WASHINGTON – The House voted Wednesday to banish Confederate figures and leaders who pushed white supremacy agendas from Capitol statues, part of a broader effort to remove historical symbols of racism and oppression from public spaces.
The bipartisan vote, 305 to 113, came amid a national discussion about racism and justice that has led to the overthrow of Confederate statues across the country and has left lawmakers scrutinizing how their predecessors are honored in their own hallways. Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month ordered that the portraits of four speakers who served the Confederacy be removed from the ornate room outside the House chamber.
“These painful symbols of bigotry and racism have no place in our society, and they certainly should not be enshrined in the United States Capitol,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill. “It is time for us to end the glorification of the men who committed treason against the United States in a concerted effort to keep African Americans chained.”
The legislation, spearheaded by Representative Steny H. Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland and the majority leader, would require the removal of “all statues of individuals who voluntarily served” the Confederacy. Specifically identifies five statues for removal, including a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who issued the majority opinion of the Supreme Court in the landmark Dred Scott v. Case. Sandford, who ruled that slaves were not United States citizens and could not sue the federal government. Cut. Mr. Hoyer’s bill would replace the bust with one by Thurgood Marshall, the first judge of the Black Supreme Court.
Also targeted for removal are the statues of John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the former vice president who led the pro-slavery faction in the Senate; John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a former Vice President who served as 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, Senator and Governor of Arkansas who extolled the need to “preserve the white standards of civilization.”
Each state is allowed to send two statues to the Capitol to be featured in the National Statuary Hall collection, which is generally visited by thousands of tourists every day. Federal law gives state leaders, not members of Congress, the authority to replace them. Because Republican lawmakers have long argued that states should retain that right, House Democrats, despite a majority, have been unable to remove the statues.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and Majority Leader, unlikely to allow the bill to receive a vote in the Senate, calling the measure “clearly a bridge too far” and an attempt to “airbrush the Capitol ” He has also claimed that the decision should be left to the states, although in 2015 he asked for a statue of Jefferson Davis to be prominently displayed in front of the Kentucky State Capitol to be moved to a museum.
But in a surprising display of bipartisanship, 72 Republicans voted in favor of the measure on Wednesday, arguing that it was an important symbolic step toward reconciliation.
“The history of this nation is so fraught with racial division, with hatred,” said Rep. Paul Mitchell, R-Michigan, who supported the bill. “The only way to get past that is to recognize that, to recognize it for what it is.”
Rep. James E. Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina and the majority scourge, suggested Wednesday that the statues on Capitol Hill, once removed, should also be placed in a museum. He issued a broad warning against the destruction of the Confederate monuments.
“I do not defend and I do not want anyone to knock down any statues,” said Clyburn. “I want them to put themselves in their proper perspective.”
Some states, responding to local protests over their representation in Congress, have already moved to replace the statues they sent. Arkansas, for example, will replace the statue of Mr. Clarke with an image of Johnny Cash.
Democratic lawmakers have agonized for years over the presence of Confederate symbols on the nation’s Capitol. During her last speech, Ms. Pelosi moved Robert E. Lee from the Statuary Hall to a more remote area of the building and put a statue of Rosa Parks in its place. In the wake of a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Mrs. Pelosi, then a minority leader, asked President Paul D. Ryan to remove the statues.
But the issue never hit the floor of the House until now, rekindled by a radical shift in public opinion on race and justice issues amid national protests in honor of George Floyd, who was killed in May during a clash with police. from Minneapolis and other African Americans. .
“Imagine what it feels like to be African American knowing that my ancestors built the Capitol, but there are still monuments to the same people who enslaved my ancestors,” said Rep. Karen Bass, California Democrat and president of the Black Caucus of Congress. . . Statues are not only historical markers, but also tributes, a way to honor an individual. These people don’t deserve to be honored. “
