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Congress voted Wednesday to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol as part of a broader national recognition of symbols still present across the country that commemorate the Confederacy. The legislation passed through the House with bipartisan support from 305 to 113, including 72 Republican lawmakers who joined a unified Democratic Party to vote for the removal of the statues, while 113 Republicans opposed the measure. While states and communities grapple with how to remove or contextualize statues in different parts of the country, the legislation focused on iconography specifically on Capitol Hill and ordered the removal of “all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America “. The bill also specifically called for the removal of five statues, including a bust of former US Justice Chief Roger Taney, author of the odious majority decision in 1857. Dred Scott case that defended slavery. The bill proposes to replace the figure of Taney with a statue of Thurgood Marshall, the first judge of the Black Supreme Court.
The move comes shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal last month of four portraits of former House of Representatives speakers who served in the Presidents’ Lobby Confederation outside the camera camera. Despite substantial Republican support in the House, the legislation faces predictable Republican opposition led by Mitch McConnell in the Senate. McConnell has insisted that decisions on the statues be left to the states. Under current federal law, staterooms, not members of Congress, have the authority to choose the statues sent to the National Statuary Hall collection. Each state can display two figures in the hall, which is frequented by thousands of visitors each day during normal hours. “The history of this nation is so fraught with racial divide, with hatred,” said Republican Rep. Paul Mitchell of Michigan, who supported the bill. “The only way to get past that is to recognize that, to recognize it for what it is.”
In addition to the Taney statue, the New York Times notes: “The statues of John C. Calhoun from South Carolina, the former vice president who led the pro-slavery faction in the Senate, also aim to be removed; John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a former Vice President who served as the Confederate Secretary of War and was expelled from the Senate for joining the Confederate Army; Charles Brantley Aycock, former governor of North Carolina and architect of a violent coup in Wilmington led by white supremacists; and James Paul Clarke, an Arkansas senator and governor who extolled the need to “preserve the white standards of civilization.” “
