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[su_panel background=”#d2f5f9″ color=”#1d1919″ border=”8px solid #cccccc” shadow=”7px 0px 1px #eeeeee” radius=”22″][su_dropcap]I[/su_dropcap]t’s hard arguing against the removal of Confederacy statues. In their Declaration of Causes, secessionist states said the following:
“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.”[/su_panel]
When we look closely and without fear at history, even the likes of Lincoln come out smelling foul.
“That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding States.”
Abhorrent stuff, unacceptable then and now. While a case can be made for preserving US history, honoring figures supporting racism, bigotry, white supremacy and chattel slavery is disgraceful everywhere. Confederate monuments honor figures involved in waging war to preserve an abhorrent system, Black human beings considered property, not people.
When Civil War began in 1861, they were considered aliens, according to Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney in his infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision. We’ve come a long way from then in some respects, far from it in disturbing other ways – one step forward, two backward given deplorable US policies at home and abroad.
TR, who had a childish fascination with weapons and “manhood”, was a notorious war lover and unapologetic imperialist.
If Confederate statues warrant removal, should others of slaveholding presidents come down? Twelve owned them: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, WH Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, A Johnson and Grant. Should George Washington University change its name? Should the University of Virginia disavow its founder Thomas Jefferson? Should Chicago’s Washington Park be renamed? What about Jefferson Colleges in various cities, several Andrew Jackson high schools, others bearing James Madison’s name, some named after James Monroe, other presidents honored the same way?
Slave ownership was abhorrent. Benjamin Franklin called it “an atrocious debasement of human nature.” John Adams said it’s a “foul contagion in the human character.”
What about the nation’s warrior presidents, the lot of them war criminals, including Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt! TR lusted for war, saying “I should welcome almost any war for I think this country needs one” – referring to war as “spiritual renewal.”
FDR goaded Japan into attacking America to get the war he wanted. All US presidents involved in exterminating Native Americans were war criminals, including Washington.
Lincoln was a war criminal. He suspended the Constitution and habeas corpus, forcefully closed courts, arbitrarily ordered arrests, conscripted US citizens without congressional consent, and closed newspapers opposing his policies.
General Sherman’s march to the sea involved rape, pillaging and mass murder. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single slave. He wanted them deported at war’s end to maintain America as a white supremacist society.
Glorifying him as one of the nation’s greatest presidents ignores the horrors defining his tenure.
History the way it’s taught in America conceals its dark side – uglier today than ever, a nation exclusively beholden to privileged interests, waging war on humanity at home and abroad.
Whether Confederate statues stay up or come down is inconsequential compared to vital issues left out of public debate.
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[su_box title=”ABOUT THE AUTHOR” style=”bubbles” box_color=”#abd9ea” title_color=”#151d23″ radius=”20″] 
STEPHEN LENDMAN was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient. His new site is at http://stephenlendman.org[/su_box]
If Confederate statues warrant removal, should others of slaveholding presidents come down? Twelve owned them: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, WH Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, A Johnson and Grant. Should George Washington University change its name? Should the University of Virginia disavow its founder Thomas Jefferson? Should Chicago’s Washington Park be renamed? What about Jefferson Colleges in various cities, several Andrew Jackson high schools, others bearing James Madison’s name, some named after James Monroe, other presidents honored the same way?
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3 comments
Thorough cleanse of odious history required. Who gets to write the “official story”? Also give entire country back to it’s rightful heirs. Europeans stole it from native Americans atop the food chain when they arrived but who did these guys steal it from etc. – all the way down. The good guys in this tale are scarce.
Should we blow up all the pyramids in Egypt ? they were built by slave labour. Where does it end ?
My thoughts the other day on this:
What is it about humans and “memorials” to themselves? The whole concept is vainglorious auto-eroticism.
The idea that we should revere anyone of us above all others enough to melt down resources and make a permanent idol to worship makes us only a filament away from the caves from whence we came.
Evolved people wouldn’t worship any of the men who took credit for encoding that the rich land-owners still had all the power, and tried to pass it off as “freedom.” I mean, all they did was change the ruling class from hereditary to predatory. He who could amass the greatest fortunes by underpaying and overpricing rules. It was class war from day one, and they and their idols are winning still.
Evolved people would not worship the slave-owners who wrote the rulebook, they might instead write of what kind of Democracy we would have had if the Abolitionists, Slaves and Indentured people had written the rules. They wouldn’t have currency with pictures of men who oppressed women as property, let alone who based their land-grab on genocide rather than coexistence and cooperation.
Nope. The statues are not about “history.” They are not about remembering the past, so much as trying to code our brains into accepting it as something right, unchangeable, unquestioningly good and moral – which none of it was. Do you understand that? Its about codifying their power-grab as stone reality, so our brains are not free to think about changing our reality.
Our energy and efforts should be in constantly creating, bettering, evolving a way to serve all the needs of all humans, and learning from the mistakes of the past, not praising those who made them. We could be making a just, equitable society where everyone had more than enough, and all were valued equally.
Yes, we may have always pained cave walls, and art is our way. But any artist with a soul at all would know that Mount Rushmore was a work of art before they fucked it up. They could have painted this, over and over and hung it on their walls. We need to come out of the cave, and look up and appreciate the mountains.
I say tear them all down. And never make another.