Confederate Monuments Should Come Down, Lawfully
In 2017, as the last of the city’s Confederate monuments were removed, Mayor Mitch Landrieu challenged New Orleanians to
“consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl's eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?”
If you live in a city where such monuments remain, how do you explain them to a child? How do you justify celebrating the valor of men who, in the words of Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens (1861), founded an alternative government on “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?” Slavery was not merely a component of this new government, it was the “foundation,” the “cornerstone,” as Stephens put it: “this, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
According to the Mississippi Declaration (1861), the preservation of slavery was the whole point:
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”
Three years ago, Landrieu spoke for New Orleanians when he said, “the searing truth comes into focus for us.” That was their moment. This is now our moment, as Americans in cities all across the country, “when we know what is right and what we must do. We can't walk away from this truth.”