Confederate Soldiers

The Issue Of Confederate Statues And Monuments In Public Places Outside Of Museums

The controversy that erupted over the Charlottesville tragedy has led to a call to remove Confederate atatues and monuments in public places outside of museums.

The descendants of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis have called for the statues of their forebears to be taken down.

A call has gone out for Confederate statues in the US Capitol Rotunda to be taken down. Bills are being introduced to accomplish this goal.

We are talking here about people who were ultimately traitors to the United States.

To compare Lee to George Washington or Thomas Jefferson as slave owners is preposterous, as we are talking about TREASON, and nothing else.

It is time to stop commemorating and honoring people who wished to destroy the American nation.

We are not expecting everyone to be perfect, but treason is something unique, and realize these and other Confederate leaders ultimately caused the death of 360,000 Union soldiers and 250,00 Confederate soldiers.

Also, realize that Jefferson Davis worked to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

So the time has come to say atatues and monuments belong in museums, but not in parks or in government buildings.

So, for example, the excellent Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia is an appropriate location for such statues and monuments, and this blogger has visited that museum and has no issue with them having such statues and memorials. I learned a lot at that museum, and appreciate that it is there, and is such a good museum in context.

Also, state history museums can have these statues and monuments, and record the history of the state, including the Civil War.

But in public government buildings, other than museums, and in parks, it is inappropriate and time to end the “worship” of people who committed treason.

Germany does not honor Nazi Germany in public places, and neither should we honor people who worked to undermine the American nation, and wished to keep slavery alive for the long term!

150 Years Ago Today, The Civil War Began!

On this day, April 12, in 1861, 150 years ago, the greatest tragedy in American history began, with the South Carolina government ordering the state militia to commence an attack against the US military fort, Fort Sumter, lying on an island in Charleston Harbor!

620,000 men were killed in the war that ensued for four years minus three days! 360,000 Union soldiers and 260,000 Confederate soldiers lost their lives, and two percent of the population were wiped out, creating a young and middle age male shortage only overcome by immigration over the next two generations!

The South tried to say the war was fought over different civilizations clashing, and the fight for states rights, but the truth is that it was the institution of slavery and its expansion westward and northward which led to the war!

Today, we still hear Southerners and even Westerners threaten secession from the Union, but they well know that cannot be allowed to happen, as the Union won the war and settled the issue of states rights for all time, no matter what radicals say!

The Civil War remains the greatest crisis in American history, and scars still remain, as South Carolina is today celebrating, rather then commemorating, the Fort Sumter attack, as if it is something to be proud of!

But the regionalism that existed then still exists today and affects our politics in the 21st century!

More will be said about the Civil War as we continue to follow the events of that tragic conflict over the next four years!