Lawmakers urge removal of Robert E. Lee statue at Antietam
Amid the national firestorm over Civil War monuments, Maryland lawmakers are pressing the National Park Service to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee that some view as an egregious attempt to sanitize Confederate history.
And key House Democrats are threatening legislation if the Park Service won’t act on its own to take down the statue at Antietam National Battlefield, site of the bloodiest single-day battle in U.S. history.
“The history of this piece, which now resides on this sacred ground, certainly makes it clear it was recently erected by a private citizen out of pro-Confederacy enthusiasm and not to provide historical context or under the direction of a battlefield historian,” said Democratic Rep. John Delaney, whose congressional district includes Sharpsburg, where the 1862 battle took place. “I don’t think that taxpayer resources should serve that end.”
The congressman said the statue “should be taken down” and vowed to “review what legislative proposals already exist in that regard and proceed accordingly.”
Added House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, dean of the Maryland congressional delegation: “Congress must exhaust all legislative options and act to remove these statues where appropriate.”
Maryland's two Democratic senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, have reached out to the Congressional Research Service and the Park Service for more information about the Lee statue, according to Cardin spokeswoman Sue Walitsky. Cardin voiced support this week for separate efforts in Baltimore to remove Confederate statues in the city.
Lawmakers and historians say the Lee statue at Antietam is not a piece of history but a recent attempt by an eccentric Maryland millionaire, William F. Chaney, to rewrite Confederate history and Lee's own views.
Chaney outbid the Park Service for land adjacent to Antietam, and in 2003 erected a giant statue of Lee sitting atop his horse. Chaney later sold the land to the federal government — including the statue of Lee, who he claimed was his ancestor, complete with a plaque offering a whitewashed take on the Confederate commander’s views.
Lee “was personally against secession and slavery,” the plaque reads, “but decided his duty was to fight for his home and the universal right of every people to self-determination.”
While Lee wrote an 1861 letter expressing opposition to secession, he clearly supported it with his actions. He turned down an offer to lead Union troops and instead joined the Confederacy, becoming the chief military commander in a four-year rebellion that would claim more American lives than any war before or since.
(The plaque 'whitewashes' absolutely nothing. Those were his views. Period. He fought for his home state because in those days people had greater loyalty to their State than they did to the Union and he did not wish to fight against his neighbors. The Union, after all, was made up of these several states and were supposed to be limited in it's scope by them. P4P)
Lee's personal views on slavery are still debated fiercely. Defenders of Lee often point to a letter he wrote his wife calling slavery a "moral & political evil." Lee added, though, that slavery was "a greater evil to the white man than to the black race.” He ordered the beatings of his own slaves, some of whom he freed in 1862. Lee also oversaw a Confederate army that captured escaped slaves and put them to work or returned them to their former masters. Confederate commanders under Lee treated black prisoners of war with unique cruelty, refusing to consider them legitimate Union soldiers and sometimes executing them on the spot.
Chaney could not be reached for comment. In 2003, he told The Washington Times he erected the statue to correct what he saw as an imbalance between Union and Confederate statues at Antietam. There are 96 monuments on Park Service property there, the vast majority of which honor the Union.
“It represents all the Southern boys who fought on the bloodiest day in American history,” Chaney said at the time. “They need to be represented, too.”