When considering keeping Confederate statues, heed words of Gen. Lee

A letter in Friday's Cape Gazette, by Richard Claypoole, condemned the removal of statues of Confederate leaders from public spaces.

His argument rested heavily on the truism "that man is an imperfect being."

Robert E. Lee was imperfect - he fought to save the institution of slavery - but so was Franklin Roosevelt, who interned Americans of Japanese descent during World War II.

If you take down the statue of one, according to this logic, you must take down the statue of the other.

But there's an obvious difference. Roosevelt was flawed, as are all men, but he never made war against the United States.

On some issues, the U.S. Constitution appears ambiguous. About treason, it's quite clear: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them ...."

Robert E. Lee levied war against the United States, as did Benedict Arnold. Those warring against the United States don't deserve a statue that honors their efforts to destroy it.

And that is precisely how the issue was understood by Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln and the thousands of volunteer soldiers, many of them immigrants, weren't fighting only to save the North. They were fighting to save the United States. They were fighting to save our system of government.

Even more extraordinary, Lincoln and the Union armies were fighting to save all of humanity from tyranny and despotism.

Lincoln, in his 1862 Annual Address to Congress, said, "We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth."

The United States of America, Lincoln was saying, was the last best hope for all of mankind.

He made that even more explicit on Nov. 19, 1863, with the greatest speech in our nation's history, the Gettysburg Address.

He called on Americans to "highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain" and "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Which leads us to why the Southerners were fighting. They were fighting for the right of people to own other people and to profit from their labor.

This included the right to whip and work them to death, to have unfettered access to them sexually and to split up families by selling fathers, mothers, sons and daughters "down the river."

It matters not if Robert E. Lee was, in some ways, an admirable man. He fought for a terrible cause.

That cause was slavery. We know this because they said so. Don't get confused about states' rights. Southerners weren't. Here's the Mississippi Declaration of Secession.

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery," it stated. If that wasn't clear enough, it added, "A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."

Slavery was based on a racist ideology. We know this because they said so. Here's what Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, said on March 21, 1861.

The United States, he said, was founded "upon the assumption of the equality of the races."

That wasn't true of the Confederacy.

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea," Stephens said. "Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone 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 normal condition."

This takes us to the Confederate battle flag and memorial, set up and maintained by the Delaware Grays, at the Marvel Carriage Museum in Georgetown. The memorial honors not only the Confederate soldiers, but also the cause for which they fought.

We know this because they say so - right on the Delaware Grays website. Here's their Salute to the Confederate Flag: "I salute the Confederate flag with affection, reverence and undying devotion to the Cause for which it stands."

People are free to honor Lee and their Confederate ancestors for their bravery and service to their cause, however abhorrent.

But not one penny of public money should go toward a museum that helps honor a cause antithetical to very essence of America, as defined by Lincoln at Gettysburg – that we are a nation dedicated to the "proposition that all men are created equal."

(It's one thing for a museum to house a statue, as part of a display, with context. It's another to have memorials and statues designed to publicly honor the Confederate cause.)

A few final thoughts:

First, spare me the nonsense that statues of Confederate leaders help teach history. They were built to obscure the true story of our past and they've been wildly successful.

A 4-year-old walking down Richmond's Monument Avenue and seeing Lee's enormous statue would immediately understand that this was a man meant to be revered and honored.

It's but a short step - not really a step at all - to believe he fought for a great and noble cause. That was the whole point of these statues. That's why they should be removed.

Second, there's an old saying, credited to Aesop, that you can judge a man by the company he keeps. Consider then the white nationalists marching in Charlottesville, Va., to protest the removal of a statue of General Lee.

They clutched not only the Confederate battle flag, but also flags bearing the Nazi swastika. Holding torches, they marched and chanted, "Jews will not replace us!"

You who support keeping these statues, these are your allies.

And third, interestingly enough, your allies don't include Lee himself.

In 1869, Lee wrote about a proposed memorial at Gettysburg:

"I think it wiser ... not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered."

In that, at least, Lee spoke with wisdom and even some greatness of spirit. Those who would honor Lee would do better heeding his words rather than protecting statues honoring the "original sin" of American history.

Don Flood
Lewes