Removing Lee's Statue

 

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them,or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

Article 3. Section 3, U.S. Constitution

 

Earlier this month officials in Richmond, Virginia removed a large statue of Robert E. Lee that had been on government property on Monument Avenue since 1890.  Trump and some conservative writers have denounced the removal with some calling it wokeness gone wild or an attempt to erase history. I think they are wrong. In evaluating the propriety of a statue commemorating someone being on public land, it is important to consider what it is about the person that is being commemorated. A statue of Henry Ford honoring him for helping put the nation on wheels would have a quite different meaning from one honoring him for his opinions about Jews. 

The statue of Lee in Richmond honored him for commanding the confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. At the start of the war, he was a serving officer in the American army. He left it to participate in a violent rebellion against the United States, a rebellion for the purpose of preserving the institution of slavery in Virginia and other southern states.  He was a strong, serious, and personally honorable man. His enemies, including the man who finally beat him, admired his skill and tenacity. The army he led fought long and well. But he committed treason against his country in service of a vile cause. The statue in Richmond was meant to commemorate that treason and honor that cause. I see nothing wrong in removing it and others of confederate officers that went up throughout the former confederacy during the Jim Crow period  proclaiming a defiant support for the rebellion and its “glorious lost cause” from display on government property and moving  them to museums or selling them to collectors. 

Statues at battlefields intended to honor the courage or memorialize the deeds of confederate soldiers with little or no reference to their cause are different and probably should be left alone. Besides they and the ones of union regiments are good visual aids to who did what where at the battles.