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Monuments to a myth

On May 20, the city of New Orleans took down a towering statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the last of four monuments of prominent Confederates removed in that city. Critics of this action were outraged, many arguing these statues had a significant teaching component. That is, they were bronze and stone lessons about the Civil War, one of the most important eras in Unites States history.

If statues of prominent Confederates on display throughout the South made a teaching-learning contribution, I would be all for keeping them on display. However, these monuments are completely devoid of any pedagogical value. Rather, they are memorials that glorify and perpetuate the myth of the “Lost Cause.”

University of Virginia historian Matthew Speiser notes that almost immediately after the Civil War ended in 1865, Southern writers began seeking vindication for the defeated white South. In so doing they created the “Lost Cause” myth — an idealized view of the South, a celebration of white history and culture before and during the war.

Yale historian Rollin Osterweis stated that early Lost Cause advocates wrote nostalgically about the South: gentlemen plantation owners, “the magnolia scented Southern belle, the good gray Confederate veteran, once a knight of the field and saddle,” and “old Uncle Remus,” the obliging slave who understood and accepted his subordinate status in the racial hierarchy.

Lost Cause writers argued emphatically the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, conveniently ignoring pre-war writings and speeches of Southern leaders who stated unequivocally that slavery was the foremost reason 11 states seceded from the Union.

A statue under the U.S. Capitol dome in Washington, D.C., of Alexander Hamilton Stevens (1812-1883), former governor of Georgia and vice president of the Confederacy, notes that he was a “Statesman — Author — Patriot.” There is no mention of his “Cornerstone Speech” delivered in Savannah, Georgia, in March 1861, less than three weeks prior to the beginning of the Civil War. Stevens stated the “cornerstone” of the new Confederate States of America “rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery-subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

Rather than this inconvenient truth, the statue of Stevens carries one of his sayings: “I am afraid of nothing on the earth, above the earth, beneath the earth, except to do wrong.” An interesting quotation given that Stevens was dedicated to perpetuating the greatest wrongdoing in human history: slavery. This statue of the Confederate vice president is yet another monument promoting the Lost Cause myth.

The Lost Cause narrative is also a myth in the other meaning of that word: a falsehood or lie. Speiser states the Lost Cause grew out of “white Southern advocacy.” Monuments erected to honor Confederate leaders and military officers are tangible components of this advocacy as these individuals have been transformed into secular saints and honored by those who adhere to the Lost Cause myth.

Speaking of statues of prominent Confederates on Richmond, Virginia’s Monument Avenue, the African-American mayor of the former capital of the Confederacy stated, “Equal parts myth and deception, they were the ‘alternative facts’ of their time — a false narrative etched in stone and bronze more than a 100 years ago — not only to lionize the architects and defenders of slavery, but to perpetuate the tyranny and terror of Jim Crow and reassert a new era of white supremacy.”

The other argument for maintaining these statues/shrines is they are “part of our history” and, as such, should forever be displayed. Imagine you take a trip to Germany and, upon arrival, see Nazi flags on government buildings, schools, hospitals and in public parks. In downtown Berlin you encounter statues of Hitler, Goering, Himmel, Rommel and other prominent Nazis. Upon asking a local how the German people could possibly have monuments to these men in their cities, he or she responds, “They are central figures of our history and heritage. It’s important to keep their memories alive.” Now imagine that your father or grandfather was killed at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II or that you are a Jew who lost dozens of family members at Nazi death camps.

Is it any different for African-Americans seeing Confederate statutes prominently displayed across the South? The Nazis systematically murdered at least 7 million Jews, Slavs, Roma people, disabled individuals and political opponents in the World War II. How many millions of people were held in bondage, treated like beasts of burden and died in misery over more than 200 years of slavery in this country?

If monuments to Civil War generals are indispensable symbols of the Civil War, shouldn’t there be a gigantic statue of Gen. William T. Sherman in downtown Atlanta? Why no statues of U.S. Grant and Sherman in Vicksburg, Mississippi? New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked why in his city there are “no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings” of countless blacks by white terrorist groups?

In the second-to-last chapter of the “Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant,” completed shortly before his death in 1885, the former Union general and U.S. president wrote about Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. Grant stated, “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there is the least excuse.”

P.S.: In a 2016 study, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 718 monuments and statues dedicated to Confederate military and political figures in public places. Almost all were in the 11 former Confederate states, with just under 300 in Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina.

George J. Bryjak lives in Bloomingdale and is retired after 24 years of teaching sociology at the University of San Diego.

Sources:

Beavers, O. (May 23, 2017) “New Orleans mayor blasts critics of Confederate statues’ removal in emotional speech,” The Hill, www.thehill.com

Gonzalez, R. (May 19, 2017) “New Orleans Takes Down Statue of General Robert E. Lee” National Public Radio, www.npr.org

Grant, U. (1985) “Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant,” Charles L. Webster & Company: New York

Malloy, D. (June 25, 2015) “John Lewis: Take Down Georgia’s U.S. Capitol Statue of Confederate V.P.” Atlanta Journal Constitution, www.ajc.com

Osterweis, R. (1973) “The Myth of the Lost Cause 1865-1900,” Archon Books: New York

Speiser, M. (June 2011) “Origins of the Lost Cause: The Continuity of Regional Celebration in the White South, 1850-1862” Essays in History, www.essaysinhistory.com

“SPLC study finds 1,500 government-backed tributes to the Confederacy across the U.S.” (April 21, 2016) Southern Poverty Law Center, www.splcenter.org

Vozzella, L. (June 22, 2017) “Richmond Mayor Vows to Confront Tributes to Southern Civil War Figures,” Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com

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