Monumental Mistake

And now, for the next chapter in the Left's continuing story of the desecration of all things American. As the chapter unfolds, we find a seemingly indefensible piece of American history being targeted for elimination - the 1,000's of memorials and monuments, mostly in the South, but also dotting the rest of the Country too, of the Confederacy.

Except, as the estimable Arthur Herman (Pulitzer Prize finalist historian, bestselling author, to name a few of his achievements) reminds us, the statues are not of the Confederacy per se, but of the dead soldiers who fought on the Confederate side. This is an important distinction - we do not generally ascribe the wrongfulness of a war against the soldiers thereof, for the simple reason that soldiers in whatever cause are doing those things that characterize a soldier: acting on the virtues of duty, honor, courage, and self-sacrifice even to the point of death. This kind of behavior is laudable, whether exhibited by a fighter of the Confederacy or the Union, the Allies or the Germans, the Cowboys or the Indians. Courage in the face of death is rare and always eminent, especially when that courage is in the service of the protection/preservation of others - even if 'the others' are not deserving of protection (x-reference Russians who died protecting Stalin's Russia, a bloody regime without parallel in history to that point, from the German Army).

This was the original shameful stain among many in the Leftist movement of the 60's, which openly despised and dishonored the Vietnam soldiers because the Left hated the war they fought. And then flash forward to the Left's attempt to do the same to the soldiers in the 2000's - e.g. John Murtha, John Kerry, and Hollywood, slandering our people as rapists and terrorizers of women and children in Iraq - and it is obvious they have learned nothing, and indeed, do not want to learn. They simply want to tear down America, beginning with its most obviously impressive part, its soldiers.

Let's get straight about what monuments and memorials are. They are historical memory markers. A society bent on erasing all artifacts of its history is in a state of denial, and thereby (as the saying goes) doomed to repeat its mistakes. None of us appeared pristine into the world upon birth, but instead are a complex product of the history which preceded us. And that history contains mistakes made and lessons learned that, if we are to leave the world better after we are gone, will inform and guide us.

And that points us to the dynamic essence of a monument: a statue is sculpted and the materials used are thereby frozen in time. But beyond the materials, what is sculpted is also a hope, a hope that the reasons this statue was made will endure to remind and inspire those who come after, that it will be an enduring memory marker. But the original meaning of the statue changes and morphs with the changing times in a way that mirrors all other interactions between the present and the past. In the flux of time we seek eternal verities, and over time certain meanings from the past reveal themselves as cheap flint to be chipped off and discarded, others as rough stone that need rounding and smoothing, and some, very few, as fine cut diamonds that cannot be improved upon, only admired.

No one looks at a pyramid or the Sphinx and sees an eternal paean to the value of a slave working class, nor as an example of the greatness we could all achieve if we just brought back Pharaohs and their gods to rule us. Something like that may have been the original impetus to these massive projects, but these meanings are consigned to  the dustbin of history. Today, they represent the marvel of human society, what it can do if it has the will and strength to strive for something great.

And so too with Confederate statues. It is not disputed that many of these were built to revere the Lost Cause of the South, which in large measure (albeit not totally) was the maintenance of slavery as an institution. But this is a meaning that has not survived subsequent history; whatever hope the creators may have had in this respect has been dashed against the confirmed Southern belief that slavery was an evil and had to end. So, these statues,  some begun with infamous purpose, have morphed in their meaning as a diamond core was discovered after chipping away the flint.

A diamond core of multiple, enduring meanings.

First, reverence for our forebears. These statues were made to last. As such they were created by our forebears essentially as a conversation with the future, or better, an offer of a dialogue that we entertain out of respect for those who came before  us.

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Second, as Arthur Herman notes, the statues memorialize the honor, dedication, valor, and self-sacrifice of the soldiers.

And third, the fact of these statues, many built after the close of the 19th century, are a testament to the reconciliation between the North and the South, and the recovery of one indivisible United States of America. This last, as Mr. Herman tells us, is perhaps the most important reason to maintain these marks of history, for they mark " … the true face of American exceptionalism, that we Americans could fight a savage and bloody civil war, in which more than 600,000 died and thousands more were maimed and wounded, and still be able to honor the heroes of both sides."

This reconciliation is what Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant called for in the immediate aftermath of the war, and what Robert E. Lee himself spent his post-war life promoting. Many of General Lee's soldiers in the great Army of Northern Virginia wanted to take to guerilla warfare after the surrender, but Lee would have none of that. He told them to accept the result of the war and work to become Americans again. And he used the universal respect he enjoyed in the South to counsel his southern countrymen the same. He also worked to heal the divide between the whites and blacks in the hopes of forging a new South that would together rise from the ashes of a defeated region.

Above all the other statues and memorials, the ones to Robert E. Lee remind us of this man who earnestly spent his post-war years healing the South in reconciliation and repentance of a cause that should not have been, and thereby rendered immeasurable benefit to the United States in its goal to become one nation, under God, again. Beyond his brilliant military record, this is why Robert E. Lee was revered almost as much in the North as he was in the South.

And that is why the Left wants to destroy these statues, because the Left has no interest in remembering anyone who might have tried to make the United States one nation, under God. Their interest is in the opposite, to tear this country apart, so that it can be remade in their own image.