On Confederate Monuments

I have to take a break from the river cruise diary to address one of the issues that arose with the Black Lives Matter protests. Along with the entrenched, systemic racism that continues to exist in the Good Ole U.S. of A. is the continued reverence for the Confederacy and its symbols. 

What with my travels chasing Dead Presidents and state capitols, I have seen a mess of memorials to the losing side in our country’s Civil War. And like so many other unthinking, privileged white people who were taught the white version of history in school, I accepted the equivalency of the Southern cause and didn’t think about all that was wrong with it.

Confederate Memorial Monument [1898], 

Alabama Stata Capitol Grounds, Montgomery (18 October 2008) 

Of all our many wars, the Civil War was special. A nation ripped asunder. American vs. American. Brother vs. Brother. Every casualty on both sides was one of ours. There was no bad guy in this conflict that killed 620,000 Americans. Unlike with the Nazis and the Japs, we couldn’t lay blame. There was no real enemy.

Bullshit.

Who decided to leave the Union? Who took up arms against the United States and fired the first shots on Fort Sumpter? If it was the ‘War of Northern Aggression,’ who’s army invaded Pennsylvania?

Even Ken Burns’ wonderful Civil War documentary didn’t do it because it was objective and not as judgmental as these times now require. I’m sorry it took this long for me to come around. This post will lead to others as I try to address what I’ve learned, but one thing is certain…I have images to go with the thoughts.

Arkansas Confederate Soldiers Monument [1905] 

State Capitol Grounds, Little Rock (16 June 2008) 

Dedicated on Jefferson Davis’ birthday, the ceremony drew thousands. 

Originally located near the main entrance to the capitol, 

it was moved later to a less ‘in-your-face’ part of the grounds. 

The past is not dead. 

In fact, it’s not even past.
– William Faulkner

To those who want to say this is all about preserving “Southern Heritage,” let’s go along with that for a bit.

There’s been such an effort to discount that big ‘Original Sin’ elephant-in-the-room.
“Yes, there was the slavery thing but we didn’t invent it. Everyone did it back then.”

It should be harder for the Confederate apologists to stick to their heritage nonsense.
“The conflict wasn’t about slavery…it was about states’ rights.”

Exactly. It was about the state’s right to keep other humans in bondage so the economic system could continue to thrive. And it was about spreading slavery to the new territories before they became states.

Weeks before the shooting war started and months after the first southern states seceded, Alexander Stevens, who would become Jefferson Davis’ vice president, gave his famous ‘Cornerstone’ Speech. In referring to the new government, Stevens said, “Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Right. But the war was not about slavery.

South Carolina Monument to the Confederate Dead [1879] 

State Capitol Grounds, Columbia (26 June 2008) 

This one is more about honoring the fallen rather than promoting 

white supremacy but it was erected right after they got rid of 

those pesky Yankee carpetbaggers and restored a proper white 

supremacist government. God showed his approval by destroying 

the original with a lightning bolt in 1882. 

Here’s another one you’ll hear -
“A vast majority of the Confederate soldiers didn’t own slaves.”

True but so what? Soldiers below a certain rank don’t own slaves. The officers did and the rest of the fat cats don’t fight in their own wars. That’s a long-standing tradition.

‘The Talbot Boys’ Statue [1916], 

Talbot County Courthouse, Easton, MD (26 April 2015) 

Like so many Confederate memorials, this one was dedicated over 

a half-century after the Civil War ended. It is the only monument 

to the  traitors that still stands on Maryland state property. Maryland 

did not secede from the Union but was a slave-holding state. 

P.S. - Ninety-five years later, Talbot County dedicated 

another statue to its most famous citizen, Frederick Douglass. 

Ninety-five years later…in 2011. Better late than never. 

“C’mon now. We’re in a post-racial age. We elected a Black president after all (who we opposed at every turn).”

You bet. That’s when all those future Trump voters carried signs and posted images depicting the Obama family as chimpanzees.

Want more evidence of how racist this country still is?

Just think about all the mind-blowing things president Trump has done over these four years. Now just imagine if those very same actions, behaviors and decisions were made by Barack Hussein Obama. Would he have been impeached? Damn…how many times? They’d have burned the White House down by now.

Confederate Monument, Loudon County Courthouse [1908], 

Leesburg, VA (14 December 2018) 

(Removed 21 July 2020) 

As is happening across the states where these insulting monuments 

stand, the county legislators debated what to do with them. Rather 

than see them torn from their mounts and desecrated by crazed antifa 

anarchists and America-hating liberals, the United Daughters of the 

Confederacy asked that the Leesburg statue be returned to them. 

You know that old saying about history being written by the winners? So, why was the story of the Civil War written by the losers? What has come to frost many people, especially the descendants of all those faithful and happy slaves, is that the ‘heritage’ those in power fought to preserve and continue to maintain for another hundred-plus years after LOSING their armed rebellion was a social order based on their own racial superiority.

This is the first in a series of personal reflections on the Confederacy, its monuments and the sad state of our race relations. We’ll return to river cruising and more pleasant topics later.