When I visited the battlefield, I made a point of finding where Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine made their famous stand. There I also found out about how other regiments fought hard and died on that hill. The 16th Michigan, the 44th New York and the 83rd Pennsylvania were also wrecked in the fight. That is why Chamberlain and the 20th had no recourse but to charge without ammunition.
But they weren’t fighting nameless evil. The Alabama and Texas regiments that assaulted them were fighting uphill against prepared positions in boulders and woods. They had no hope of succeeding, yet they came so close that it took Chamberlain’s heroism to stop them. The southern regiments were nearly wiped out doing it.
The southerners fought more bravely and more selflessly than the heroes we revere for holding them off.
Those soldiers owned no slaves. They didn’t fight for slavery. They simply wouldn’t have fought so hard for an institution that was already deteriorating. They fought for the South. They fought for their homes, they fought for their States, and they fought yankees.
I think the Holocaust was nearly the worst of the worst, as far as humanity’s ability to be inhumane goes. I boldly stand against the Holocaust.
But I favor the Holocaust Museum.
Look, I don’t think it’s wise to wipe out historical evidence that Nazis existed. Right now, in light of pretty damn convincing evidence to the contrary, some idiots argue that the Holocaust was a hoax or an exaggeration. For that reason I think the Holocaust museum is a good idea.
Now, I assume the Germans now have better candidates for public statues, and more power to them. But at the risk of being branded pro-Nazi, I don’t agree with Germany’s bend-over-backwards approach of criminalizing Holocaust denial.
I don’t know specifics of Nazi statue removal and I don’t say they were wrong.
Okay, so is it fair to say that, if after WWII, the German government made the decision that due to philosophy and ideology they would tear down all Nazi monuments and statues, then you would think this is appropriate (or at least not objectionable)?
If so, then under what circumstances would it be okay for local American governments to make the decision that, due to philosophy and ideology, they will tear down at least some Confederate monuments and statues?
Yes, they did. You can try to dress it up, but that is why they got into the fight in the first place. By that stage in the war, I suppose you could say the individual soldier was really fighting for the buddies beside him and the philosophical differences that started the war became meaningless, but slavery did start that war.
Gettysburg statues should remain, but with prominent information on view not just about the subject or subjects represented–but about the commissioning of the statues, too. Who paid? When? What was going on, both locally and nationally, that might have had a bearing on the decision to raise a statue?
That same set of questions, with answers, should be conspicuously displayed next to every statue moved from a town square or park to a museum.
And the Confederate statues should be moved from town squares and parks to museums (open air or traditional).
What matters about Confederate statues is not their existence, but their placement.
Placement in a town or city square says ‘this is what we value; this is what we revere.’ Placement in a museum says ‘this is part of our past, and we consider it important to remember that past.’
Gettysburg and other battlefields* are like museums and not like town squares and parks. So people should be able to go to Gettysburg and the other battlefields and see the statues—along with information on what was going on in the nation that influenced the decision to raise the statues.
*Except for the Alamo, perhaps, situated right in the middle of present-day San Antonio as it is, and therefore taking on some of the characteristics of a ‘town square.’ But that’s about another conflict entirely.
AHAHAHA, Bricker caught all you in a logical trap! He’s so smart and you’re all so dumb! Bow to Bricker’s superior intelligence and recognize the weakness in the Liberal mind!
Yes. “Not objectionable.” But part of that comes from the realization that I’m not German, and don’t have the cultural understanding to comment on the tension between the neutral desire to preserve history and the understandable motives of signaling to any observers that I reject the Nazi viewpoint.
If the local American governments believed there was a genuine and well-founded risk that by failing to destroy the statues, well-informed observers might conclude that the local government harbored sympathy for Confederate goals.
Of course I’ll note that once again we seem to have left Gettysburg behind and are steering the questions toward non-Gettysburg (“local government”) statuary. Why is that?
Because I don’t think anyone here has any interest in removing historical monuments in parks that weren’t put up as symbols of resistance to desegregation and civil rights.
There’s a lot of hypothetical but we know what monuments and markers are actually on the battlefield.
There’s markers of unit headquarters and artillery battery positions for both sides. I’d guess those aren’t all that controversial in terms of being an important part of telling the history.
There’s 12 state level monuments that honor Confederate troops. One of those, Maryland’s, honors both sides since units from Maryland fought on both sides at the battle. Only one, the Virginia monument, includes a statue of one of the big name key leaders - Lee.
Only Six Confederate Units have unit level monuments. The 11th MS and 26th NC both have two bringing the number to 8. The skew heavily towards being placed at key locations for the unit with their inscriptions being of historical value describing the unit’s actions on the battlefield.
There’s a single Confederate Soldiers and Sailors monument with a statue of what they thought at the time was the last surviving member of the armed forces of the CSA. The inscription might trouble some. It’s there in the link.
For individualsI see three that stand out in the list without clicking through all of them:
Lee as mentioned above on the state of VA monument.
Armistead has a stone without a statue at the the point where he fell inside union lines during the Pickett-Trimble-Pettigrew charge on the third day of the battle. It doesn’t say much beyond that he fell there. The whole story about about his farewell with Reynolds and Hancock, “May God strike me dead” if he raised his hand against them makes for a compelling story at the location. Armistead is part of the Friend to Friend Masonic Monument. In the statue he is mortally wounded being assisted by a Union Captain. The inscription reads simply Friend to Friend, a brotherhood undivided. The Masons were pushing message and it wasn’t the Lost Cause.
Then there’s Longstreet. He’s more fall guy than hero of the Lost Cause. The inscription is predominantly about his Corps’ activities in the battle except for the quote about him being the best fighter in the army. The statue of his horse in motion mounted at ground level rather than on a typical pedestal is also a pretty non-standard piece that I would hate to see removed from Confederate Avenue.
That’s basically it. We’re arguing about monuments that largely are unrelated to messaging about the glory or righteousness of the cause. There’s really only two that IMO fit that notion - the state of VA monument and the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors monument.
Also, the Nazi statues example was in the immediate aftermath of a genocidal conflict. Kind of an extreme situation.
Now, how about a different hypothetical, a closer one. Where Japan is defeated, the Japanese emperor stays in power, no monuments/statues get destroyed, but now, 70+ years from the defeat, there are demands to eliminate the position of the Emperor in Japan and wipe out any monuments to Japanese soldiers or statues of military or government figures of the time. Because atrocities and racism of the Japanese military back then.
Only one of those qualifies (and it was at least partially joking).
My broader point is that statues and monuments have always been changed, removed, or destroyed, and always will be, for reasons of politics, convenience, or ideology. And every generation will decide on their own which monuments and statues they want to keep or remove, no matter what we do. I think monuments and statues that were specifically raised in order to oppose civil rights and integration for black people, as many or perhaps even most confederate monuments and statues in America were, never should have been raised in the first place, and should come down at the earliest opportunity. The only accurate historical lesson they teach, IMO, is the prevalence and continued relevance of white supremacism - and taking them down is a small but still significant part of the long term effort to dismantle that remaining white supremacism in our society.
That’s an extremely broad answer. Can you point out some specific concerns that were motivating the fighting for the average soldier? Something like, “If we don’t go to war with the North, they’re going to take away/impose X.”
Slavery was the main point of contention. The other important point of contention was whether the States held primacy over the Union. The Civil War also settled that issue.