REMOVING THE CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL FROM ARLINGTON CEMETERY:
WHAT WOULD ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND ULYSSES S. GRANT THINK?
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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An independent commission is recommending that the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery be dismantled and taken down. The statue, unveiled in 1914, features a bronze woman, crowned with olive leaves standing on a 32 foot pedestal and was designed to represent the American South. The woman holds a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook with a biblical inscription at her feet which says, “They have beat their swords into ploughing-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.” The pedestal features 14 shields with the coats of arms of the 13 states and Maryland, which did not secede and join the Confederacy.
The Confederate memorial was designed by noted American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. Ezekiel was buried at the base of his creation in 1921, after being honored at the first funeral ceremony in the newly built Memorial Amphitheater. Three other Confederate soldiers lie next to him: Lt. Harry C. Marmaduke of the Confederate Navy, Capt. John M. Hickey of the Second Missouri Infantry, and Brig. Gen. Marcus J.Wright, who commanded brigades at the battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga.
Before hastily removing this important piece of American history, it would be useful to review the history of this memorial which was, many forget, a part of the strenuous effort after the Civil War to reconcile North and South and reunite the country. This effort was led by Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. We should ask ourselves what they would think of this memorial’s removal.
A brief look at history is instructive. On Dec, 8, 1863, Lincoln offered his conciliatory plan for reconciliation of the United States with his proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction. The proclamation addressed three major areas of concern. First, it allowed for a full pardon for and restoration of property to all engaged in the rebellion with the exception of the highest Confederate officials and military leaders. It allowed for a new state government when ten per cent of the eligible voters had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. The Southern states admitted in this fashion were encouraged to enact plans to deal with the formerly enslaved people so long as their freedom was not compromised. The terms of the plan were easy for most Southerners to accept. Lincoln’s plan was charitable considering the costliness of the war. His goal was genuine reconciliation beteeen North and South.
In 1900, Congress authorized Confederate remains to be buried at Arlington National cemetery, which designated a special section for them. Arlington had been a U.S. Army cemetery and for years after the Civil War. Confederate veterans could not be buried there. On Dec. 14, 1898 , four days after the Spanish-American War ended, President William McKinley kicked off his “Peace Jubilee” nationwide tour with a speech in Atlanta in which he proclaimed, “In the spirit of fraternity, we should share with you in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers…Sectional feelings no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag again waves over us in peace with new glories.”
By 1902, 262 Confederate bodies were interred in a specially designated section, Sdction 16. The cemetery added more Confederate graves over the years, eventually totaling over 400. On June 7, 1903, the first Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies were held in Arlington’s Confederate section. President Theodore Roosevelt sent a floral arrangement, beginning a tradition continued by nearly every U.S. President. In 2009, President Barrack Obama modified the tradition, sending two wreaths, one to the Confederate Memorial, the other to Washington, D.C.’s African-American Civil War Memorial, in honor of U.S. black troops.
After the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant tried to foster a peaceful reconciliation between North and South. He supported pardons for former Confederate leaders while also attempting to protect the civil rights of freed slaves. After Appomattox, Grant demanded that former Confederate officers be treated fairly—-he sought to maintain the peace and restore economic prosperity. Robert E. Lee preached submission to Union authority and promoted political harmony and reconciliation. People forget that when he surrendered at Appomattox, Lee was violating a direct order from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to fight on. Lee told Davis, “It’s over,” setting a precedent of the necessity only to follow orders which are legitimate. Lee went on to become president of Washington College to prepare the next generation of Southern men to become useful citizens.
In 1906, with President William Howard Taft’s approval, the United Daughters of the Confederacy began raising funds to erect a memorial in the Confederate section of Arlington National Cemetery. The sculptor, Moses Ezekiel, spent 40 years living and working in Europe after the Civil War, most of it in Rome. He welcomed visiting Americans into his studio in the Baths of Diocletian including Theodore Roosevelt and Ulysses S. Grant. It was Grant’s hope to achieve a genuine reconciliation between North and South and his meeting with Ezekiel was part of this effort. At Ezekiel’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, a eulogy by President Warren G. Harding lauded him as, “A great Virginian, a great artist, a great American and a great citizen of world fame.”
Ezekiel’s sculptures can be found throughout the country. His work celebrating “Religious Liberty” is in front of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. He executed three likenesses of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom, for which he was particularly grateful. He created a 10 foot tall statue of Jefferson standing atop a replica of the Liberty Bell, which is in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse in Louisville, Kentucky. A second version is in front of Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia. His marble bust of Jefferson for the U.S. Senate’s Vice Presidential Bust Collection sits above the Speaker’s chair in the U.S. Senate chamber. He was knighted by King Victor Emmanuel of Italy and decorated by King Humberto.
Hastily removing Moses Ezekiel’s Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery would probably sadden Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, who worked so hard for reconciliation after the Civil War. It is an example of the excess of political correctness at the present time and, more than this, represents what Quaker theologian Elton Trueblood called “the sin of contemporaneity,” holding our ancestors wanting for not sharing the views we have come to at the present time. The Confederate Memorial is a part of our history and the Pentagon would do well to reconsider what appears to be a hasty and narrow political decision. Will the next step be digging up and removing the remains of the Confederate dead? Lincoln and Grant would certainly not approve.
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