Dear Editor:
Dear Governor Philip Murphy: I am writing to ask you to veto the bill S974 that is being sponsored by South Jersey Democratic senators Nilsa Cruz-Perez, Linda Greenstein, and Dawn Addiego. The bill is calling for the removal of the statue of General Philip Kearny replacing it with Alice Paul, an advocate for women suffrage at National Statuary Hall at the capitol in Washington D.C.
Philip Kearny was a great man and great general during the American Civil War. He was a wealthy business man but he really was interested in having a military career. He had seen military service with the French Army in Algeria and Italy during their War of Italian Independence. Philip Kearny had later served under Winfield Scott in the United States army during the Mexican War. He continued his service in the United States Army after receiving injuries to his arm and it was amputated. When the American Civil war erupted, he returned to the United States from Europe to fight in the war. Abraham Lincoln gave him commission as a general in the army of the Potomac. He fought in several major battles until he was killed at the Battle of Chantilly on September 1, 1862. If he had survived, he would have made commander of the Army of the Potomac or Commander in Chief of the armies during the rest of the war. He was interned in Kearny, and later his body was exhumed and reburied at Arlington National cemetery.
I don’t agree with their decision to remove the statue. I don’t think senators Nilsa Cruz-Perez, Linda Greenstein, and Dawn Addiego thought this through as to the statue of Kearny should go if removed. It doesn’t belong in a dusty dingy basement. It should be seen by everybody in a museum or in front of the New Jersey State Capital in Trenton. We could move Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of independence and a slave owner. However, there is downside to this dilemma in removing Stockton. He was captured by the British during the American Revolution. He was locked up for several weeks and suffered ill treatment from them. He refused their pardons several times until he was exchanged for another British prisoner.
I have nothing against Alice Paul or the feminist movement or the women’s right to vote. This bill was done too fast and I don’t think they thought of the repercussions behind the bill. But lately it seems to me there is too much talk from the revisionists who want to change American History. I think they really want the American Civil War and the issues of slavery to be erased from American History all together
joseph donnelly
