The debate regarding the removal of confederate statues and monuments because of their white supremacist origin. Often, the removal of these statues has resulted in protest and violence in otherwise peaceful communities, most notably the removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. But just as the South did years ago, white supremacists today are fighting a losing and immoral battle.
Following the South’s loss of the Civil War, their movement for slavery changed shape dramatically. Instead of actively campaigning for for slavery to take place, they used symbols to disguise their true beliefs, erecting statues in order to preserve “heritage” and “states’ rights” as a beautification of slavery. The shifting movement to instill fear in freed African-American communities continued with the spread of monuments and confederate flags. The “protect our heritage and history” message was deemed passable and appropriate, and as a result, the offending statues stood the test of time in numerous locations since the late 1800’s.
However, it is important to recognize that the so-called ideologies that these monuments protect are blatantly false and invalid. Ken Burns, a prominent filmmaker and historian, states that confederate monuments were “all about the reimposition of white supremacy”, and not aimed towards any other goal. Burns goes on to suggest that the narrative of states’ rights and workers’ disputes being integral to preserving Civil War history is false, as the states did not believe in these principles, as he states, “If you read South Carolina’s Articles of Secession in November after Lincoln’s election of 1860, they don’t mention states’ rights, they don’t mention nullification, they mention slavery over and over again”
Thus, it is important to be wary of what confederate statues and symbols truly stand for, instead of what they are interpreted to mean.
Matthew Tenney • Dec 5, 2017 at 5:04 am
South Carolina’s Articles of Secession don’t contain the phrase “state’s rights” but the concept is at the heart of the articles. For example “These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions.” Why isn’t that a statement about state’s rights?
Sam Lundry • Dec 7, 2017 at 5:59 pm
It absolutely is a statement about states’ rights, the state’s right to allow their citizens to own slaves.
Also, since you mentioned South Carolina’s proclamation laying out its reasons for secession, I’d recommend actually reading it instead of quoting one sentence out of context from a pages-long document. The proclamation includes the words “slave,” “slaves,” or “slavery a total of eighteen times.
In fact, the sentence directly following the one you cite reads, “The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.” Essentially, SC argues that slavery was recognized as a right to all citizens because they gave slaveholders political rights and establishing slaves as taxable entities.
Later in the document, SC specifically cites Abraham Lincoln’s assertion that the US cannot survive “half slave, half free:”
“A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that ‘Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,’ and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”
South Carolina chose to secede from the Union because Lincoln was elected, and Lincoln was anti-slave.