Recent polls indicate that 60 percent of Americans do not think that Confederate statues should be taken down. In President Trump’s defense of the monuments, he poses the question, “Where does it stop?” I do not think that there are any calls to tear down the Washington Monument or raze the Jefferson Memorial.
History shows that Washington and Jefferson helped to create the United States of America. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson fought against it. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson may be faulted for owning slaves, but that does not diminish their roles and the homage we owe them for establishing our republic.
Former U.S. Army officers Lee and Jackson violated their oaths to support and defend the Constitution. They became domestic enemies who started a bloody war to keep slavery in effect. The cause of the Confederacy, to run its economy on slave labor, was dishonorable. Being beaten on the battlefield does not preclude the basic wrongdoing of trying to overthrow the government.
It is not rewriting history to take down monuments to such men. The real attempt to rewrite history is the white supremacists exalting the Confederacy in order to maintain subjugation and segregation of the descendants of freed slaves. It is unreasonable to redefine the purpose of the war and ignore slavery. These statues may be taken down and moved to a proper place, such as a museum or battlefield.
Such monuments do not belong in a public place where neo-Nazis can rally around them. The Stone Mountain carving in Georgia disfigures the natural beauty of the landscape as well as having an ignoble connotation.
Considering the fact that white supremacists are forcefully rallying to save the Confederate symbols, it seems pretty clear to me that the president should not be vindicating them in any way. We must all oppose those who espouse hate, oppression and discrimination.
Don Hiddleson
Millcreek