I am so very happy that Americans are re-engaging each other in this debate over the Confederacy, the Confederate States of America and whether we should be naming public institutions — namely military establishments — in honor of enemies of the state.

The debate has been joined yet again because many Americans are awakening to the realization that the CSA was formed in 1861 for one purpose: to destroy the United States of America. Why? To enable states to continue to enslave human beings, to allow them to be kept as property of other human beings.

So the Confederacy fired on a Union garrison in Charleston Harbor, S.C., and ignited the Civil War.

The men who fought for the CSA were traitors to the nation. There is no other way to consider them. So now we have resumed the debate over whether their names belong on places such as Army posts, which trains, houses and equips men and women to defend this country against its enemies. The irony is astounding.

You may spare me the tired notion that the Confederate statues and the names of these individuals on buildings and other public establishments is a recognition of the nation’s “heritage.” The heritage that some of us want to protect does not deserve the honor it has been given. That it took so long to understand that perhaps is the most astonishing aspect of this debate.

The argument that the CSA was steeped in protecting “states’ rights” also has been revealed as a tired euphemism for what it really intended to protect. Slavery is this nation’s original sin and we must deal with it forthrightly.

Now is as good a time as any, given that so much time has passed since those Americans were set free and granted the rights of citizenship they deserved to possess all along.

This debate, of course, is lacking one key voice … that of the commander in chief, who says he won’t accept the idea of changing the names of military posts. Donald Trump cannot offer a single reason to keeping these names, other than to placate those among his political base who demand that they remain.

Someone said today that the names of these enemies of the Union — and the flag under which they fought — deserve to be displayed in museums … alongside other enemies of the United States: the Nazis, fascists, ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Soviet Union, the North Vietnamese communists, the People’s Republic of China.

Should they remain attached to places of high honor and respect? Absolutely not!