Legislating Confederate monuments (NC)
Posted: Thursday, July 23, 2015 8:30 pm
Alfred L. Busby/Guest columnist
The N.C. Senate and House have passed a bill to prohibit the removal of Confederate monuments from public property ... Under the bill, monuments can’t even be moved to museums. They have to stay in place – or be moved to a place of similar prominence ... North Carolina is following the lead of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee, which already have similar “heritage protection” legislation to protect monuments to the “war between the states” ...
There are ... reasons to worry about the effect these monuments have on North Carolinians’ feelings of inclusion. Recently I was talking with a law client in a county courthouse. I asked her how she felt about her case and she said, “Well, there is a Confederate monument out front.” I was taken aback, quite frankly. The message of that monument to her was that she might not get justice. We need to at least ask whether such monuments are appropriate at courthouses, where North Carolinians come for equal and fair treatment.
Some other monuments deserve particular scrutiny. In the early 20th century, the United States government returned captured battle flags and often ordnance to Southern states, in the spirit of reconciliation. Yet those instruments of war sometimes became part of Confederate monuments – from cannon on courthouse lawns to the large guns at the Raleigh statehouse’s soldiers and sailors monument. Is displaying instruments of war once used to shoot at United States soldiers in the spirit of reconciliation?
If we are going to get local governments out of the business of monument removal, maybe we should also get them out of the business of monument placement. There are two acts, still on the North Carolina statute books, that authorize local governments to spend public money for Con-federate monuments. The first, passed in 1905, allows the use of public money to put up iron fences around monuments. The second, passed in 1919, allows the use of public money for monuments to the “war between the states” ...
http://www.journalnow.com/opinion/columnists/alfred-l-brophy-legislating-confederate-monuments/article_1db4acd4-309f-11e5-870c-73bbd75fa258.html
