Defacement: the next best thing to tearing down a monument that glorifies evil. |
Now you may be laboring under the delusion that these monuments are from the ancient past, and only in the South - but you would be wrong. Thanks to the controversy about taking down the monuments in New Orleans which I mentioned yesterday, I looked up the Wikipedia list of Confederate monuments and I was shocked to discover this:
We are pleased to announce that the "Delaware Grays" Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Georgetown Historical Society entered into an agreement to install our state's first and only Delaware Confederate monument at the Marvel Museum site in Georgetown, Delaware. The unveiling of the monument was held May 12th, 2007 at that site (see further detailed reference below).
That's right. You read correctly. A monument to the Confederacy was erected in Delaware in 2007!
Absolutely mind-boggling.
But wait, it gets even better:
The first Confederate monument on the Gettysburg battlefield was dedicated in 1884 to the 1st Maryland Battalion. It took years for the next to follow. Southern states were impoverished after the war, Gettysburg was a Union victory fought on Union soil, and the battlefield commission was controlled by Union veterans whose rules discouraged the meaningful placement of Confederate monuments. An effort by the War Department after 1900 to mark the locations of Confederate regiments failed due to lack of participation and even active opposition by surviving Confederate veterans.That's right. Gettysburg. Over half since 1980. It's as if the French decided that in a spirit of "reconciliation" they would allow monuments to fallen German soldiers on Normandy beach.
As time went on the importance of the Battle of Gettysburg and a spirit of reconciliation combined to bring some southern monuments to this northern field...
...A small handful of unit monuments have been placed at Gettysburg, with over half erected since 1980.
This must end. The Confederacy represented evil in an almost ridiculously pure form. We will no longer pretend otherwise - and to refuse to pretend otherwise means that these monuments to evil must come down.