One of the articles in the draft treaty of peace demanded by Great Britain was return of confiscated Tory property.
Since so much had been statutorily taken by the states and already sold, Congress refused.
In my column, I didn’t say that abuse of tories didn’t happen at all. I specifically acknowledged examples where it did.
But my point was that the Founding Fathers - the real leaders - were committed to limiting that kind of abuse.
That’s where we stand out in comparison with other revolutions. We had neighbors robbing neighbors on occasion, yes, but our political leaders discouraged it, fought against it, did the best they could to limit it.
We certainly must acknowledge that it happened... but the miracle is that our leaders, for the most part, stood in opposition to such abuse.