If it wants to repudiate the violent mob that stormed the Capitol earlier this month, Congress should act quickly to remove eight statues that depict men who, like people in the mob, wanted to overthrow America’s constitutional order. These particular monuments depict those who played leading roles in the confederate states’ decision to wage war against a democratic government in order to defend slavery.
And this last point is important to stress: Anyone who claims that monuments to confederate “heroes” are about “heritage,” “history,” “states’ rights” or “economic freedom” is wrong. The Confederacy existed because of slavery. We know this because when they decided to leave the Union rather than respect the results of an election, the states that stated reasons all said it was because they wanted to preserve slavery. The Confederacy also adopted a constitution making it clear that “the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected” but lacking any allowance for succession. If that isn’t enough, in a speech delivered just a few weeks before the South started the war, confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens said “institution African slavery as it exists amongst us” caused ‘rupture’ and that the ‘cornerstone’ of the new state rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.” A few men’s desire to own other people caused over 640,000 deaths on the battlefield (nearly 10 percent of fighting-age men in the country at that time) and untold suffering.
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