text: Mr. Gyde: This position has been presented on the site by GBA and a few others.  Indeed, the leaders (all all participants) in the American Revolution were "traitors"........to England.  Let's be clear; had the Revolution failed, the leaders would have been severely punished by the British government.  Washinton, for example, rather than being our first President, may well have been hanged as a traitor to the Crown.  Leaders of successful revolutions are hailed as heroes and honored by the new nation......they're condemned as traitors by the nation they, indeed, betrayed seeking to form that new nation.  It's no surprise that Washington is on the dollar bill and not the pound note.  
  
  And let's be clear.........the documented history shows that the statues in question were erected to celebrate the "old south" of slavery and the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow Era in the south.  As such they are actually memorials to racism and deserving of removal.  Gary Crum 
  
  Gary Crum