The House of Representatives debated a plan on Wednesday to remove four statues of historic Capitol figures who “voluntarily served the Confederate States of America.”
Among the most disputed statues is that of the late Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of Dred Scott’s 1857 decision that blacks could not become American citizens.
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Taney’s bust is located in the former Supreme Court Chamber inside the Capitol. The bill proposes to replace it with a bust of the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the court’s first African-American judge.
Although the measure is likely to pass in the Democrat-controlled House, removing such statues from the Capitol general collection requires Senate action and, as it stands, there is no set plan for the House controlled by the Republicans consider similar measures.
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House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, who co-wrote the bill, said at a press conference before the debate: “I prayerfully envision that we can come together … to reject hatred and racism and make it clear … that the statues of these individuals have no place on our campus. “
Representative Karen Bass, a Democrat from California, invoked the memory of her colleague in Congress and a civil rights activist, the late John Lewis, who died Friday, saying that “what he fought for every day is the exact opposite of these symbols. “
“Personally as a black legislator, the presence of these statues represents an acceptance of white supremacy and racism,” Bass told lawmakers.
Representative George Butterfield, DN.C., called Dred Scott’s decision “the worst opinion the United States Supreme Court has ever issued.”
The statues of former Vice President John C. Calhoun, who was a fierce defender and defender of slavery, former North Carolina Governor Charles B. Aycock, and former Representative John C. Clarke, who also fought against the release of slaves, they are other busts that Congress is considering withdrawing from the Capitol.
An unlikely advocate of keeping the Taney statue on Capitol Hill is Rep. Lynne Jackson, Scott’s great-great-granddaughter, who says that if it were up to her, she would leave Taney’s bust where it is. But she said she would also add something: a bust of Dred Scott.
“I am not really a fan of erasing things,” Jackson said in a phone interview this week from his Missouri home, according to the Associated Press.
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Chad Pergram of Fox News and Associated Press contributed to this report.