To use a more modern example, this seems akin to saying that, when someone is falsely convicted of a crime and is imprisoned as a result, appealing their judgment with fresh eyes and consequently acquitting them is "rewriting history." Yes, this example involves a living person, but that doesn't seem specifically relevant to your concern of "rewriting history." The entire act of pardoning someone is reversing a small fraction of the results of a prior action, not pretending that the prior action never happened.
