On Removing Confederate Monuments

What seems to be ignored by the "erasing our history" folk is that the very essence of history is reconsideration of past events in light of more knowledge and changing times. When I was growing up, Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson were included among the giants and Ike was considered an amiable grandfather type. The conventional view of Reconstruction was that it was a highly abusive period when the poor, downtrodden southerners were oppressed by evil carpetbaggers and scalawags and the end of Reconstruction marked the return of democracy. Columbus was a heroic explorer who brought “civilization” to the “New World.”

These things steadily get reconsidered. Our conception of history changes with knowledge, just as, in physics, the knowledge that the atom was “the fundamental and indivisible building block” or, in geology, that “the continents are fixed and permanent features” have been modified over the years. Reconsidering who we choose to honor prominently in public places is the very essence of "history."

A number of years ago, there was a brief period where Congress, the Fine Arts Commission and other stakeholders debated the need to spare some of the prime monumentation space in Washington, DC, for events and heroes of the future. But they then continued to fill up every available space. Since I first moved to Washington in 1970, the five existing museums on the Mall (American History, Natural History, Freer, National Gallery, Castle) were augmented by eight more (Hirschhorn, East Wing, Air and Space, Sackler, African Art, American Indian, African American History, and Holocaust) while no fewer than five major monuments (Vietnam, Korean War, FDR, World War II, Martin Luther King) have been added, with additional monuments to Eisenhower, Desert Story, the Global War on Terror, and other people and issues are on the drawing boards.

Inevitably, with few political overtones, the time will come when it is necessary to consider whether, for example, James Garfield or Black Jack Logan or Samuel duPont or James McPherson or Robert Emmet or John Ericsson deserve prime monument space. If so, future presidents and heroes will get their monuments in Loudoun County.

Does this mean all Confederate monuments should come down immediately? No, of course not. My feelings about Confederate monuments are complicated. I even wrote a book about Confederate monuments at Gettysburg where I argued that MORE are needed here. But in debates about the status of Confederate monuments, the “erasing our history” argument should, like the rule about Hitler references, earn its proponent and instant “you lose.”