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Re “Defining a traitor” (letter, Sept. 2): The writer attempts to create a false equivalency between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War by comparing George Washington and other national heroes to Robert E. Lee.

The letter writer uses the tired and well-worn excuse that members of the Confederacy were fighting for states’ rights. The Revolutionary War was fought to gain independence from a repressive government, but the Civil War was fought to repress those same values â€" which are outlined in our nation’s founding document, the Constitution.

The claim of states’ rights is nothing more than the excuse the South used for maintaining slavery, which was the economic engine of the agrarian South.

The sooner America removes all Confederate monuments or, at the very least, adds historical context, the sooner our nation can start to heal from the divisive issues that have plagued us as a society since the Civil War. If some people require a monument in order to celebrate a heritage that was, and is, based on subverting human rights, we will remain a divided country forever.

This issue of “the monuments” should remain front and center in our public conversation for however long it takes to finally rid our country of the most repressive issue of all â€" racial inequality.

Bob Tucker

Virginia Beach