Over the Memorial Day weekend, Jamie Malanowski called for [NYT] the government to rename Army bases named for generals who served the Confederacy:
Changing the names of these bases would not mean that we can’t still respect the service of those Confederate leaders; nor would it mean that we are imposing our notions of morality on people of a long-distant era. What it would mean is that we’re upholding our own convictions. It’s time to rename these bases. Surely we can find, in the 150 years since the Civil War, 10 soldiers whose exemplary service not only upheld our most important values, but was actually performed in the defense of the United States.
Erik Loomis focuses on the soldiers asked to serve at these forts:
[Malanowski asks] a fair question. And it is indeed an insult to ask African-American soldiers to serve at a fort named after P.G.T. Beauregard or John Gordon, who followed his war career by becoming the head of the KKK in Georgia.
Josh Marshall doesn’t mince words:
There’s a major difference between respecting and honoring sacrifice – which exists separately from the political movement you’re fighting on behalf of – and honoring people in this way. Today most of us probably see the problem as the fact that these guys fought to protect slavery. And whatever revisionist nonsense you hear out there that is unquestionably true. But that’s only one part of the equation. At least as big in my mind is that these men were traitors – rebels against the democratic ideal and the federal union around which any American patriotism has to be based. Taken together these two things are a really, really big deal. One can only begin to imagine what Union soldiers who died on the battlefield would make of all this. … Perhaps we’ve come far enough – regardless of the equities at stake 100 or 75 years ago – that we can revisit this question.
Dr. Charles Cogan counters:
These are memorials to the great and not-so-great Confederate generals: Fort Lee (understandable) but also Fort Bragg. I do not object to such a practice, as it is a recognition that both sides suffered during the war –just as Memorial Day honors the dead of both Union and Confederate soldiers. (Though at the beginning, Memorial Day was solely a Northern commemoration.)
This joint mourning has been central in achieving a reconciliation between North and South that has been truly remarkable – to the extent that talk of re-secession is never taken seriously. Indeed the South has become the most “patriotic” and military-oriented section of the country – partly due to its long and pre-bellum tradition of military honor. But while we can hardly object to the South’s honoring of its Pantheon of Civil War generals and of the thousands who died in the service of the Confederacy, we should not lose sight of the underlying imperatives of the Civil War: the preservation of the Union, and the abolition of slavery.
Slog’s David Goldstein explores the justification for honoring Confederates:
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to talk to a few proud Southerners about what it is exactly that they are so proud of, and while they may not use these exact words, invariably they say it was the nobility of the struggle that they honor. But whether or not they acknowledge it, the cause the South struggled for was preserving (and expanding) the institution of slavery. I don’t mean to go all Godwin and everything, but I’m sure many Nazi soldiers fought courageously too, yet you don’t see Germany building monuments to its World War II heroes.
TPM reader and Southerner CH worries about the potential backlash:
Before President Obama was elected, I would have agreed that maybe it is time to rename some military bases (and colleges) and maybe even consider doing something about the carving on Stone Mountain. And I would have agreed with you that after 1865 it was never again seriously considered that history might repeat itself. But as things now stand, I’m not sure that those same considerations which led to the mollification decisions back then, have become irrelevant; I’m not sure that the rationale for those decisions has outlived its usefulness.
Most rural Southern white men already feel that “their” country has been “taken” from them by a black Muslim. They watch Fox exclusively and without ceasing so they are constantly on edge and genuinely and earnestly believe that President Obama’s sole mission is to destroy America. I don’t know if we are sitting on a powder keg again or not. On a rational and academic level, I think that notion is absolutely ridiculous. But on a gut and emotional level, I worry. Sometimes I think all they need is a final straw to rally around. So maybe we could wait until a new president is in office again before we risk giving them a rallying point. Maybe the temperature down here will drop some by then.
(Photo: Detail of the southeast corner of the frieze on the Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemtery in Arlington, Virginia, in the United States. The goddess of war, Minerva (l), looks at the fallen “The South” while “spirits of war” trumpet for assistance. To the right, a sapper (with bag) and a soldier answer the call. An African American soldier answers the call to defend slavery with his white master. From Wikimedia Commons)
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