Though dozens of congressional Republicans protested the move, the Army says it will begin work in coming days
The Lost Cause movement, which recast rebel traitors as morally righteous warriors defending states’ rights and spread the false belief that slavery was benevolent, is evident in the memorial’s bronze panels. A weeping Black woman, described by cemetery historians as a stereotypical “mammy,” clutches the baby of a White officer, and a camp servant dutifully follows his enslaver toward battle.
The key issue being fought over with the Civil War was states rights. Now, the major part of the federal laws that the states wanted their rights to count for was for slavery and how it they wanted to take their slaves into the western territories. The largest northern opposition to slavery in the western territories was the newly formed Republican Party. And the election of the most famous of Republicans, Abraham Lincoln, basically sealed the deal. See Lincoln was made president without a single southern electoral vote. And so the southern states felt like they had zero representation in the US and their only option was secession. That choice to secede lead to war and here we are now.
But to say they weren’t Americans is unjust. A lot of those living in the southern states didn’t agree or even own slaves. But those same men were conscripted into the fight regardless. In 1862 the first conscription included all able bodied men from ages 18-35. And then the second a few months later changed it to 18-45. And then in 1864 it changed a third time to 18-50. And conscription in the Confederacy was known as “the most unpopular act of the Confederate government”. There were whole counties in southern states being run by draft-dodgers.
The only ones that never had to get drafted and fight were the rich, the politicians, or the plantation owners. See the conscription laws enacted the Twenty Negro Law which meant that for every 20 African American slaves you owned one white man was exempt from the draft. And even those that didn’t own “enough” slaves but had money could buy in a substitute in their place. And considering out of the 15 slaves states only about 3% of the population actually owned slaves at all in 1860 you can see why there ended up being a lot of draft dodgers. So yet again the rich enlisted the poor to kill themselves in a fight they likely had no part of at all. A lot of those died just because they happened to be born or live in a southern state.
Let’s get one thing straight, I’m not advocating for a confederate memorial or keeping the current stuff either. But we shouldn’t ever forget about what happened. And a graveyard commissioned because of the war, full of men that died as a result of that war should, at the very least, respect the dead buried there. Not everyone buried there had a choice, and some of them happen to be confederate soldiers as well. Being that Arlington was once the home of Robert E Lee and was ruled to have been unlawfully seized by the US during the war. Hell they even buried 30 Union soldiers surrounding Mrs Lee’s rose garden to dissuade Robert E Lee from returning to reclaim his home.
Not American just because they fought in a war they were likely forced into fighting. Think of all the people you’d condemn to with the same statement if the war happened today. Not everyone can afford to run away. A lot of those not American’s died in a fight they never wanted to be a part of. Just try and remember them, they deserve to not be forgotten IMHO.