Racist acts in recent years have fueled a campaign to expunge all Confederate monuments and other symbols from public places–except, perhaps, museums. The campaign is expanding to target monuments to a host of non-Confederate historic figures who may be viewed as offending contemporary standards in some way. For the reasons stated below, a more reasonable and measured response would be to focus on removing only those Confederate symbols that have been co-opted by hate groups for use as props in their activities. The rest should remain, leaving members of the public free to draw their own conclusions about them.
Some specific Confederate symbols have in effect been appropriated by racists and, as a result, are now widely identified as objects of hate notwithstanding their more nuanced historical significance. A prime example is the Confederate battle flag. Similarly, hate groups have seized upon certain individual memorials as venues for their activities. An example is the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. After the recent violence there, the city’s mayor proposed that this statue be removed because it had become a “magnet for terrorism” and a potential threat to public safety from hate groups who may revisit it. The same rationale, if based on well-founded concerns, could apply to other monuments used by hate groups. If such monuments are removed, the blame falls squarely on the hate groups.
A case-by-case approach to deciding the fate of Confederate symbols addresses the problems that gave rise to the recent concerns without launching a wholesale movement to censor our history. Such an assault on controversial historical figures, including many with no connection to the Confederacy, is Orwellian and un-American. It also goes far beyond the causes of the current controversy. Hate groups have not tried to enlist memorials to Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt or the many other historic figures who have nevertheless come under attack.
Background of concerns over Confederate iconography.
There are about 700 Confederate monuments in public places throughout the United States, and a total of about 1,500 Confederate symbols in all. (Symbolism other than monuments includes cities, streets, buildings, and military bases named for Confederates as well as Confederate-themed flags and holidays.) The Confederate monuments are located primarily but not exclusively in the South. They were erected mainly in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries.
Most of these monuments stood for generations without attracting much controversy, or perhaps much notice in recent times. What jump-started the current controversy was the Confederate imagery embraced by Dylann Roof, the racist murderer of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church. The reaction to Roof’s horrific crime fueled a campaign to remove the Confederate flag from public display, which spread to statues of Confederate figures and other Confederate symbols. The campaign has intensified in the wake of the recent mayhem in Charlottesville.
Attacks on currently disfavored historic icons are antithetical to an enlightened democracy.
Destroying historic monuments is a hallmark of barbarians like ISIS and the Taliban as well as the totalitarian thugs of Mao’s Red Guards. This is not good company for Americans to keep. Images of a North Carolina mob tearing down a statue of a generic Confederate soldier (not even a slave-holding general) and then kicking and spitting on it are particularly troublesome in this regard. Most nations that are enlightened and secure in who they are deal forthrightly with ambiguous and even notorious symbols of their past rather than sweeping them under the carpet. Some historic icons may have become so reprehensible that expunging them is justified, e.g., the swastika, an ancient symbol of well-being that is now and probably forever linked to Nazism. However, these should be rare exceptions.
The even broader campaign to sanitize our history by targeting a wide range of non-Confederate figures as well smacks of empty symbolism and political correctness. It is promoted by those in academia, the media and elsewhere who regard racism and oppression as the defining characteristics of the United States from its inception until today. They seek to enforce this perspective as the lens through which to view our history and historic figures, to the exclusion of everything else.[1]
Historical rationales advanced to justify mass removal of Confederate monuments are tenuous at best.
While some historians urge caution in evaluating Confederate monuments, many others claim that the monuments were erected for the sole purpose of promoting racism. Typical is an article by Karen Cox, a history professor, captioned “the whole point of Confederate monuments is to celebrate white supremacy.” A similar article, based on interviews with like-thinking historians, claims that the statues were erected only to “further a white supremacist future.” These assertions are long on innuendo but short on corroborating evidence.
As Professor Cox notes, the vast majority of the statues were sponsored by an organization called the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). They were located in cemeteries, on battlefields, and at many other places. The UDC had seven stated goals, none of which is explicitly or implicitly racist. The first goal was to “honor the memory of those who served and those who fell in the service of the Confederate States.”
The historians ignore the UDC’s stated goals, apparently rejecting out of hand hand the possibility that anything but racism could explain the UDC’s work. They seem to regard UDC’s avowed purposes as mere pretext to mask its true racist motives. To make their case that racism actually motivated the UDC monument-building, historians rely on selective inferences drawn from facts that are subject to other interpretations:
- They point out that most UDC-sponsored monuments were built during a time (late 1800’s and early 1900’s) of virulent racism across the South. However, this also was a time when the Confederate dead were still fresh in the memories of their immediate families and surviving veterans were dying off.
- They note that another more modest spike in monument-building occurred during the civil rights era of the mid 1960’s. However, these were also the centennial years of the Civil War.
- They infer an intent to intimidate African-Americans from the fact that a number of statues were placed in front of courthouses. However, courthouse squares, often found in the center of towns, are a natural location for monuments.
Absent supporting evidence, it is both unreasonable and unfair to conclude that the UDC had no genuine interest in honoring the memories of Confederate soldiers but sought only to advance white racism. It is plausible to conclude that the UDC operated from a variety of motives. For example, there is evidence that part of its agenda was to romanticize the Confederate “lost cause.” However, there is no evidence to rebut the conclusion that the UDC’s efforts stemmed at least primarily from its stated purpose to commemorate Confederate veterans.
Another historical justification some advance is that “traitors” don’t deserve monuments. This is also a dubious rationale for removing Confederate monuments. Importantly, when the Civil War ended Union leaders decided in the interests of reunification that Confederates should not be treated as traitors.[2] Indeed, until very recently many Confederate figures were viewed respectfully rather than as traitors. For example, President Eisenhower kept a portrait of Robert E. Lee in the Oval Office. Ten United States military installations are named for Confederate officers. Branding the Confederates as traitors at this late date appears to be mainly a rationalization offered to differentiate them from other slave-owners such as many of our Nation’s founders whose memorials may be in jeopardy under the “slippery slope” we are now descending. (See below.)
In sum, the glib historical arguments for removing Confederate monuments rest on a tendentious reading of history that stems more from liberal confirmation bias and groupthink than evidence-based scholarship. (See here and here.)
The campaign against Confederate monuments has morphed into a broader assault on American history.
Some express concern that removing Confederate memorials will lead us down a “slippery slope” reaching a wide range of non-Confederate historic figures who run afoul of contemporary standards. Critics initially dismissed this concern as a “red herring.” Clearly it is not; a movement to sanitize our history by exorcising monuments and symbols of all kinds is already well underway. The most strident voices, particularly those who make their living promoting racial strife, reject any distinction between Confederates and slave-owners such as Washington and Jefferson. Proponents of statue-removal have reached even farther to target historic figures who were neither Confederates nor slave-holders but are viewed as offensive in some way notwithstanding their other accomplishments and historic importance. A few of the many additional targets are listed here.
The most extreme example of this approach is New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s commission to consider the removal of “all statues and monuments that in any way may suggest hate or division or racism, anti-Semitism–any kind of message that is against the values of New York City.” Given the ever-evolving “values” of our PC culture, are any historical figures unblemished enough to retain their pedestals under these criteria?
Mass removal of monuments won’t help bridge our racial divides but could widen them.
The most unfortunate aspect of the wholesale campaign against Confederate and other monuments is that it distracts attention from confronting more serious racial issues. (See here and here.) The monuments have attracted little interest or concern until now. There is no reason to think that their presence has damaged race relations; nor is there any reason to expect that their removal will improve race relations. Regrettably, the current hype over the monuments is typical of many contemporary approaches to race issues. We tend to opt for symbolism and tokenism over the much more difficult work of exploring underlying causes and solutions. This may afford a “feel good” moment of self-righteousness but it accomplishes nothing of substance and ultimately trivializes racial concerns.
Worse still, attacks on the monuments may well exacerbate racial polarization, thereby serving the interests only of extremists on either side who benefit from it. Those who see the United States as fundamentally and irredeemably racist will not be mollified by removal of Confederate monuments. This will only encourage demands for action against other historic figures with racially suspect aspects to their pasts. At the other extreme, white nationalists and their ilk will seize upon removal of monuments as further evidence that white culture is under attack and in need of their version of countermeasures. Fortunately, most people fall between these extremes. However, polling indicates that a majority of Americans do not view Confederate memorials as racist and thus favor their retention.[3] They would likely view removal of the monuments as an unwarranted punitive attack on our history and another example of political correctness run amok. This, in turn, could cause them to look skeptically at more meaningful initiatives to address racial problems.
[1] Some go so far as to suggest that Western civilization in general is racist.
[2] One could maintain that the Confederates did not set out to be “traitors.” Before the Civil War, there was at least a plausible argument that States had a right to secede from the Union. Indeed, certain States in New England were the first to threaten secession. Of course, this argument was effectively put to rest by the Civil War. A Supreme Court decision shortly thereafter confirmed that secession was unconstitutional.
[3] The polls show that African-Americans are ambivalent on the issue. According to the polls, leftist ideologues are the only group to strongly support removal of Confederate iconography.