Two local Democratic Party activists recently utilized the riots at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 as a reason to attack my legislative record in Harrisburg in letters to your editor.

Here is my complete statement on the riots, which they either had not seen or chose to ignore:

The words of Abraham Lincoln in 1861, just as our awful Civil War was about to erupt, are just as important in January 2021:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have been strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Abraham Lincoln was correct. I support the constitutional right to peaceful protest, but what we saw Wednesday afternoon at the national Capitol was just plain wrong. There’s a big difference between peaceful protest and breaking and entering, destruction and chaos. I hope we never, ever, see this again.

Dave Argall

State senator

R-29, Schuylkill/Berks