Should confederate monuments be destroyed?

Should all confederate monuments be moved or destroyed?

  • All the monuments should be completely destroyed

    Votes: 8 21.6%
  • Move them off public lands

    Votes: 17 45.9%
  • Keep the monuments as is

    Votes: 9 24.3%
  • Build even more confederate monuments

    Votes: 3 8.1%

  • Total voters
    37
The elephant in the closet is that the South shouldn't need permission to secede, no? Anyway, discussion is way too USian for me, and you are all way too touchy. I'll just take the prussian military observer boat out of all this and return to this side of the sewer pond.
From Wiki:

The Constitution does not directly mention secession.[55] The legality of secession was hotly debated in the 19th century, with Southerners often claiming and Northerners generally denying that states have a legal right to unilaterally secede.[56] The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the Constitution to be an "indestructible" union.[55] There is no legal basis a state can point to for unilaterally seceding.[57] Many scholars hold that the Confederate secession was blatantly illegal. The Articles of Confederation explicitly state the Union is "perpetual"; the U.S. Constitution declares itself an even "more perfect union" than the Articles of Confederation.[58] Other scholars, while not necessarily disagreeing that the secession was illegal, point out that sovereignty is often de facto an "extralegal" question. Had the Confederacy won, any illegality of its actions under U.S. law would have been rendered irrelevant, just as the undisputed illegality of American rebellion under the British law of 1775 was rendered irrelevant. Thus, these scholars argue, the illegality of unilateral secession was not firmly de facto established until the Union won the Civil War; in this view, the legal question was resolved at Appomattox.
 
Those who support keeping the statures will be amazed to learn that a more extensive history exists in books.

Exactly my point. A statue could be regarded as a piece of art, but it's not history. Although some might have a brief description of the events of their life, many of these featured on the news only have the name and years. And it's not even very good art, though I admit I am biased against sculpture based art. Especially those of famous people since it is unimaginative as it always strive to put them in the best light, so they all end up looking alike. You don't see statues of people at their worst, and most portray them over the top, and in my opinion aren't honest art because of it.

But I am man enough to admit my biases. I said above I don't care about any statues, and I didn't think I did, but seeing this made me a little sad:



I know, it's just a hunk of metal. I'm not sure of the details of this vandalism, but I can't help but think it's by someone who is ignorant of history. Or maybe a Republican did it, but I doubt it. Which would be ironic since Lincoln is a Republican, but the party is completely opposite of how they started. Why would someone do this to poor Lincoln? He's one of the more famous people to come out of Illinois (although born in Kentucky), apparently they don't care for their own over there. Anyways, I didn't think I cared about any monuments, I was proven wrong. And I am man enough to admit when I'm wrong (I was also somewhat wrong about Rommel). Although I'm not so sad about the monument so much, but that the poor person who did this probably doesn't understand the significance of Lincoln or understood what he did. They probably just saw him as a Republican and all Republicans are bad in their world. The ignorance is what dismays me.

So I'm willing to say the monuments should go to private lands, museums are fine too. They may mean something to some people. Like ole' Abe Lincoln means something to me (along with the person in the statue I mentioned in the OP, even though I'm not a true believer). Lincoln wasn't a perfect man, there are some who argue he should have done more. He's a hero in my book. I'm actually surprised at myself for feeling emotion to a hunk of metal. You learn something new every day.

And if this was done by a Trump supporter, shame on you. You fail to understand history and how great the GOP once was.
 
A statue could be regarded as a piece of art, but it's not history.

Well now, we have to be careful with this, because it seems pretty clear to me anyway that statues can become part of history. The statues and artworks that ISIS has been destroying, or the giant Buddha that was destroyed/defaced (can't remember exactly) by the Taliban in Afghanistan, those are relics that are of immense value as religious icons, as pieces of history that should be preserved. Similarly I believe that these statues and monuments of the confederates are pieces of history- but they are pieces of a shameful history, a history of white supremacy, of terrorist violence against black people. That's why I'm generally not for destroying them (though it's not like I care too much if they are destroyed), but rather think they should not be publicly displayed in a way that makes them representative of the communities in which they are displayed. Put them in museums, as relics of the Jim Crow era and white repression - don't have them out in public places, supported by public money.
 
Well put, but I think you would have to break a few parts off the statue for it
to be accepted by a museum. It's not historical if the statue has a head and all
four limbs.
 
The elephant in the closet is that the South shouldn't need permission to secede, no? Anyway, discussion is way too USian for me, and you are all way too touchy. I'll just take the prussian military observer boat out of all this and return to this side of the sewer pond.


There is no unilateral right to simply withdraw from an agreement you are party to without consequences or any attempt to negotiate a settlement.
 
There is no unilateral right to simply withdraw from an agreement you are party to without consequences or any attempt to negotiate a settlement.

Adding to this...

If an agreement has no included provision and process for withdrawal it is assumed to be for perpetuity. By not including any process for secession the drafting of the constitution presents no opportunity for secession.

The process that the south could have taken would be to propose an amendment to the constitution consisting of a secession process, get it ratified, and then follow it.
 
Adding to this...

If an agreement has no included provision and process for withdrawal it is assumed to be for perpetuity. By not including any process for secession the drafting of the constitution presents no opportunity for secession.

The process that the south could have taken would be to propose an amendment to the constitution consisting of a secession process, get it ratified, and then follow it.


There were actually a few legal processed that the Confederates could have attempted to pursue, and in fact were morally obligated to attempt to pursue. The important thing to note was that they didn't make any attempt at the use of any of the possible alternatives before they started a shooting war. They could have attempted to get laws through Congress. They could have taken it to the Supreme Court. They could have put it to the voters in open plebiscite in the Confederate states. They took none of these actions. Now none of these actions were guaranteed to work. But they are the legitimate forums for the attempt to address a grievance under the laws of the US.

One of the key differences between the American Revolution and the American Civil War is that in the Revolution the leaders had exhausted the legal remedies available to them. In the Civil War the leaders never made an attempt to exhaust the legal remedies.
 
There were actually a few legal processed that the Confederates could have attempted to pursue, and in fact were morally obligated to attempt to pursue. The important thing to note was that they didn't make any attempt at the use of any of the possible alternatives before they started a shooting war. They could have attempted to get laws through Congress. They could have taken it to the Supreme Court. They could have put it to the voters in open plebiscite in the Confederate states. They took none of these actions. Now none of these actions were guaranteed to work. But they are the legitimate forums for the attempt to address a grievance under the laws of the US.

They could have tried to convene a Constitutional Convention or attempted to pass an Amendment as well.

One of the key differences between the American Revolution and the American Civil War is that in the Revolution the leaders had exhausted the legal remedies available to them. In the Civil War the leaders never made an attempt to exhaust the legal remedies.

This is a good point, though I think of relatively minor importance.
 
Trump has reversed his position and removed a monument to white supremacy in Washington.

He fired Steve Bannon.
 
They could have gone for an Amendment also.
 
Think about it, isn't it strange to have monuments to Confederate generals? You don't see monuments to Rommel in Germany do you? (at least I don't think you do, I haven't actually been there). He may be a great general, but there is no reason to have a monument for him. And yes, I know it's not entirely fair to compare Confederates to Nazis, as the Confederates didn't kill 6 million innocent people, but a lot of people did die on the ships coming over from Africa.

I don't think it's really that odd. Just off the top of my head, there is state park dedicated to Pancho Villa in the same city he attacked which is particularly noteworthy since he the Osama bin Laden of those days
There is a monument dedicated to dead Imperial soldiers in Aleutians in Alaska. Vice-versa there was a Japanese town that built monument to honor crews B-29 who had incinerated hundreds of thousands of their countrymen.
There's a cemetery and monument in Mexico City built by the US occupation which the city still maintains, although it's pretty well hidden from the public.
The USS Maine monument in Cuba is still around although they've made a few alterations to it.
There are even Brigade 2506 and Contra monuments in the US.

There's really no good reason for any of these things to exist in their present context they all generate news worthy controversy and anger, depending on the flavor of the month. Confederate monuments share are more prolific I suppose.
 
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Agreed, some of them are awful!

They need to have better, more respectful ones, like Australia has in memory of
their former Prime Minister, Harold Holt, who drowned while in office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_Centre

I remember hearing about a confederate statue at a memorial that was later discovered to actually depict a union soldier. Or it may have been the other way around. Apparently the statue maker was building monuments for both sides and some got mixed up.
 
There is no unilateral right to simply withdraw from an agreement you are party to without consequences or any attempt to negotiate a settlement.
The United States supported dozens of post-Soviet and post-Yugoslav countries doing just that, so I'm not sure if this is true.

The issue is not so much the agreement itself, but the conditions under which it was made and the extent to which it has been upheld. It's easy to support Latvian secession from the Soviet Union because Latvian incorporation into the Soviet Union was achieved at gunpoint on broken promises of socialism. The argument against Southern secession is that they signed up as free and willing partners and that the stated grounds for secession were basically spurious. It sounds like an academic distinction, but it's an important one we're talking about an unsuccessful secession from a country that was formed via a successful secession.
 
My view on it, as a non-American, and as someone who doesn't have that much of an emotional charge against the CSA, is more of an historic view. I see no point in destroying them. They resemble something.
I mean, there have probably been a lot of conflicts throughout human history, in which the winners considered the losers as terrible and immoral people. Will we, at present, be happy to find out that those winners destroyed remnants of the loser's work?
A deeper implication of the historical view - much of those winners have eventually became "losers" by other cultures. Will the USA be such in the upcoming decades and centuries? Possibly. And by then, will it matter to historians that the USA considered the CSA's ideologies illegitimate? No. Both may be irrelevant, or even be unwanted. Historians will just want the leftovers.
 
My view on it, as a non-American, and as someone who doesn't have that much of an emotional charge against the CSA, is more of an historic view. I see no point in destroying them. They resemble something.
I mean, there have probably been a lot of conflicts throughout human history, in which the winners considered the losers as terrible and immoral people. Will we, at present, be happy to find out that those winners destroyed remnants of the loser's work?
A deeper implication of the historical view - much of those winners have eventually became "losers" by other cultures. Will the USA be such in the upcoming decades and centuries? Possibly. And by then, will it matter to historians that the USA considered the CSA's ideologies illegitimate? No. Both may be irrelevant, or even be unwanted. Historians will just want the leftovers.

Thing is that the monuments in question were never the CSA's work. They were built decades later, and despite the claim that they were built "to honor the sons of the confederacy" the actual intent when they were constructed was to "remind the blacks that they may be 'free' but we are still in charge here." The false pretenses of their commissioning laid the groundwork for the false pretenses in the protests over their removal.
 
I'm wondering why we don't do what they did in the former Eastern Bloc countries and create "statue parks" where they remove the statues from the center of town and stick them in a field somewhere.
 
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