With renewed debates about the presence of Confederate images in American life, from the Stars and Bars at sporting events to statues and military bases named after Confederate generals, conflicting emotions hit people in different ways based on their own heritage.
Even so, one simple fact should not be overlooked in this discussion: Confederate leaders willfully took up arms against the U.S. government. If for nothing else, this should be the reason against their continued commemoration in marble and mortar.
Several military bases bear the names of men who are responsible for the deaths of thousands of American lives. Our military personnel are asked to train to defend our nation under the names of these rebellious figures. Lawmakers have broken partisan stalemates to come together and start the ball rolling on stripping the Confederate names from these bases. Both House and Senate committee defense bills include provisions for renaming bases.
More powerfully, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the highest-ranking military officer in the land) stated last week before a House committee, “The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion. … It was an act of treason at the time against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution. Those officers turned their back on their oath.”
The product of early 20th-century propaganda to romanticize the failed “Lost Cause” excuse, memorials to Confederate leaders began springing up in the South, constructed as a benign backdrop to Southern living. Since then, and especially in recent months, this “benignity” has shown its true cancerous properties. Recent racial tensions and demonstrations have merely brought to light the struggle of existing as a “United” States, while we are still harshly divided on how to learn and grow from the scourge of civil war.
For a better understanding of the costs of war, the Civil War is responsible for the deaths, in battle and in its surrounding effects, of an estimated 525,000 to 620,000 Americans from both the North and South. World War II claimed nearly 420,000 Americans. More recently, attacks by al Qaeda and associates, including the Sept. 11 attacks, their prior attacks, and the subsequent wars in the Middle East, collectively have taken something upwards of 10,000 American lives. While these modern losses are nothing to look over, they pale in comparison to the loss of life felt by 1865.
The inclusion of this data is for one simple purpose: to remind those arguing in defense of keeping memorials to Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Braxton Bragg, Henry Benning, and Robert E. Lee that they are defending the memories of those who were actively and directly responsible for more American deaths than those caused by these historic wars and conflicts combined.
While historians, lawmakers, and civilians can debate the proper resolution of Confederate presence in the collective memory, one thing should be agreed upon: There needs to be a better understanding of what exactly the Confederacy was. It was a short-lived rebellion against the United States that failed. This failed, treasonous rebellion was based on “states’ rights,” depending on who you ask, and these were the rights of states to have slaves.
The Confederate vice president, Alexander Stephens, spoke directly of this in his Cornerstone Speech from March 1861, discussing the Confederacy’s founding: “[I]ts foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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 moral condition.” The Confederate Constitution specifically barred any future laws from prohibiting slavery. Despite these obvious facts of racial slave prioritization, a logjammed dialogue continues today.
The removal of statues or the names from military bases does not erase the history of those names, nor does it erase the memory of their deeds. There must be a better understanding of history to grasp the times in which we find ourselves properly. Stone renderings and bases named for Confederates are inadequate tools for the task. History depends on fluid communication, not fixed rock.
Thomas Peterson is a research associate at a political consulting firm. He has experience in several Republican political campaigns.
