When one considers how Alabamans put up a statue to the boll weevil for weening them from dependence on cotton, there looks like plenty of reason for putting in a good word for Hamilton's plan to achieve the same result with less pain. Modern-day Alabaman Forrest McDonald apparently agrees -- about Hamilton, maybe about the boll weevil, too.
We can consider that Davis may have been sincere about what he believed and may have wanted what he thought was best for people. But we can't simply stop there and bow down before him, as some would like. I would probably keep the statue up if I were a Kentuckian, but I'd try to see to it that the capitol and its monuments reflected our best judgement of what is true and valuable, rather than a permanent subjugation to views that we recognize to be flawed or incomplete. Given that so many Kentuckians supported the Union, there is plenty of reason to question the monument's appropriateness, though. If our principle is not to offend traditions, it's hard to see how the statue got put up to begin with, save as a shaky extension of tolerance and magnanimity to the defeated.