From the Richmond Planet, 5/31/1890, p. 4, c. 1

WHAT IT MEANS.

Richmond, the capital of the late Confederacy has been decorated with emblems of the “Lost Cause.”

When the boxes containing the bronze monument of Gen. Robert E. Lee were removed from the cars, no flags of the Union ornamented the procession. Only the stars and bars could be seen, the “rebel yell,” under the folds of the flag of secession which wave proudly after twenty-five years rent the air.

However, all vocal expressions of disloyalty to the Union were carefully discarded. The honoring of the Confederacy was indulged in while every one in that joyous throng stood ready to declare to you that the South was right and the North was wrong. “Not beaten but over-powered,” they would say.

But what does this display of Confederate emblems mean?

What does it serve to teach the rising generations of the South? Why this placing of Lee on equality with Washington, Jackson with Marion and Stuart with “Light Horse Harry” of other days.

This glorification of States Rights Doctrine – the right of secession, and the honoring of men who represented that cause fosters in this Republic, the spirit of Rebellion and will ultimately result in handing down to generations unborn a legacy of treason and blood.

There is lacking in all this display the proper appreciation of the Union. There is evidence that the loyalty oft-expressed penetrates no deeper than the surface.

It serves to reopen the wound of war and cause to drift further apart the two sections. It furnishes an opportunity for designing politicians in both political parties to take advantage of the situation and the country suffers. The South in its efforts to be true to its leaders goes too far in its adulation, and while doing them no good, do their respective sections much harm.

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