When were confederate monuments erected and why?

[randomuser]

You are still calling the ancestors of millions of Americans “losers”. If someone said that about yours, you wouldn’t take it well. It would not only not change your mind about your ancestors, it would strike you as personally insulting and make you very doubtful of the good faith of the person who said it.

The purpose of such epithets now is to demean and anger people now living. The dead don’t care what you call them.

As I have said before, it’s like Achilleus dragging the body of Hektor around the walls of Troy. Hektor was dead. It didn’t hurt him. The purpose was to cause anguish to the watching Trojans by dishonoring their dead, and to express Achilleus’ overweening pride. Even in the Greek mind, such vanity was so over the top that it offended the gods and ensured Achilleus’ downfall.

So what you’re saying is that the South is bunch of snowflakes?

C’mon, man. I mean, really - how are you not making the case that the South is a bunch of snowflakes who can’t handle the truth? They LOST.

 

[Ridgerunner]

In the mid-1800s, people considered themselves loyal to their states more than to the gathered states. This we have Robert E Lee, who agreed with maintaining the union, but who felt it would be unpatriotic to not fight for Virginia.

When the Civil War started, my state had been a French colony only 58 years previously. People then alive were born under French rule. Some undoubtedly thought statehood a blessing. Some undoubtedly didn’t, particularly those who lost their old French and Spanish land grants.

 

[Ridgerunner]

So what you’re saying is that the South is bunch of snowflakes?

C’mon, man. I mean, really - how are you not making the case that the South is a bunch of snowflakes who can’t handle the truth? They LOST.

I said nothing of the kind.

Their ancestors lost a war, and it isn’t as if they don’t know it. But that does not give anyone the right to be deliberately insulting toward them. Maybe you have no respect for your ancestors, but most people do.

 

[FirstFiveEighth]

No-name groups like “Daughters of The Confederacy” and the DAR (the ones who wouldn’t let Marian Anderson sing in their concert hall.)

Losers who waited hundreds of years before deciding to honor their equally no-name loser generals.

Bro. You keep going on about this. Maybe you should actually read those books you keep talking about. “Daughters of the Confederacy” was literally started by daughters and widows of confederate veterans. Your “100yrs later” comments are also directly contradicted by the graph presented in the OP.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

So what you’re saying is that the South is bunch of snowflakes?

C’mon, man. I mean, really - how are you not making the case that the South is a bunch of snowflakes who can’t handle the truth? They LOST.

Ridgerunner is right. The use of the term “loser” serves no good purpose in this discussion. You could have said “the side that loses a war.” But the term “loser” all by itself carries too much demeaning baggage to use instead. Just look at how Arnold Schwarzenegger used it recently, or how Trump uses it. I doubt if Lincoln would have used that term in the sense we mean it today when describing the South, had he lived to manage the aftermath of the war.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Well, I was thinking more along the lines that if they want to remove all traces of slavery, then they might want to start with themselves, i.e., the Democratic party.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I said nothing of the kind.

Their ancestors lost a war, and it isn’t as if they don’t know it. But that does not give anyone the right to be deliberately insulting toward them. Maybe you have no respect for your ancestors, but most people do.

Bullying and shaming are tactics used by liberals to prove how superior they are than the rest of us!

 

[mary_bobo]

In the mid-1800s, people considered themselves loyal to their states more than to the gathered states. This we have Robert E Lee, who agreed with maintaining the union, but who felt it would be unpatriotic to not fight for Virginia.

Far too many of us have forgotten the Constitution which enumerates those powers given to the federal government. All others are to be left to the states. These days far too many, IMO, do not want to operate this way.

The Civil War was fought for reasons other than slavery. There were economic reasons in that the North wanted to raise taxes on goods produced in the South, such as cotton. The South wanted to secede from the Union. Just how many people in the South do you think had slaves? Certainly not the majority. Some of the revisionist history is really sad since history and geography are not taught in schools anymore, all of which leaves too much for those who wish to denigrate a time they do not know because of some ideological theme in this time.

 

[randomuser]

I said nothing of the kind.

Their ancestors lost a war, and it isn’t as if they don’t know it. But that does not give anyone the right to be deliberately insulting toward them. Maybe you have no respect for your ancestors, but most people do.

That’s exactly what you’re saying - I can’t state historical fact, that their ancestors are losers, because the Confederate snowflakes’ feelings would get hurt.

Who, exactly, is trying to erase history here?

 

[cthulhubryan]

Clearly slavery and racism are evils that are either gone (slavery) or should be gone (racism) but these were not the only reasons for the ware between the states. Federal over reach and disregard for the enumerated powers of the constitution also player their part.

Robert E. Lee wanted people to forget the war and move on as part of the U.S. but everything tends to look better through the rose colored glasses of idealized history. People should move on, but calling those who remember the non slavery reasons for the war “losers” seems both wrong and uncharitable.

 

[mary_bobo]

That’s exactly what you’re saying - I can’t state historical fact, that their ancestors are losers, because the Confederate snowflakes’ feelings would get hurt.

Who, exactly, is trying to erase history here?

Stating a historical fact as an “in your face” comment is not necessary. It is obvious to me that you don’t live in one of the southern states. Most southern men would be too polite to insult people in that way.

 

[mikekle]

Who was going to erect monuments during Reconstruction, and who had the money to do it, given the economic devastation in the South? I couldn’t open your link, but I have seen others indicating the overwhelming number were erected between about 1900 and 1914.

At that point in time, there were no few ex-Confederates still alive, and a significant number of the young men in the country were the sons or grandsons of Confederate veterans who undoubtedly told them about the hardships of the war, its aftermath, and the things they had seen.

During that same period, there was a lot of uncertainty as to whether southern young men would defend the Union, particularly in light of the fact that the closer war came in Europe, the more likely it appeared the country would have to call on those very men. It would be my guess that the monument building was a conciliatory gesture.

As I mentioned in another post, there was a similar effort among Irish-Americans who were resistant to the idea of “fighting for England” in WWI.

I watched a piece on this, most confederate statues around today were erected around the time of the civil rights fight, (1960s) Daughters of the Confederacy helped pay for many of them . I also leared they are very cheap, like under $400. someone asked why one of these statues seemed to wrinkle up pretty quick upon tearing it down, they learned it was not actually solid bronze or marble, but kind of like a cheap paper mache built to be weather resistant.

 

[phil19034]

More importantly for today, who are the people who put up those monuments? They are the people who were Southern Democrats when Republicans were for equal rights, and became Republicans in the 1960s when the Democrats were for equal rights. There is no ideological continuity between the nominal political parties in the South before 1950 and the political parties after 1970. So your observation has no relevance to political parties of today.

The graph is interesting, but what you posted here is incorrect and far more complex than your post indicates.

Republicans were not against equal right in the 1960s. The MAJORITY of Southern, racist Democrats did not flip over to the Republican Party.

the only place where there was an active attempt to do so was in the Houston, TX metro; where the Republican Party tried to receive votes from Democrats who were upset with their local representation.

But the Republicans were not against the civil rights period, and the reasons why Democrats get a lot of credit for it are as follows:

1. lots of northern blacks were voting for Democrats by then
2. President Kennedy, Senator Bobby Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr were all major, proponent Democrats in favor of it and were assassinated
3. Democrats are more likely to publicly protest and were back then too.

If you look at the numbers of Southern Democrats who changed to the Republican Party, the numbers are low. The South started to change to Republican during & after the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Here are a few articles, including one very anti-Republican & anti-Christian one from Forbes: forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/27/pastors-not-politicians-turned-dixie-republican/#d97cf09695fc

And here is another the NY Times: nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10Section2b.t-4.html?mcubz=0

And Republicans did support the Civil Rights Acts, at rates higher than the the Democrats: politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/may/25/michael-steele/steele-says-gop-fought-hard-civil-rights-bills-196/

 

[Ridgerunner]

I watched a piece on this, most confederate statues around today were erected around the time of the civil rights fight, (1960s) Daughters of the Confederacy helped pay for many of them . I also leared they are very cheap, like under $400. someone asked why one of these statues seemed to wrinkle up pretty quick upon tearing it down, they learned it was not actually solid bronze or marble, but kind of like a cheap paper mache built to be weather resistant.

According to statistics cited here and on another thread, far and away most of them were erected between 1900 and 1914. There was another, far smaller “uptick” during the Civil Rights era. I too noticed how that monument to the generic confederate soldier crumpled when it was pulled down. But it was probably bronze. I think a lot of bronze castings are hollow.

 

[pianistclare]

Funny. People appear to hate statues. Some churches think we actually worship statues.
We all know this is totally false.
I have been here in the Deep South for over 30 years. Never once have I had a “hankering” to loll about and think about these statues. I consider it part of the history of this place, nothing more.
I doubt if the millions of people who saunter past them give them another thought.
It’s STUFF.
STUFF doesn’t make people behave one way or another.
It would be a shame to simply erase the history we don’t like.
They don’t harm me, they don’t influence me, and I don’t study them.

It seems like people could spend their time in more PRODUCTIVE endeavors, like trying to get along. Maybe even learn from history.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The graph is interesting, but what you posted here is incorrect and far more complex than your post indicates.

Republicans were not against equal right in the 1960s. The MAJORITY of Southern, racist Democrats did not flip over to the Republican Party.
…
If you look at the numbers of Southern Democrats who changed to the Republican Party, the numbers are low. The South started to change to Republican during & after the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

…

And Republicans did support the Civil Rights Acts, at rates higher than the the Democrats: politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/may/25/michael-steele/steele-says-gop-fought-hard-civil-rights-bills-196/

It looks like some modification of my statement is in order. The transformation I thought took place in the wake of the Civil Rights movement actually did not take place until the Reagan era.

What I can still say though is that the Democrats who fought for slavery were mostly in the South. The whole party did not adopt that view. And that wing of the party has passed on, leaving no ideological descendants today.

 

[pianistclare]

**

What I can still say though is that the Democrats who fought for slavery were mostly in the South. The whole party did not adopt that view. And that wing of the party has passed on, leaving no ideological descendants today

**

!!! I guess you don’t live in the rural South then???

 

[mary_bobo]

Funny. People appear to hate statues. Some churches think we actually worship statues.
We all know this is totally false.
I have been here in the Deep South for over 30 years. Never once have I had a “hankering” to loll about and think about these statues. I consider it part of the history of this place, nothing more.
I doubt if the millions of people who saunter past them give them another thought.
It’s STUFF.
STUFF doesn’t make people behave one way or another.
It would be a shame to simply erase the history we don’t like.
They don’t harm me, they don’t influence me, and I don’t study them.

It seems like people could spend their time in more PRODUCTIVE endeavors, like trying to get along. Maybe even learn from history.

Thank you, Clare. I think you hit the nail on the head.

 

[DarkLight]

Why did they need to put up a statue to honor war dead if Whites had all the power and exercised it brutally? What exactly did a monument accomplish? Nothing. It accomplished nothing in terms of oppressing anyone. Those in power didn’t need to do anything to maintain their power.

There’s a human tendency that those in power tend to see them being in power as the natural order of things, and any challenge to their power as oppressing them. For many used to slavery, giving black people things like the vote was seen as oppressive to the southern white population. (I’d have to find it, but there are texts from the era of white writers complaining about that very idea.)

So it’s likely at least some southern whites experienced the push for more equality as a push for their oppression.

 

[Belshazzar]

The Civil War monuments erected in the 1960’s were not meant to be an affront to the civil rights movement. In the cases of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville they were meant to commemorate the centennial of that particular battle. It’s almost unfortunate that the civil rights movement had to happen exactly 100 years after the Civil War.
People need to learn and appreciate history.