Thank You For Your Service

This proposal by an outgoing homosexual Democratic Party Virginia legislator to remove three statues – one of which is of a former governor (two times over!) of the Commonwealth – from the State Capitol grounds, is hardly surprising. Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of historical cleansing, but Democrats are certainly worse in terms of Orwellian historical revisionism – and the further left that they are on the spectrum, and the more “woke” that they are, the worse they become.

The mealy-mouthed response by the Republican Majority Leader is typical GOP weak-sauce: “The questions y’all are asking about are bills that Democrats are putting in that are not focused on Virginians, saving them money. It’s not focused on their affordability. It’s everything but that.”

Instead of defending the honor of the very men that their State and their legislative predecessors in the State Legislature called up, in some cases drafted, and sent into battle, the Republican lives up to the stereotype that it’s all about money. It looks to me like both of these politicians would exhume their own mothers and throw the remains in the garbage for a sizeable enough gift to their campaign coffers. Chivalry may not be dead, but in Virginia, it has certainly been neutered by ghouls and quislings.

Think about it. Virginia voted to secede: both their legislature and a popular convention. Virginia voted to join the Confederate States of America. Virginia’s government called upon her young men to leave their farms, fields, and families, put on the uniform of their state, and be prepared to die. And these brave men did: my own family members included. And like the vast majority of the men of Virginia who risked life and limb in service of their state and their homelands, they did not own slaves. And even though some of those who wore the gray did – so did men in all thirteen of the original states in the American Union. It was legal at the time. Everyone rejoices in its abolition. But it does not change the fact that the government called, brave men answered, and they gave their lives to repel the invasion of their State and for their posterity of ingrates, many of whom sit in the Legislature today.

In a social media discussion, the usual talking points emerged:

• “They were traitors.” If they were traitors, so was the entire State of Virginia. So was George Washington, for that matter.
• “They lost, and were on the wrong side of history.” The same was said about our Vietnam veterans who were spat on when they came home after doing what their government told them to do, many of whom suffered the rest of their lives with PTSD, and remembering the many men who did not come back.
• “They defended slavery.” No, they didn’t. Very few of them were slave-owners. Virginia, in particular, did not secede with the cotton states. Virginia only seceded after Lincoln fired on Fort Sumter.
• “They took up arms against the United States and fired on our flag.” So did other heroic American heroes whose monuments we not only don’t tear down, but of whom we build new ones: Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Red Cloud, Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Tecumseh (interestingly, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was named after the latter).
• ”Nobody honors rebels with statues.” The UK has statues of rebel general George Washington, rebel statesman Benjamin Franklin, the anarchist-adjacent rebel Thomas Paine, and other rebels convicted of treason, including Sir William Wallace, Guy Fawkes, and Oliver Cromwell. Here is an interesting and impressive list of “rebels” all over the world who are honored with memorial statues.

I live in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana – one of the jurisdictions in which Lincoln’s so-called Emancipation Proclamation actually protected slavery (we have “parishes” instead of “counties”). We were, of course, named after Thomas Jefferson (while he was still alive!). A few blocks from my house, in front of the parish courthouse, is a magnificent statue of the rebel slaveowner himself.

A man was named after Thomas Jefferson, who was born while Jefferson was still alive, was Jefferson Davis – who would become the president of the Confederate States of America. And Louisiana, in addition to Jefferson Parish, also has a Jefferson Davis Parish. We also have Lincoln and Grant Parishes (named after the Union president and general/president). We also have Beauregard Parish (named after the Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard) – as well as Allen Parish (named for governor Henry Allen, who was also a Confederate brigadier general).

We have parishes to offend everyone, including one named for St. Tammany (who was an Indian who was friendly to the whites, but not an actual saint), as well as Christian heroes St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Landry, St. Martin, and the St. Mary (named for the Blessed Virgin). We also have two parishes named after our Lord’s Ascension and the Roman Catholic dogma of the Assumption. We have recently added a new city in the state called St. George, which was formed by a legal secession from the City of Baton Rouge.

In recent years, the City of New Orleans – and other Democrat dominated cities in Louisiana – have removed historic statues named after Confederate veterans. New Orleans renamed some 38 streets that were named after Confederates and/or slaveholders or segregationists. Washington Park was renamed (as was a school back in 1997), but inexplicably, Washington and Jefferson Avenues remain intact. The monument to the Washington Artillery (which continues to serve as a National Guard unit) was dismantled and the park renamed.

The ebb and flow of history is unpredictable. Perhaps one day in our future, vegans will convince Americans to abolish the eating of meat. And maybe statues that today honor Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, George Floyd – and even sports heroes – will be at risk of “contextualization,” relocation, toppling, storage in hidden-away warehouses, vandalized and put on display in museums, or even melted down and recast as a statue of a calf – should their honorees’ carnivorous remembrances be offensive and transgressive of future codes of morality.

At any rate, what is happening today is the kind of ingratitude that smarmy politicians display for the lifeblood of their own citizens. The point of memorials is to remember. Let’s remember how these unctuous legislators said: “Thank you for your service.”

The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily those of the Abbeville Institute.

Rev. Larry Beane

Rev. Larry Beane serves as pastor at Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Gretna, LA and teaches high school Apologetics, Economics, and Government at Wittenberg Academy (online).

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