The Texas State Board of Education, intent on revising our state’s public school curriculum to fit a certain political profile, has — among many things — mandated the studying of a Civil War president’s inaugural address. It’s not President Lincoln’s speech.

No sir. The speech the SBOE wants our children to study was delivered by Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America.

Say what you will about the merits of the Confederacy’s cause, Davis was a traitor to the nation. The cause of the war is being debated to this day, nearly 150 years later, by those who argue over whether it was about “states’ rights” or slavery.

This point is beyond dispute: Davis led a band of states in an armed insurrection against the federal government. That, by definition, characterizes him as a traitor.

His words need not be studied by Texas students. It’s OK to study the armed conflict that the nation fought against itself. That’s an important event that must be examined — and we must allow our students access to all the well-documented reasons that the war erupted in the first place.

But Jefferson Davis doesn’t belong in the same league with the man who served as president of the United States while he (Davis) sought to destroy the Union.