A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

GEORGE ALLEN, HERE'S YOUR SISTER SOULJAH MOMENT: The Sons of Confederate Veterans have announced their opposition to a statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad to be dedicated in April 2003 at the Civil War Vistors Center in Richmond, VA. Lincoln and his son had visited the city days before the war's end, and the Richmond-based United States Historical Society felt it was worth commemorating.

According to the AP dispatch, "The Sons of Confederate Veterans view the Lincoln statue as "a slap in the face of a lot of brave men and women who went through four years of unbelievable hell fighting an invasion of Virginia led by President Lincoln," Brag Bowling, the SCV Virginia commander, said Thursday."

Or, if you look at SouthernCaucus.org, home of the Dixie Daily News, we see a link to the news item, with the description: "A Statue of Lincoln To Be Placed in Richmond - How disgusting and maybe next we will have one of Sherman in Atlanta or of Hitler in Tel Aviv. We urge Southerners to organize, e-mail the sponsors to stop this heritage and cultural outrage!" Or, via the same website, this cartoon for more on what they think about Lincoln.

Why all the outrage? According to Civil War scholar Edward C. Smith, director of the American Studies program at American University, "To the best of my knowledge there is no public statuary that commemorates Lincoln anywhere in the South. Therefore, the only image that Southerners see of Lincoln is on our national currency: the one cent penny and the five dollar bill."

Smith may have inadvertantly hit the nail on the head two years ago in a speech supporting the concept of a Lincoln statue in Richmond:

At some point in time, and it still may be too soon, a sculptured statue of Lincoln should be erected in Richmond. If that should ever happen, the war would finally be over.

For most of us, of course, the war ended in April 1865. And if there are still people walking around claiming that it's not really over -- not after Reconstruction, not after Brown v. Board of Education, not after the civil rights movement and the laws passed in the 1960s, not after Lyndon Johnson (the first Southerner elected President since Zachary Taylor in 1848) spearheaded the passage of those laws from the Senate and the Presidency, not even after South Carolina's multiracial Hootie and the Blowfish won the 1996 Grammys for Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Performance (Duo or Group) . . . well, I don't know that a statue's going to make everyone all hunky and dory all of a sudden, but it's a necessary start. It will be interesting to see how the South's conservative politicians line up on this issue, whether pro-statue, against, or, as I'd expect, silent.

The current UPI article has a bit more on Smith and this controversy.