Virginia lawmakers ask governor to remove state's Robert E. Lee statue from US Capitol

[Judi Lynn]

Source: The Hill


BY JUSTINE COLEMAN - 12/23/19 08:44 PM EST



Two Virginia Democrats are calling on the state’s governor to remove Virginia’s Confederate General Robert E. Lee statue from the U.S. Capitol.

Reps. Jennifer Wexton and A. Donald McEachin both requested that Gov. Ralph Northam (D) prioritize removing Lee as the state’s representative in the Capitol in his 2020 legislative session. The representatives said there are “countless” other choices to represent Virginia.

“These statutes aimed to rewrite Lee’s reputation from that of a cruel slave owner and Confederate General to portraying him as a kind man and reluctant war hero who selflessly served his home state of Virginia,” they wrote.

Every state nominates two statues to be shown in the building as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. Virginia’s statue is featured in the Crypt, which tour groups typically go through.


Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/475795-virginia-lawmakers-ask-governor-to-remove-states-robert-e-lee-statue-from-us

[Hoyt]

1. This is the "Blackface" Gubnor? Ought to be interesting. Hope it's removed, but

expect white wing whining about history, heritage, that was 160 years ago, and similar BS.

They’ll ask trump or Stephen Miller to intervene.

[safeinOhio]

2. I say leave it, but

add 2 more around it. Let’s even use great Republicans, generals, Grant and Sherman.

[brush]

7. Why leave it? Let's be real and remove it as have been the statues of other traitors...

from southern cities and states. Again, he was a traitor who waged war against the nation. Why should a statue of him have a place of honor in the capitol of the very nation he betrayed?

[Journeyman]

3. Replace Lee with a real American General from Virginia, George Henry Thomas . . .

Unlike Lee, George Henry Thomas fought for the Union in the Civil War, rising to the rank of Major General.

His service in the Western Theater kept him from the glory and accolades that attended to those who fought in the East, but his accomplishments were no less and in many ways far superior to other, more renowned Generals. Unfortunately, outside of the history books -- and even then, rarely in those books not exclusively about Union military tactics in the West -- the "Rock of Chickamauga" is largely unknown and unsung. He holds the distinction, however, as the only Union commander who drove a major Confederate army away from a prepared position in a complete rout -- and he did it twice, first at Chattanooga, later at Nashville.

Whenever these debates about the Lost Cause and the glory of the Confederacy are belabored yet again, it is wise to remember the impeccable words General Thomas wrote after the war:

[T]he greatest efforts made by the defeated insurgents since the close of the war have been to promulgate the idea that the cause of liberty, justice, humanity, equality, and all the calendar of the virtues of freedom, suffered violence and wrong when the effort for southern independence failed. This is, of course, intended as a species of political cant, whereby the crime of treason might be covered with a counterfeit varnish of patriotism, so that the precipitators of the rebellion might go down in history hand in hand with the defenders of the government, thus wiping out with their own hands their own stains; a species of self-forgiveness amazing in its effrontery, when it is considered that life and property—justly forfeited by the laws of the country, of war, and of nations, through the magnanimity of the government and people—was not exacted from them.

[gladium et scutum]

5. He also owned at least one slave

He bought the slave while stationed in Texas circa 1858. He retained ownership of the female slave until the 13th Amendment was ratified. He then started paying her as a housekeeper.

[brush]

8. Wow! What a statement by Gen. Thomas about the traitors' attempts to whitewash...

their betrayal of the nation. Thanks for posting.

[J_William_Ryan]

4. Sounds good.

Lee is guilty of treason and war crimes – returning freedmen to slavery his most heinous.

[pressbox69]

6. Why bother to remove it?

Just blow it to bits the way the Union should have done to Lee.

[csziggy]

9. The article says each state has two statues but not who Viriginia's other one is

So I went looking at the National Statuary Hall website (https://www.aoc.gov/the-national-statuary-hall-collection). They list them alphabetically by surname, so before I found Virginia's I found these Confederate heroes:

North Carolina - Charles Brantley Aycock and Zebulon Vance
Missouri - Francis Preston Blair
South Carolina - John Caldwell Calhoun and Wade Hampton
Mississippi - Jefferson Davis and James Zachariah George
Tennessee - Andrew Jackson
Florida - Edmund Kirby Smith
Georgia - Alexander Hamilton Stephenson
Alabama - Joseph Wheeler


Some of the Southern states do not have Confederate heroes -Florida has John Gorrie, Alabama has Helen Keller, Georgia has Crawford Long, Louisiana has Huey P. Long, Kentucky has Ephraim McDowell. (John Gorrie, Crawford Long, and Ephraim McDowell were physicians who achieve great advances.)

Viriginia's other statue is of George Washington.

[keithbvadu2]

10. Thank God you republicans won that war back in the 1860s.

Be sure to praise them profusely for it.

[Retrograde]

11. IMHO, all states should review their choices every 25 years or so

Most states have a lot more than two people they want to honor: if they could only put their statues in for a generation or so that would give them a chance to showcase more people, including those who have historically been marginalized.

[jcmaine72]

12. Tear it down and melt it down.

[The Mouth]

13. LEAVE IT!!!

Just modify it so he's holding a white flag.

and a plaque that says "LOSER"

[Capt. America]

14. We don't have statues of Benedict Arnold or any other traitor. Tear it down.

[Yeehah]

15. Johnson, Grant et al were too nice to the confederate assholes after the war

It allowed their sham "heritage" of hate and autocracy to fester and it continues to sicken this country.

All the leaders of the tresonous confederate insurrection should have been hanged.