Removing Confederate Statues from the Capital

The House voted Wednesday to remove statues of Confederate leaders from the Capitol and replace the bust of Roger B. Taney, the U.S. chief justice who wrote the Supreme Court decision that said the US Constitution didn't mean to extend citizenship to blacks.

The bill specifically mentioned three men who backed slavery — Charles B. Aycock, John C. Calhoun and James P. Clarke.

The statues are actually provided by the states. I believe it's two each and the Senate appears willing to leave it that way so I suspect this bill is going nowhere.

Personally I don't have a big problem with removing the statues of Confederate leaders but I'm not too sure about Taney because, prior to the 14th Amendment, the Constitution probably didn't extend citizenship to black people.

I guess I am confused about the criteria we using for scrubbing our past. Is it Confederate leaders and generals or anyone who owned slaves or allowed slavery to continue as an institution?

I've heard calls for removing statues for Jefferson and Washington because they owned slaves. Taney was from the slave state of Maryland but didn't own slaves himself. He was apparently unhappy with  Northern attacks on slavery which probably was a factor in the Dred Scott decision.

Well, then what about the friezes honoring law givers on the walls of the Supreme Court?

The following friezes are the south wall of the Supreme Court: Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius and Augustus.

I will guarantee you that Menes, Hammurabi, Lycurgus and Augustus had slaves. Solomon, Solon and Draco probably did as well. Moses doesn't seem to have a problem with slavery in the Pentateuch (see Leviticus 25:44-46).

The following friezes are on the north wall of the Supreme Court: Justinian, Muhammad, Charlemagne, King John, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, Sir William Blackstone, John Marshall and Napoleon.

Justinian certainly had slaves and Muhammad did as well. Charlemagne was probably what we would call Islamophobic as was Louis IX since Louis was one of the leaders of the 7th and 8th crusades. King John was a tyrant who had to have the Magna Carta imposed on him by force of arms. All three of them undoubtedly had serfs which is almost as bad as having slaves.

John Marshall was the chief justice of the Supreme Court during slavery, never declared it unconstitutional and owned slaves himself. Napoleon waged wars that resulted in the deaths of between three and six million people including women and children.

I don't know much about Grotius and Blackstone.

So we've got a bunch of folks being honored within the Supreme Court who did lots of bad stuff. Many of them owned slaves and others condoned slavery.

Are we taking them down too?