The Explosive Opposition to Lee in Statuary Hall
As I slowly begin writing the final chapter of my manuscript, which covers Civil War memory and Statuary Hall, I would be remiss if I did not share an interesting section that shows how the lengths of opinion mirror those seen today.
By the turn of the 20th century, Southern states began to erect effigies in National Statuary Hall, almost all of them former Confederates or supporters of Jim Crow segregation. Although not the first Confederate to grace the halls of the nation’s capital, Robert E. Lee raised debate and controversy even before he arrived. With it came contested interpretations of who Lee represented and the fight over what the Civil War was fought over.
Voices against the statue of Lee began in January 1903, shortly after the Washington Post reported that Virginia State Senator Don P. Halsey had proposed a statue of the former Confederate general and urged his fellow members of the state legislature to pass the legislation quickly.[1] Although Halsey did not serve in the Confederate military, his uncle John Warwick Daniel had, and they collaborated to get support in the Virginia legislature to pass the proposal. In a lengthy speech given by Halsey, he concluded that, despite some likely pushback, he and his state legislature were within their legal rights to use one of their two slots in the collection to honor Lee and that moment in their state’s history. [2]
Opposition to the Lee statue, however, was going to be stronger and louder than Halsey or Daniel possibly anticipated. From the time that Virginia approved of the statue in March 1903 and beyond when it was finally emplaced in the halls of Congress in 1909, Union veterans railed against the effigy. One member of the Grand Army of the Republic wrote to the New York Times that Confederates were “conspirators,” and that “any proposition to honor them…should be discountenanced instead of being encouraged by the Government.”[3]
John Q. Evans, a veteran of the 5th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, sent a question to the National Tribune that squarely cast Lee as a treasonous rebel. “If the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee is placed in the National Capitol,” queried Evans, “would it be appropriate to place two others – one of Benedict Arnold, the other of Judas Iscariot?”[4] After Lee was emplaced, G.A.R. members from Nebraska acknowledged that although they could forgive their Confederate enemies, they refused to “forget that love of country is a blessed heritage” and that Statuary Hall was to be renamed “the Hall of Horrors” for its emplacement of Lee.[5] For some veterans, the animosity toward their former foe was marrow-deep. Even with time to reconcile and possibly forgive, they did not forget.
Black newspapers also recognized the dangers posed by Lee in the nation’s capital. The Richmond Planet, a black-owned and -operated newspaper, argued that a statue of Lee was just as egregious as the racially charged rhetoric of men like South Carolina’s Benjamin Tillman. It said that “the acme of political folly has been reached.”[6] James H. Hayes, an African American lawyer, gave a speech in late January 1903 at the aptly named Lincoln Memorial Church. In his speech, Hayes pondered the idea that the years since the Civil War had allowed some form of reconciliation via Lee’s statue, but it “had not been sufficient for the negro to advance one inch beyond the place he held when liberated from slavery.” [7]
At one point, words from a newspaper or speeches in places of worship were not enough for some. The Alexandria Gazette reported in spring 1910 that disgust and disdain for Lee’s statue was so widespread that Secret Service and Capitol Police were notified of an alleged plot to blow it up with dynamite. The plans were discovered when an unidentified man from New York threatened the statue in a letter and arrested four men who confessed they were paid to cause the explosion.[8] It can be speculated that those who were arrested had some familial ties to aging Union veterans, or otherwise staunch Republicans.
Outrage over Lee’s statue had become so loud by 1910, especially over the issue of Lee in Confederate military uniform rather than civilian clothing. It got to the point where petitions for its removal had concerned President William Howard Taft enough to consult the statue’s legality with Attorney General George Wickersham. Wickersham eventually sided with Virginia and its pick. In a published letter to Taft, the attorney general argued the points of reconciliation and proclaimed that Lee was “all that was best in the [Confederate] cause,” and that acceptance into Statuary Hall would bring a “renewed loyalty.”[9]
Despite a delayed dedication of the statue in 1934, Lee would overlook Statuary Hall until the statue’s removal in 2020, when it was replaced by the statue of civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns. The key theme to take away from the opposition is that it is eerily familiar to the opposition to Confederate memory now. Just think about the quotes from the era:
“He betrayed his country.”
“He is no better than a Benedict Arnold.”
“Lee and the Confederacy fought for slavery.”
“We need to get rid of it one way or another.”
Without context, it could be easily mistaken to conclude that those sentiments came from modern-day protesters or academics high atop the ivory tower, but that was not the case then. Opposition, and even the call for destruction, came from Union veterans and their descendants, along with the children of freedmen who only earned that title after a four-year bloody war. While common ground can be found in condoning illegal actions, it still provides an opportunity to ask ourselves, in the words of Statuary Hall’s founder Justin Morrill, who is worthy of national commemoration?
[1] Washington Post, January 18, 1903.
[2] The Speech of Hon. Don P. Halsey on the Bill to Provide a Statue of Robert Edward Lee to Be Placed in Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington, D. C., Delivered in the Senate of Virginia, Feb. 6, 1903 (Southern Historical Society Papers; WM. Ellis Jones and Job Printer, 1904), 4- 8.
[3] New York Times, January 27, 1903; Robert Colby, “Lee Returns to the Capitol: A Case Study in Reconciliation and Its Limits,” Reconciliation after Civil Wars: A Global Perspective, 118.
[4] National Tribune, April 16, 1903.
[5] Washington National Tribune, November 4, 1909.
[6] Richmond Planet, March 28, 1903.
[7] Baltimore Sun, January 28, 1903.
[8] Alexandria Gazette, April 14, 1910.
[9] New York Tribune, August 1, 1910.
Sounds like the Lost Cause did not “win the peace” but always had some very vocal opposition!
It’s appalling that so much of the “treason” hokum is still being peddled.
Very simply, secession was legal – like it or not. Proof: No Southern state or its leaders were found guilty of breaking any law barring secession; they weren’t even put on trial. Why? The prosecutors would have lost – and they knew it. Even Lincoln voiced his conflicting thoughts over whether secession had occurred or not.
Next, no Southern political or military leader was ever tried for treason – not even President Davis. Same reason – the prosecutors would have lost. And no, from Lee and Johnston on downward, no military officer committed treason. It is not treason to resign your commission – every single one was accepted, and not challenged, thereby debunking any ridiculous charges of treason – and emigrated to another country, which they defended in warfare. Had an American resigned his commission and emigrated to, say, England, and took English citizenship, and then joined the British army in a war with the United States, would he have been charged with treason? Absolutely not; the same applies to the men serving the Southern Confederacy.
Last, the enduring, recently invented lie to rationalize BLM/ANTIFA acts of flat-out treason, murder, mob behavior and felonious theft, destruction and extortion in the billions of dollars, that “Statues and memorials to Confederate leaders were raised to scare the shit out of the Negroes and reinforce Jim Crow!” – clearly coined not just by a liar but someone who, typically, has never read a history book. The real truth, and brutal it is, is that the Southern states were so impoverished by the war that it took nearly forty years before they had the money to spend on the statues and memorials…and at the same time, the North, which invented “The Black Codes” that were now called “Jim Crow” still had many of them in place, including segregation.
Statues don’t hurt people – unconstitutional laws do.
Hokum – it rots the brain and is especially harmful to children.