Assignment 16—Daniel Mendoza Vasquez—Speech

Daniel Mendoza Vasquez
Matthew Logsdon
AP Language and Composition
17 December 2019

Final Speech Manuscript: Legacy of the Confederacy

This country is idolized and seen as a ‘city upon a hill’ for many around the world. That is, after all, what it’s supposed to be. But, take a closer look and you’ll find a convoluted and strenuous history, especially regarding race. Slavery is the most significant and consequential stain on that history, and along with it comes, intrinsically tied in every way, the Confederacy, a nation formed out of southern states that seceded from the union.

Now, in recent years, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the existence of Confederate memorials around the country. Memorials that aggrandize their leaders, such as Robert E. Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest. Many people clamor for their removal, arguing that they represent slavery and racism and that they symbolize oppression. Others defend them as part of history, saying that regardless of what they represent, they are part of a heritage that cannot be erased. But considering the time at which these monuments were built and the fact that many people misinterpret what they mean and what the Civil War was about, these latter notions that the monuments should stay are misled. It is a fact that the Confederacy stood wholly in favor of slavery, and only existed to defend it. Therefore, all of these statues and monuments that memorialize it are incompatible with what the United States is supposed to stand for—freedom, choice, and equality—and they should not stand. Moreover, it is time for people to come to terms with the fact that heritage is not always something to be proud of.

I would first like to clear up what the Confederacy stood for and what the Civil War was about, because many Americans seem to have the wrong perceptions. In 2011, the Pew Research Center surveyed Americans on various questions concerning the legacy of the Civil War. One question that stood out asked people what they believed to be the main cause of the war. 48% said it was mainly about state’s rights, and just 38% said it was mainly about slavery. If it were true that the Civil War was mainly about state’s rights, though, then Confederate leaders at the time seemed to be blissfully unaware of that. The Confederate Constitution explicitly states that, “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in [slaves] shall be passed”, while Mississippi’s declaration of secession says “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world.” So, I suppose it could be granted that the war was about state’s rights, but a state’s right to have slavery. The fact that almost two-thirds of Americans have the wrong impression of the Civil War might explain why many don’t have an issue with Confederate monuments, but this ignorance that dismisses the war as a fight over any state right neglects the plight of black Americans as slaves as well as a great portion of the past.

It can be concluded, then, that the Confederacy only existed because of and in favor of slavery, and I assume that I don’t need to explain why that is a bad thing. But even then, even knowing this, people often maintain that all of these physical memorials are entrenched in history and that they represent Southern heritage. This argument leads to the idea that removing these memorials is like destroying history and thereby leading us to forget the past. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, however, that is inaccurate. They collected data concerning public Confederate memorials in the United States and found 1,747 of these structures across the nation. They could be found in the form of monuments, school names, the names of cities and counties, state holidays, and even several U.S. military bases. It also compiled data on when the memorials were dedicated, and it found that there were two eras during which the construction of Confederate memorials spiked: during the first two decades of the 20th century and during the Civil Rights Movement. That first part of the 1900s saw a resurgence in white supremacy, as Plessy v. Ferguson had made segregation legal and provided new fuel for white supremacy expressed by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. It was another wave of oppression directed towards black people, and these memorials idolizing the confederacy drove the knife deeper. The second, albeit smaller spike came during a time in which minorities were gaining civil rights, which angered white segregationists, and the uptick in monuments being dedicated shows a way of pushing back against them. So, a great majority of monuments valorizing Confederate soldiers are not innocent tributes to recently fallen ancestors, but a deliberate attempt to promote a false account of the Civil War bolstering white-supremacist ideology. In fact, one of the country’s most grandiose Confederate memorials, a sort of southern Mount Rushmore, was unveiled at Stone Mountain in Georgia during the 1970s. That’s 105 years after the confederacy.

President Donald Trump tweeted out in 2017 about confederate monuments being removed: “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who's next, Washington, Jefferson?” The president seems to believe that taking down things that venerate traitors fighting solely for slavery will eventually lead to the removal of our Founding Fathers. Where does it stop, he says. Well, the answer is somewhere. Washington was not a perfect man in the slightest, but the fundamental things that he stood for were nowhere near as objectionable as Confederate beliefs. Not only that, these men fought directly against the United States and the union that Washington and Jefferson helped create. They were literal traitors.

It is time for America to come to terms with its biggest national crime. Taking away these symbols of racism and slavery won’t, and isn’t meant to, eradicate the mistakes of the past. It does not mean that there isn’t racism and bigotry in this country today either. But, we should model ourselves by what we ought to be, not what we are. And we are better than celebrating a failed rebellion a century-and-a-half ago, one that stood for reprehensible causes. We should remove Confederate memorials, and doing so isn’t removing history. History is preserved elsewhere, in museums and in textbooks. Statues and monuments are how we glorify history, not how we remember it.

Works Cited

Barajas, Joshua. “In 3 Tweets, Trump Defends 'Beautiful' Confederate Monuments.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 17 Aug. 2017, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/in-3-tweets-trump-defends-beautiful-confederate-monuments.

“Civil War at 150: Still Relevant, Still Divisive.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 24 Sept. 2018, www.people-press.org/2011/04/08/civil-war-at-150-still-relevant-still-divisive/.

“Confederate States of America - Mississippi Secession.” Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 2008, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp.

“Constitution of the Confederate States.” Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 2008, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp.

Neiman, Susan. “There Are No Nostalgic Nazi Memorials.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Sept. 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/germany-has-no-nazi-memorials/597937/.

“Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy.” Southern Poverty Law Center, 1 Feb. 2019, www.splcenter.org/20190201/whose-heritage-public-symbols-confederacy.