LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — It’s all in the history books

Mike Masterson states that much of what he has been taught about U.S. history is “incomplete, inadequate and just flat wrong.” After reading his column, I am inclined to think that he slept through his U.S. history class.

I can only assume that he had never heard of the Missouri Compromise until just recently. Supporters of the compromise, which was enacted in 1820 largely due to the efforts of Henry Clay, a National Republican at the time, hoped to maintain the balance of free and slave states in Congress. The Fugitive Slave Law was part of the Compromise of 1850 crafted by Clay, a Whig by then. It was a horrible law, but Clay was trying to compromise to save the Union.

Stephen Douglas, a Democratic senator from Illinois, introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act to organize the Kansas Territory hoping to facilitate the building of a transcontinental railroad. To get Southern support, he included a repeal of the Missouri Compromise and a provision that allowed the newly formed territories to vote on whether to become free or slave.

Masterson seems genuinely surprised that Chief Justice Roger Taney, who handed down the Dred Scott decision, was a Democrat-he was a states’-rights supporter, too-and that the first black members of Congress were Republicans. All this information is readily available in high school U.S. history books.

KATHY GILMORE Eureka SpringsReporting obligatory

I find it very hard to believe that our attorney general, Dustin Mc-Daniel, and his accountant do not understand that the personal use of a company-owned vehicle generates a federal and state income tax obligation.

McDaniel has the audacity to call this a gray area in the tax code. He sounds like another one of those lawyers who try to avoid their responsibilities by the use of obfuscation.

He and all others who use this ruse to avoid paying their fair share of the tax burden should be removed from office, along with the expensive and fuel-inefficient state-owned Chevrolet Yukons.

RICHARD EGGERT Bella VistaCoverage is wanting

I am 78 and look forward each morning to reading the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The quality of your news coverage is dropping.

Your coverage of the candidates running for the U.S. Senate is biased and disappointing. The real news is that there is a candidate on the ballot other than the usual two.

Trevor Drown, a candidate running as an independent, is not acceptingdonations from special interests or corporations. He is a Christian, 39-year-old married man with two children. He is a gifted speaker and ex-military, a Green Beret and saw five years of combat.

He is a common-sense man holding a full-time job with the United Parcel Service. He is tall, slender, distinguished-looking, and when I’m in his presence, I see a young Ronald Reagan. That statement will get a rebuttal from Republicans saying that he’s not Reagan, but they are not the conservative Republican Party that Reagan once loved and cherished.

Yes, Trevor is the real conservative. You are cheating your subscribers by not covering the whole Senate race. There is a real good chance you may be ignoring the winner.

FRANK CORLEY RussellvilleState power usurped

It takes a Marxist mind to applaud the 14th Amendment, and that aptly describes the philosophy of editorial writer Paul Greenberg. What this amendment actually did was to usurp legitimate constitutional power from the states and illegitimatelytransferred this power to the federal government.

In essence, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution of 1787 to strictly limit the powers of the federal government. The First Amendment plainly begins with “Congress shall make no law.” This is reaffirmed in James Madison’s Federalist No. 45, which states: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”

The 14th Amendment completely destroyed the Founders’ concept of limited government and was coerced on this nation by radical people and in my opinion was never legally ratified as required by Article V of the Constitution. It was essentially a Karl Marx concept and would have never come from the pen of Madison or any of the patriots from Virginia. This pieceof fiction gives the federal government unlimited powers and is cited in nearly every Supreme Court ruling; speaking of which the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was the very instrument cited in Roe vs. Wade, thus setting the wheels in motion for millions upon millions of aborted children.

LOY MAUCH BismarckDefense appreciated

I love you, Rick Burns of Bella Vista, for writing your letter and sticking up for our president.

So many letters are hateful and hurtful, just the opposite of Burns’. I wish people would show more respect for the man. When I was a kid a long time ago, we never heard anything bad being said about our president, no matter who he was. A finger would go up to the lips and I would hear, “Shhh. Not in front of the children.” We learned respect in those days.

Now children hear government and elected officials being demeaned over hate radio, in newsprint and on television. Whatever happened to the saying, “If you can’t say something good about someone, don’t say anything”?

I voted for Barack Obama and I had tears of joy running down my cheeks just like many of the folks present at his inauguration. He brought us hope.

ELEANOR FOSTER FayettevilleFeedback More of the story

Mike Masterson’s column educated readers on the party of Abraham Lincoln and its laudable efforts in opposing slavery in the 19th century. It’s unfortunate that he wasn’t allocated enough space to continue the story into the 21st century.

In the years prior to 1964, the Democrats were the big-tent party, with a major component of that tent being the Dixiecrats, a collection of racists, segregationists and misanthropists who dominated politics in the South. That all changed beginning in 1964 when the Democrats ended their schizophrenia and embraced equal rights for all as embodied initially in the Civil Rights Act.

Enraged Dixiecrats left the party en masse, and after a failed attempt at forming a third party, they and their philosophies were embraced wholeheartedly by the GOP. Thus ended the Republican Party of the 19th century and began the highly effective “Southern strategy” of the modern GOP.

Of course, today’s Republican Party doesn’t overtly promote racism or segregation, but the essential tone of its appeal remains the same, aiming low, appealing to the darker side of humanity, and stirring primal fears, victimhood and anger wherever possible. Thanks for the history lesson, Mr. Masterson.

N.R. KENNEDY Russellville