For true unity, Arlington's Confederate Memorial must go

Jim Webb argues we should "Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington" (op-ed, Aug. 19). The law isn't on his side and neither are the facts. Congress created the Naming Commission, on which I served as vice chairman, to remove or rename all Confederate commemoration in the Defense Department. The law passed with a supermajority.

The 1914 Arlington Confederate Monument clearly commemorates the Confederacy and its purpose: chattel slavery. It depicts a tearful enslaved woman cradling the child of her Confederate enslaver as he departs for war. The proslavery monument portrays faithful slaves and kind masters. No! Slavery featured legal rape, torture and the selling of husband from wife and child from mother.

Mr. Webb argues that the monument was done in the spirit of reconciliation. But reunion had already occurred in 1868, when the U.S. granted amnesty for treason to all Confederates. By 1877 all the former rebelling states had full political rights and representation. In 1898 President William McKinley had to appease white Southerners who had violently consolidated power in one-party rule. Caring for Confederate graves and allowing a monument in Arlington helped the president achieve his aims in the Spanish-American War.

Reconciliation didn't include nine million African-Americans in the South who lived in a racial police state enforced by a terror campaign of lynching. Before 1877 more than 2,000 black men held elective office, including a black senator from Mississippi. By 1914 almost no one of color could vote, much less hold office, and the Arlington Monument celebrated the victory of white supremacy.

Removing the monument doesn't change history. It changes commemoration, which reflects our values. When the monument is gone, we can look to the empty space and say, finally, that the U.S. military no longer commemorates an enemy who chose treason to preserve slavery.

Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, USA (Ret.)

Clinton, N.Y.

Mr. Seidule is professor emeritus of history at West Point and visiting professor at Hamilton College.

Wall St Journal Aug 26 2023

What are they going to do with the buried confederates there.  Are they going to move the bodies are just remove the headstones?

wsj

In 1898, 33 years after   the   end of   the   Civil War,   the   Spanish-American War brought a sudden, unanticipated harmony and unity to a country that had been riven by war and a punitive postwar military occupation, which failed   at   wholesale societal reconstruction. In   the   South, American flags flew again as   the   sons of   Confederate   soldiers volunteered to fight, even if it meant wearing   the   once-hated Yankee blue. President William McKinley presciently seized this moment to mend a generation's sectional divide.

McKinley understood   the   Civil War as one who had lived it, having served four years in   the   23rd Ohio Infantry, enlisting as a private and discharged in 1865 as a brevet major. He knew   the   steps to take to bring   the   country fully together again. As an initial signal, he selected three Civil War veterans to command   the   Cuba campaign. Two, William Rufus Shafter, given overall command of   the   Cuban operation, and H.W. Lawton, who led   the   Second Infantry Division,   the   first soldiers to land in   the   war, had received   the   Medal of Honor fighting for   the   Union.   The   other, "Fighting Joe" Wheeler,   the   legendary   Confederate   cavalry general, led   the   cavalry units in Cuba, after being elected to Congress in 1880 from Alabama and working hard to bring national reconciliation.

Four days after   the   Spanish-American war ended, McKinley proclaimed in Atlanta: "In   the   spirit of fraternity we should share with you in   the   care of   the   graves of   Confederate   soldiers." In that call for national unity   the   Confederate   Memorial   was born. It was designed by internationally respected sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a   Confederate   veteran and   the   first Jewish graduate of   the   Virginia Military Institute, who asked to be buried   at   the   memorial   in   Arlington   National Cemetery. On one face of   the   memorial   is   the   finest explanation of wartime service perhaps ever written, by a   Confederate   veteran who later became a Christian minister: "Not for fame or reward, not for place or for rank; not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity; but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it; these men suffered all, sacrificed all, dared all, and died."

But now in this new world of woke, unless measures are taken very soon, by   the   end of this year   the   Confederate   Memorial   will be gone.

With surprising overbroadness,   the   2021 National Defense Authorization Act, passed in   the   midst of national racial and political upheaval, empowered a Naming Commission to "remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate   the   Confederate   States of America . . . or any person who served voluntarily with   the   Confederate   States of America from all assets of   the   Department of Defense." As part of that provision,   Arlington   National Cemetery has been ordered by Defense Department officials to remove   the   memorial   by   the   end of this year, though   the   order is reportedly under review.

Having spent four years as a full committee counsel in   the   House and six years as a member of   the   Senate Armed Services Committee, I cannot imagine that   the   removal of this   memorial , conceived and built with   the   sole purpose of healing   the   wounds of   the   Civil War and restoring national harmony, could be within   the   intent of a sweeping sentence placed inside a nearly trillion-dollar piece of legislation.

The   larger and ultimate question reaches further into America's atrophied understanding of   the   Civil War itself. What was it that Union Army veteran McKinley understood about   the   Confederate   soldiers who opposed his infantry units on   the   battlefield that eludes today's monument smashers and ad hominem destroyers of historical reputations?

McKinley's fellow soldiers understood that during   the   Civil War, four slave states remained in   the   Union -- Maryland, Delaware, Missouri and Kentucky -- and none of them were required to give up slavery during   the   entire war. And that in every major battle of   the   Civil War, slave owners in   the   Union Army fought against non-slave-owners in   the   Confederate   Army. They understood that President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free   the   slaves in those states or in   the   areas of   the   South that had already been conquered.   The   proclamation freed only slaves in   the   areas taken after it was issued. And in   the   eyes of a   Confederate   soldier, if Lincoln had not freed slaves in   the   union, why should   the   soldier be vilified for supposedly fighting on behalf of slavery?

Many soldiers in   the   North, and many more in   the   South, would have understood what John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), America's most esteemed black historian, pointed out: In 1860 only 5% of whites in   the   South owned slaves, and less than 25% of whites benefited economically from slavery. An estimated 258,000   Confederate   soldiers died in   the   war, about a third of all those who fought for   the   South. Few owned slaves. So why did they fight?

The   soldier who wrote   the   inscription on   the   Confederate   Memorial   knew. And so did President McKinley and most veterans who have fought in America's wars.

In 1992, as a private citizen and veteran of   the   Vietnam War, I was seeking to begin a process of reconciliation with our former enemy and hosted a delegation of Vietnamese officials in Washington. One of my objectives was to encourage Hanoi finally to make peace with   the   South Vietnamese veterans who had fought against   the   North and who after   the   war were labeled traitors, denied any official recognition as veterans, and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned in re-education camps.

To make my point I brought them to   the   Confederate   Memorial . Pointing across   the   Potomac River from   Arlington   National Cemetery toward   the   Lincoln   Memorial , I told them   the   story of how America healed its wounds from our own Civil War.   The   Potomac River was like   the   Ben Hai River, which divided North and South Vietnam. On   the   far side was our North, and here in Virginia was our South. After several bitter decades we came together, symbolized by   the   memorial .

If it is taken apart and removed, leaving behind a concrete slab,   the   burial marker of its creator, and a small circle of graves, it would send a different message, one of a deteriorating society willing to erase   the   generosity of its past, in favor of bitterness and misunderstanding conjured up by those who do not understand   the   history they seem bent on destroying.

---

Mr. Webb was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam, Navy secretary (1987-88) and a U.S. senator from Virginia (2007-13). He is   the   distinguished fellow   at   Notre Dame's International Security Center.

Removing the monument doesn't change history. It changes commemoration, which reflects our values. When the monument is gone, we can look to the empty space and say, finally, that the U.S. military no longer commemorates an enemy who chose treason to preserve slavery.

BS

It changes commemoration, which reflects our values.

Do you know what makes up most of our volunteer military today?  

Mostly people who come from a military family. A good deal of them are southerners whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy. 

You see, on this issue, there are good people on both sides and some radical doesn't get to rip down a statue of any kind. If you really believe in democracy the people should get to vote on it.

"A South Carolinian, West Pointer and Mexican War veteran, Longstreet lent his military talents to the Confederate Army in 1861, becoming a corps commander under Gen. Robert E. Lee. What makes his career truly extraordinary, though, is what he did after the war: Longstreet repudiated the rebellion, accepted the civil and political rights of Black people and supported federal efforts to reform the South."

"In its impending removal, Webb sees the latest excess of "this new world of woke." A symbol of national unity, he laments, is about to be erased in favor of "bitterness and misunderstanding conjured up by those who do not understand the history they seem bent on destroying."

You don't believe in forgiveness and redemption, John?  

Jim Webb is an honorable man and one Democrat I could have voted for if he had decided to continue to run. I totally agree with his views on this controversy. These continuing attempts by the leftists to whitewash history as if it had never happened to assuage their liberal white guilt as having been the party of slavery needs to stop. 

The Southern states had every right to secede and form their own government and all of them were fighting and dying for a way of life they (wrongly as it turned out) believed in. No informed person would ever consider them to be traitors, least of all Longstreet.

    Civil War - Causes, Dates & Battles | HISTORY

Jim Webb argues we should "Save the Confederate Memorial at Arlington" (op-ed, Aug. 19). The law isn't on his side and neither are the facts. Congress created the Naming Commission, on which I served as vice chairman, to remove or rename all Confederate commemoration in the Defense Department. The law passed with a supermajority.

The 1914 Arlington Confederate Monument clearly commemorates the Confederacy and its purpose: chattel slavery. It depicts a tearful enslaved woman cradling the child of her Confederate enslaver as he departs for war. The proslavery monument portrays faithful slaves and kind masters. No! Slavery featured legal rape, torture and the selling of husband from wife and child from mother.

Mr. Webb argues that the monument was done in the spirit of reconciliation. But reunion had already occurred in 1868, when the U.S. granted amnesty for treason to all Confederates. By 1877 all the former rebelling states had full political rights and representation. In 1898 President William McKinley had to appease white Southerners who had violently consolidated power in one-party rule. Caring for Confederate graves and allowing a monument in Arlington helped the president achieve his aims in the Spanish-American War.

Reconciliation didn't include nine million African-Americans in the South who lived in a racial police state enforced by a terror campaign of lynching. Before 1877 more than 2,000 black men held elective office, including a black senator from Mississippi. By 1914 almost no one of color could vote, much less hold office, and the Arlington Monument celebrated the victory of white supremacy.

Removing the monument doesn't change history. It changes commemoration, which reflects our values. When the monument is gone, we can look to the empty space and say, finally, that the U.S. military no longer commemorates an enemy who chose treason to preserve slavery.

Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, USA (Ret.)

Gen. Ty Seidule is a scholar on the subject of the Confederacy. He has written books about it. His opinion is worth ten Jim Webb's. 

People like President McKinley, a civil war combat veteran, thought it appropriate.  Funny how people hundreds of years later people who’ve who lost no friends or family they’ve ever met in the war can’t handle a statute in a cemetery. 

Funny how people hundreds of years later people who’ve who lost no friends or family they’ve ever met in the war can’t handle a statute in a cemetery. 

No one living today fought in the Civil War or suffered national humiliation at the fall of the Confederacy. The Civil War has no personal effect on any southerner. That is a takeoff on your dronish objection to remembering slavery.

So, then, why do we need a statue that shouldnt mean anything to anyone? 

If it doesn't mean anything to anyone, why the rush to remove it?

They can use the space for a better purpose. 

I agree, they should also dig up all the democrats/confederates and move them to a more appropriate place. San Francisco?

do we need a statue that shouldnt mean anything to anyone? 

If nothing else, it's a sign of the government's good faith lasting longer than a partisan fever.  

The monument was erected as a sign of national healing and recognition that Lincoln was correct, that southerners were always Americans and remained Americans even when in rebellion.  It was a message to living Confederates and their children that they remain part of the country and should invest emotionally in it and be willing to sacrifice for it. Thankfully, as we saw in the world wars, they did.  There weren't any pro Nazi rallies in the south on the eve of WWII.  Sadly, that can't be said of many northern cities. 

.  I can see how national unity and the concept of everyone being an American must grate on the racialist left. Probably explains their hatred towards monuments reflecting that. 

President Wilson spoke at the dedication ceremony.

resident Wilson spoke at the dedication ceremony.

Yes, but President McKinley advocated for it.

arlingtoncemetery