I am starting a new thread because the other one is getting long and starting to wander out of context. Anyway, I wanted my position to be clear on this to everybody.

Did the Federal government, morally speaking, owe a pension to anybody after the war? I would say yes, definately to the Union soldiers. But what about the Rebs?

I suppose there is room to say no to the Confederate veterans. Especially from a legal view. But please recall this question is posed on moral grounds. That brings me to a statement made long ago by someone who had observed our fledgling United States as a visitor...

"America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."... Alexis de Tocqueville

Was the Federal position of not providing for the crippled CSA vets and orphaned children based on doing what was right morally or was it made based on revenge and political leverage? Each of us must decide.

Reminds me of the words of Lincoln...

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

I wonder what old Abe would say about our post on this subject :-)