Posted on 12/03/2022 9:39:21 AM PST by robowombat
Records show selection of Davis, George statues in Washington steeped in white supremacy Unveiling of statues became a rousing celebration of Confederacy By TAYLOR VANCE Daily Journal Oct 15, 2022 1 of 3
JACKSON – When former Mississippi Gov. James K. Vardaman thought about endorsing the notion of honoring Jefferson Davis and James Z. George with statues in the U.S. Capitol, his intent was clear.
The unabashed white supremacist who often catered to the racist instincts of rural white voters believed that honoring the two men would be a deserved tribute to the Confederate States of America.
Vardaman, who served as Mississippi’s governor from 1904 to 1908, wrote in the newspaper he edited, The Issue, that Mississippi owed it to “the men who wore the grey,” an obvious reference to Confederate soldiers during the U.S. Civil War, to erect a statue of Davis and George in what was then called the “Hall of Fame” at the Capitol.
“We want to show the world that we believe in our fathers and that the principles for which they fought against great odds, for four long years, are sacred to us, and vital to the future of this republic,” Vardaman wrote in 1910.
Those principles, of course, were to maintain the white power structure that existed at the time and to continue the practice of enslaving thousands of African Americans to to profit off their labor.
Reeves silent on U.S. Senate letter asking about changing Mississippi's statues in Washington STATE GOVERNMENT Reeves silent on U.S. Senate letter asking about changing Mississippi's statues in Washington By TAYLOR VANCE Daily Journal “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” Mississippi lawmakers wrote in the Secession Convention in 1861.
One hundred and twelve years after Vardaman penned those words in his newspaper, Mississippi still continues to honor the legacy of George, a Confederate soldier, and Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington.
Around 3 to 5 million people pass through the statuary collection in the Capitol each year to glance at who are supposed to be the country’s most reputable figures, according to the Architect of the Capitol’s website.
The goal of the national collection is simple: Each U.S. state is allowed to place two statues of people “illustrious for their historic renown” or “distinguished civil or military services,” according to the federal law establishing the collection.
But the leaders of the Magnolia State, who often boast about Mississippi’s literary, musical and civic impact on the country, continue to honor the legacy of two slave owners who actively worked to maintain the white power structure of their day.
The Daily Journal reviewed dozens of speeches, letters, newspaper articles and historical records to try and determine why the Legislature chose Davis and George as its two representatives in the Statuary Hall Collection and what the sentiment was when the statues were unveiled in Washington.
Though the statues of Jefferson Davis and James Z. George, two white supremacists connected to the Confederacy, would not be placed in the U.S. Capitol for another two decades, Vardaman, the governor often remembered as “the Great White Chief," was one of the first major figures in the state to support the idea.
Vardaman was elected to the U.S. Senate just two years after he penned the editorial in his newspaper, running on a platform of repealing the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
While Vardaman had no direct role in determining which statues were chosen, he would use his influence to leverage public opinion to stoke white supremacy in rural parts of the state, especially with a newspaper publisher in Northeast Mississippi.
Northeast Mississippi newspaper owner played large role Vardaman found a natural ally in Albert C. Anderson, the publisher of the Southern Sentinel in Ripley, who was also a state lawmaker.
Anderson served in the House from 1900 to 1902. He also served in the state Senate from 1908 to 1914, where he was elected President Pro Tempore, the second most powerful position in the chamber.
It’s unclear how the two met, but Vardaman was certainly an admirer of Anderson’s newspaper that’s now owned by Journal Publishing, the parent company of the Daily Journal. Vardaman wrote to Anderson in a November 1905 letter saying that he liked the tone of one of his editorials.
“Would to God we had more men of your way of thinking and writing,” Vardaman wrote in the letter.
That line of thinking clearly included preserving white rule in the state and preventing Black citizens from participating in the democratic system.
In a pair of letters between the two in 1914, Vardaman expressed to Anderson that he was concerned about an effort to establish an initiative, or referendum, process in the state to allow people to directly change the state Code or the state constitution.
The reason: He thought it would give Black people, who were the majority of the citizens at the time, more power.
“You know I am afraid that the effect of that is going to bring the negroes back into politics,” Vardaman wrote. “We cannot settle those matters by a white democratic primary. And just as sure as some question of vital importance comes up there is a certain element in Mississippi among the white people who will bring negro back in order to carry their point.”
Anderson largely agreed with his friend. He told the U.S. senator that he favored a form of government that allowed for an initiative process, but he couldn’t bear the thought of “negroes being back into politics,” which he called a “grave danger.”
“I don’t think they would be permitted to vote generally over the state but we have some white men who would have them vote in some localities,” Anderson wrote back to Vardaman.
Anderson, who was also the president of the Mississippi Press Association for several years, introduced a bill to erect the Davis and George statues in Washington, but for unknown reasons his efforts proved fruitless while he was in office.
It wasn’t until the United Daughters of the Confederacy formally endorsed legislation about the statues in 1924 — a decade after Anderson’s initial bill — that it got through the final hurdle to become law.
The UDC is an neo-Confederate organization that commemorates Confederate veterans, supports Confederate monuments and promotes the ahistorical Lost Cause ideology that’s rooted in white supremacy.
Mrs. A. McKimbrough and Mrs. H. P. Simrall, two leaders in the Mississippi UDC in 1924, personally traveled to Jackson to hand the House Speaker and the lieutenant governor a copy of a resolution urging the lawmakers to adopt the law, according to accounts in two newspapers.
The legislators complied with the UDC’s request, but they only allocated $20,000 for the monuments.
After Anderson relentlessly advocated for the two statues to go to Washington, his former colleagues thought it fitting for them to nominate the former legislator to lead the commission to construct the statues.
Anderson lands in legal trouble over his role in the commission Two other men with ties to the Confederacy — David Bramlette Jr. and C.L. Lincoln — would join Anderson on the three-person commission.
Bramlette, a resident of Woodville, was appointed to the commission by the state Senate. He was a member of the House from 1912 to 1916. He later served several terms in the Senate and, according to MDAH records, his father also fought in the Confederacy.
Lincoln, a resident of Columbus, was appointed to the commission by Gov. Henry Whitfield. He served separate stints as Lowndes County sheriff and chancery clerk, according to MDAH files and newspaper articles. Lincoln, himself, fought in the Confederacy.
Lincoln and Bramlette would eventually be the only two of the initial three members to stay on the group because Anderson proved to be a much better columnist than a number cruncher.
Whenever the sculptor sent word to the commission that he had finished the statues and wanted his last payment before he would release them, Lincoln and Bramlette wondered where the rest of the money was.
The two commissioners realized that Anderson, who was supposed to keep up with the money, couldn’t account for the rest of it.
So the two alerted state officials to the discrepancy.
Lawmakers appropriated two $10,000 installments for the statue’s construction. But at some point, around half of the money went missing, according to an Associated Press article.
Troubled by the news, lawmakers convened a legislative committee to get to the bottom of the issue.
The investigation revealed that Anderson got permission from the other two commissioners to place half of the money from the state treasury into an account at the Bank of Ripley.
Anderson allegedly took the remaining $10,000 and placed them into an account at the Bank of Blue Mountain in Benton County without gaining permission from the other commissioners, causing the Legislature to appropriate more money for the project.
Anderson later resigned from the committee, and the state Senate appointed Kelly Hammond to replace him.
Hammond represented Columbia in the House from 1928 to 1931 and in the Senate from 56 to 1960. He was a personal friend of former Gov. Theodore Bilbo. Hammond also unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1951.
Bramlette, who is also the father of U.S District Judge David Bramlette III, became the new chairman of the commission after Anderson resigned.
The commission eventually settled the payment issue with the sculptor, and its work came to a close in 1932 when they conducted an unveiling ceremony in the U.S. Capitol.
Capitol ceremony steeped in “Lost Cause” sentiments The reason for honoring the men was clear, as was the type of people who were invited to the event.
According to a column written by Edgar S. Wilson in the Lexington Advertiser, Bramlette, the chairman of the committee, invited all Mississippians to attend the unveiling ceremony. But the column specifically noted that “general officers of the Confederate organization” were invited to attend.
The article went on to quote Bramlette saying the reason the state honored J.Z. George with a statue was because he was a “great constitutional lawyer and a leader in the preservation of the white, Anglo-Saxon civilization of the South.”
Mississippi’s two U.S. senators, the dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law and a journalist spoke at the ceremony, giving speeches that included sanitizing the legacies of George and Davis and mythologizing whitewashing the atrocities of the American Civil War and slavery.
Edgar Wilson, a journalist who wrote a regular column, Mirrors of Mississippi, did not use provocative rhetoric to honor Davis, but he read a speech that Davis gave to the Mississippi Legislature in 1884, a few years before his death.
Part of Davis’ speech included defending the actions of the leaders of the Confederacy.
“I deliberately say, if it were to do over again, I would again do just as I did in April, 1861,” Wilson remembered Davis saying.
The United States Marine Band played “Dixie,” known as the Confederate anthem, after Wilson's remarks.
Judge Stone Deavours, the dean of the University of Mississippi School of Law, honored George, the architect of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution by saying that he carefully and wisely re-established “free government among his people.”
“And so it was that under his leadership, the people of Mississippi marched, with full faith and confidence in him, to the holding of the constitutional convention in 1890, wise in its provisions and permeated with the spirit of justice, brought hope and peace to the people of Mississippi of both races,” Deavours said.
The truth is the state Constitution was meant to bar Black citizens from holding office and restrict them from the ballot box by enacting literacy tests and poll taxes.
A Black person, for example, would not get elected to the state Legislature until Robert Clark was elected to the House in 1968, almost 80 years after George crafted the Mississippi Constitution that still governs the state today.
U.S. Sen. Hubert Stephens also portrayed George as a man who resurrected Mississippi out of the depths of Reconstruction, which he called the state’s “Tragic Era” and falsely claimed that “an orgy of crime and corruption resulted,” during this period.
That is a lie! It was just Democrat Party heritage. White supremacy was a parallel thing.
“Who are these guys?” -Al Gore.
“No. It WAS about slavery. Read the Confederate Constitution.”
If the Confederacy was fighting for slavery, who was fighting against slavery?
“Slavery was a primary issue in the Civil War. To say otherwise is to deny history.”
If the South was fighting for slavery, who was fighting against slavery?
Pay attention.
“Pay attention.”
The reason I ask is because of Lincoln’s outspoken and plain spoken advocacy of white supremacy.
Or do you deny that too?
Lincoln’s primary goal was to keep the Union intact.
His primary goal was to keep the tariff revenues flowing and make the Repligrifters and Wall Street forever rich.
“Lincoln’s primary goal was to keep the Union intact.”
Post 24: “Slavery was a primary issue in the Civil War. To say otherwise is to deny history.”
Critic answers critic.
I see comprehension isn’t a strong point with you.
The North.
I would say tearing down CSA monuments and the general trashng of southern history are the best recruiting tools the DOD ever had. /sarc
How long have you been a bitter black person?
Everyone is confusing the issue vs. the way in which the issue was being decided and mandated. They are also confusing the “States” vs. the individuals.
Your average southerner was poor, they didn’t own slaves or could afford slaves.
People are motivated to fight wars based on their own sense of what right and wrong, to defend their community from violence, to preserve their autonomy, etc... they weren’t fighting so they could own slaves.
No, they were fighting for the right to deciding for themselves if slavery or anything else will be decided by the Federal Government or by the states.
Please keep also in context, there are more slaves in the United States today than ever before. What do you think these people from other countries being smuggled in are for??
Don’t believe the over-simplistic understanding of the civil war, explore history and the emotion of the common man fighting these conflicts.
“The North (was fighting against slavery).”
That is an interesting comment.
It is my understanding that members of the Union army took an oath to protect and defend the pro-slavery U.S. Constitution.
As president, Lincoln took an oath - twice - to protect and defend the pro-slavery U.S. Constitution.
Now you tell me that Lincoln was not serious about protecting and defending the pro-slavery U.S. Constitution but, in fact, took up arms to violently overthrow constitutional slavery. Lincoln “fought to free the slaves” you say.
Set aside for a moment that after the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln added a slave state to the Union.
Do you really want to argue that Lincoln took up arms to violently overthrow the U.S. Constitution? Certainly the Confederates would support your argument.
Why do these people insist on living in the past? The media constantly dregs up things from a century ago or more and uses it to vilify the people of today.
They dilution of the civil war to simply a war over slavery is idiotic, but sadly that is what it has been turned into in the primary education system of the united states... so most are utterly clueless..
There is a scene in a Simpson’s episode where Apu is going through his naturalization exam and is asked about the Civil War, and Apu begins to offer an very informed answer, when the administrator basically shuts him down and tells him to just say slavery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q—iGgtRn8&t=4s
This is what passes for Civics in the US today, most people don’t have an inkling how their government is supposed to work let alone the history of their nation.
I believe there were 23 states remaining after secession, of which 4 were slave states. A fifth slave state came onboard in mid 1861, West Virginia. Five slave states in the union with no interference from Lincoln, though they remained free to ban slavery on a state level, as I believe all but Delaware did. IMO defeating slavery was not a Union objective.
Sorry but no.
Go actually do some research into this topic.
Go read up on things like the Nullifiers, The tariff or abomination, etc.
Abraham Lincolns own word bely your dumbing down of the causes and motivations of the war:
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” - Abraham Lincoln Aug. 22, 1862
Lincoln himself did not free a single slave during the war, WV and Maryland were both slave states... The Emancipation Proclamation if you bother to actually read what it says, only “freed” slaves in areas currently in rebellion... which mean the slaves in MD and WV, which were part of the union remained slaves.
The emancipation proclamation was a political act to keep EUROPE from joining the war, on the side of the south, which they were very close to doing.
You see, the south’s crops and other good were very much in demand in Europe, and they were willing to pay a higher price than the northern states for the raw materials. This led too the Tarriff of Abominations which kept southern goods largely from being able to be traded to Europe and instead would be sold domestically cheaper to supply the northern industrial machinery.
The emancipation proclamation too Europe out of the equation, and was a brilliant political move, but it actually freed no one. Slaves in WV were not freed until !865, by an act of the WV legislature.
Marylands slaves were not freed until 1864 when the state adopted a new constitution.
If you believe the only cause of the civil war was slavery, and that the only reason people were fighting on both sides was to end or continue it you are perpetuating ignorance and lies.
Preserving the union was the driving motivating policy force of the North, not ending slavery... Individual players had their various morality plays, but policy wise dumbing the war down to “Just about Slavery” for either side is factually incorrect and ignorant.
see 59... Anyone telling you the Civil War was just about slavery is ill informed and ignorant... sadly thanks to about 5+ decades of a failed public school system, most believe this lie.
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