Then versus now

Thank you for the essays in “The Trials of John A.” (February-March 2019) discussing attitudes toward the deeds and misdeeds of those who founded our country. The authors presented fair-minded analyses that contrasted nicely with the discussions Charlotte Gray referred to as “drenched in moral judgments about our forebears, without any acknowledgement that our predecessors lived in a world radically different from ours.”

We can and should measure the sins of our forebears, but we have no moral right to judge them by the standards of our time and place. Judging them self-righteously from the advantage of 150 years of progress is unfair, dishonest, and ultimately meaningless.

Bill Longstaff Calgary