“This glorification of States Rights Doctrine—the right of secession, and the honoring of men who represented that cause, fosters in the Republic, the spirit of Rebellion and will ultimately result in the handing down to generations unborn a legacy of treason and blood.”  Those are the words of John Mitchell, Jr, a member of the Richmond, Virginia city council and editor of the Richmond Planet.

Mitchell was uniquely qualified to speak on the subject of Confederate memorials.   Born a slave, he nevertheless became literate and was elected as a councilman during reconstruction.  That was before violence and Jim Crow laws made it impossible for black men to hold elected offices.  His words were written in opposition to the use of taxpayer money to erect a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.  A white majority outvoted Mitchell and two other black councilmen.  The statue has been on display in a place of honor since May 29, 1890.

According to Smithsonian Institution researchers, Virginia has spent $174,000 maintaining the statue in the past decade and Richmond police spent $500,000 keeping the peace during Neo-Confederate rallies there in 2017.

Today the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees can’t decide what to do with its “Silent Sam” Confederate Memorial.  For many years, most students and faculty have wanted it removed.  The State Legislature forbade that.  Students took the statue down and it’s now in some form of protective custody until the University Board determines its fate.  One proposal, a $5 million building to securely house the statue, was turned down.  The statue will not be safe on campus without security.  A large number of students and taxpayers are no longer willing to subsidize maintenance of monuments that honor the Confederacy and white supremacy.

My previous column about Silent Sam  suggested alternatives to removing him.  It’s too late for that.  The arrogance of Republican legislators who took away the University’s control of the statue and the resurgence of White Supremacist views have generated such hostility that compromise is unlikely.  The bloodshed that John Mitchell predicted is happening again.  His tragic prophesy has been fulfilled for 130 years as governments at all levels used tax money to glorify the Confederacy as a noble “lost cause”.  The voices of opponents were mostly silenced for more than a century by white supremacists who controlled local and state governments in collaboration with NGOs like the Ku Klux Klan.  Those voices will not be silenced again.

Smithsonian researchers have documented $40 million taxpayer dollars spent in the past ten years honoring Confederate mythology – some of it in the form of direct grants to Confederate heritage organizations.  John Mitchell predicted a “legacy of…blood” from monuments.  Here’s an example.  Dylan Roof toured former plantations and a Confederate museum on the day before he killed nine black Americans at a prayer meeting in their Charleston, SC church.

Like slavery, secession, and the civil war, Confederate memorials are part of our history.  That doesn’t entitle them to places of honor at taxpayer expense.  The question before us is this, “What values and actions do we want to honor today?”  The debate is upon us and decisions will be made – but none of them will be final.  A future generation will also get to decide what they want to honor – just as we get to decide it today.

It’s up to us to acknowledge that slavery is the cause that the Confederacy fought for and lost.  There was nothing noble about human slavery.  History is not always written by the victors.  In our case, the victors allowed the losers to create their mythological story of glorious heroes fighting for honor and state’s rights.  But the documents of secession tell a different story.  The Confederacy was founded to preserve the wealth of slaveholders who controlled state legislatures.  The seceding states actually opposed states’ rights.  They wanted federal intervention in northern states that refused to forcibly return escaped slaves to their owners.  That was an important justification for secession.

An astonishing example of how the Confederacy created its mythological version of history comes from Kentucky.  Slavery was legal there but Kentucky didn’t secede.  90,000 Kentuckians fought for the Union compared to 35,000 for the Confederacy.  But the “lost cause” mythology took hold in post-war Kentucky to such an extent that there are 72 Confederate monuments compared to 2 Union monuments – and they are maintained mostly by tax dollars.

John Mitchell had it right 130 years ago and we should take his advice today.  There should be no use of tax money or government property for monuments or other glorification of the Confederacy’s treasonous rebellion against the United States of America.  A few statues might be preserved in museums.  Others can be made available to the highest bidder to display or do with as they choose on private property.  We should have no more Confederate battle flags on state-issued license plates or sales of Confederate memorabilia at taxpayer owned facilities.

Those who believe “lost cause” mythology have the right of free thought and free speech.  But the rest of us should refuse to pay for it.  The war is over.  It’s time to move on.  Let the dead bury their dead.

Much of the information for this column came from an article in Smithsonian Magazine

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/costs-confederacy-special-report-180970731/