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Bills
| 3.23.22

Should the Robert E. Lee Statue at Antietam National Battlefield Be Removed? (H.R. 970)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 970?

(Updated January 18, 2022)

This bill, the Robert E. Lee Statue Removal Act, would direct the National Park Service (NPS) to remove and appropriately dispose of the monument to General Robert E. Lee at the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland.

Should it pass, this bill would require the Secretary of the Interior to develop a plan for the statue’s removal within 90 days of this legislation’s passage. The Secretary of the Interior would also be required to submit a publicly available report to Congress detailing the plan of action and timeline for the statue’s removal within 120 days.

Argument in favor

Confederate statues and monuments pay tribute to people who fought against the U.S. and defended slavery. Removing the General Robert E. Lee statue at Antietam National Battlefield is the right thing to do, as it acknowledges that General Lee, a defender of the South and its racist values, should not be memorialized. It also ensures that federal land at Antietam is not used to house a symbol of hate and bigotry that also contains historical inaccuracies with regard to General Lee’s legacy and position on slavery.

Argument opposed

Even if people find them distasteful, Confederate monuments and statues acknowledge important people and events in U.S. history, particularly at historic battlefields like the statue of Robert E. Lee at Antietam. Removing these statues is a politically correct gesture that erases an important aspect of U.S. history that people need to acknowledge and learn from if the nation is to reckon with its legacy of slavery and racism. Rather than remove Confederate monuments and statues, the U.S. should use them as teaching tools to ensure that it does better as a nation going forward.

Impact

Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland; General Robert E. Lee Statue at Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland; National Park Service; and the Secretary of the Interior.

Cost of H.R. 970

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD) reintroduced this legislation from the 115th Congress to remove the Robert E. Lee statue at the Antietam National Battlefield. Upon introducing this legislation in 2017, Rep. Brown said:

“Public land should not be home to symbols of hate and bigotry that memorialize leaders of the pro-slavery, traitorous Confederate South. Statues and monuments ought to celebrate the brave individuals who have fought and died for our country and true American values. The statue of Lee commemorates a man that owned and beat African Americans, and fought to preserve the institution of slavery. The statue is historically inaccurate and offensive, and I am looking forward to its timely removal.”

The text of the monument’s inscription that Brown takes issue with reads: 

“General Lee led his troops along this road into Sharpsburg on September 15, 1862. Outmanned 2-1 he would outmaneuver the Federals on the 17th. Although hoping for a decisive victory Lee had to settle for a military draw. Robert E. Lee was personally against secession and slavery, but decided his duty was to fight for his home and the universal right of every people to self-determination.”

Rep. Brown contends that the monument is historically inaccurate, as it claims that General Lee was “personally against cesession and slavery.” Lee was a slave owner who fought for the Confederate States of America, which seceded to maintain slavery, and led an army that kidnapped free African-Americans and massacred surrendering Black Union soldiers. Additionally, the statue depicts General Lee on horseback, but he travelled to Sharpsburg by ambulance due to a broken wrist. 

Rep. Brown also framed the question of removing Confederate monuments and statues as one of not honoring traitors to the United States:

"The question before us today is straightforward. Do Confederate flags and monuments have any place in our national parks? To answer this question, I simply ask myself what these statues and symbols commemorate: the glorification of the Confederacy, its traitorous leaders, their cause of slavery and open rebellion against the United States of America. In my mind, there is only one side of the Civil War we should be honoring: the United States."

Reverend Robert Wright Lee, a descendent of General Lee and a pastor at Unifour Church in Newton, North Carolina, argued in favor of the removal of his ancestor’s statue. Speaking to the House Natural Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on National Parks, he said that the statue and Antietam and others “must be removed for a more perfect Union,” adding:

“If we are honest, the answer is clear. We cannot remain complicit with these monuments. We cannot remain silent any more; if we do, our silence becomes agreement and endorsement to complicity." 

The National Park Service explains why it maintains Confederate monuments at places like Antietam or Gettysburg:

“Across the country, the National Park Service maintains and interprets monuments, markers, and plaques that commemorate and memorialize those who fought during the Civil War. These memorials represent an important, if controversial, chapter in our Nation’s history. The National Park Service is committed to preserving these memorials while simultaneously educating visitors holistically about the actions, motivations, and causes of the soldiers and states they commemorate. A hallmark of American progress is our ability to learn from our history.”

President Donald Trump — who characterizes keeping Confederate monuments and statues as “a battle to save the Heritage, History, and Greatness of our Country” — has opposed the removal of Confederate monuments. On August 17, 2017, he tweeted, “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.” In another statement, he added:

“This cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion violates everything we hold dear as Americans. They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose a new oppressive regime in its place.”

Author and journalist Sophia A. Nelson, who is herself a direct lineal descendent of African slaves in her maternal family tree, opposes the removal of Confederate status on the grounds that doing so would allow the U.S. to hide from, rather than confront and reckon with, the history of slavery. In an op-ed for NBC Think, Nelson wrote:

“We do not learn when we run from our wrongs. We learn when we face them. Keep the statues where they are so that people can explain history to their kids. Keep them so that we can have a constructive dialogue at places like Montpelier (the home of President James Madison, who is considered the father of the Constitution).”

This legislation passed the House Committee on Natural Resources on December 2, 2020 with the support of two Democratic House cosponsors. In the 115th Congress, Rep. Brown introduced this legislation with the support of two Democratic cosponsors and it did not receive a committee vote.


Of Note: The 24-foot General Robert E. Lee statue was commissioned by a private individual, William F. Chaney, on then-private land in 2003. According to Rep. Brown, the commissioner had the explicit intent of honoring the Confederacy. There was significant local backlash during the statue’s commissioning. In 2005, the National Park Services (NPS) acquired the land that Antietam National Park is on, thereby making the General Lee statue placed on federally owned land.

Confederate General in Chief Robert E. Lee served 32 years in the U.S. Army prior to the Civil War, in which he led the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to some successes that ranked him among the Civil War’s top generals. Lee was a slaveowner who expressed some ambivalence toward the institution of slavery, but after the Civil War generally opposed Reconstruction & efforts toward racial equality. Some accounts say that Lee was personally involved with whipping a slave. He did free slaves inherited by his wife in 1862, but did so in accordance with his father-in-law’s will.

In 2017, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and other white supremacists rallied to protest the proposed removal of a General Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. The protest turned violent, and a man drove through a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), an original cosponsor of this legislation after its introduction in response to the Charlottesville rally, said at the time:

“When Klansmen, neo-Nazi skinheads, and other white supremacists overtook Charlottesville to intimidate the city and demand reversal of its decision to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee, they intensified public debate over the propriety of placing and maintaining monuments to Confederate generals, white supremacist agitators and slave masters on public lands. The chilling events in Charlottesville […] have reminded Americans of the murderous dangers of white supremacy and racial terror in our land.”

Summer 2020 saw a wave of confederate statue and monument removals across the U.S. Many of these removals were prompted by Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests after the killing of George Floyd and growing criticism of Confederate monuments that activists contend glorify the Confederate South.

The renewed scrutiny of Confederate statues and monuments in summer 2020 led to the introduction of multiple pieces of legislation aimed at removing such statues and monuments across the country. In addition to this bill, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) introduced legislation to remove Confederate General Albert Pike’s statue from federal land in D.C. The statue was toppled and burned by protesters. After the vandalism, Holmes Norton clarified that she wanted the statue removed so that it could be preserved for historical purposes:

"I would like these statutes to be placed in museums and the history of the statute told so that we don't lose this moment in history. We don't want to obliterate our history. The way to keep that history alive so we can never repeat this kind of history again."


Media:

Summary by Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: National Park Service / Public Domain)