with unsurpassed fortitude and bravery to deliver their native land from the oppression of unlawful authority, like those heroes of ’76 who went forth under Southern leaders and Southern ideas of constitutional government to free their country from the bonds of Great Britain and the king. We never speak of those men as having fought against their country and flag. Why? Because when a nation of people saw fit to ward off the tyrant’s hand for the purpose of handing down the liberty which they were born in to their children they raised a new flag, established a new government, formed a new constitution. They did not regard the land their fathers fought for, and when necessary died for, as their land. They claimed no allegiance to it. Thus what the patriots of ’76 accomplished the patriots of ’61 attempted to do. They were as honest and sincere in their convictions of the rightfulness and the duty of resistance to Federal coercion of sovereign States as the patriots of 1776, who took up arms because the British Government sought to enforce the stamp act and imposed a tax upon tea. The flag the Southern people unfurled to the world was their flag; not the Stars and Stripes, but the Stars and Bars. The government they established was their government: not the United States of America, but the Confederate States. The extent of land their government had control over for four years was their country; not the old America, whose boundaries extended from Maine to Florida and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi river, but their own native Dixie. The fact that the revolt of the Colonies in 1776 succeeded and that the attempted secession of the Southern States in 1861 failed, cannot affect the moral judgment of mankind as to the character and motives of the men who took part in either movement. That we raise no objection to the Confederate monument is very easily understood. In the first place, It was erected by the means of a few noble men and women, who were too proud to call on the State for assistance. Then, again, it not only represents the gallant band who exiled themselves from their homes so that they might partake in the great struggle for freedom, but it represents the sentiments of good old Maryland as she was 40 years ago.

No, we cannot but admire so noble and pure a figure, as it points to the South in the form of an angel supporting a wounded soldier boy who gave his life for that great principle for which our forefathers died-liberty.

C. B. STONEBRAKER.