Removal of Confederate Memorials Weighed 150 Years After Civil War

By Marissa Horn, Capital News Service

The Civil War divided many communities and families in Maryland, according to state historians, and mementos venerating forces for both the South and the North began to appear throughout the state in the early 1900s.

“(Soldiers) returned to Maryland without a great amount of animosity toward one another, and neither side cared if the other put up a monument to honor the dead,” said Daniel Carroll Toomey, a historian who has served on the state’s Military Monuments Commission for more than 20 years. “You can’t deny the fact that the South did go to war, but then they got over it -- we got over it 150 years ago.”

Now, however, communities around the Old Line State are drawing upon old lines and asking officials to reconsider monuments tied to slavery or the Confederacy exactly four months after the racially motivated killings of nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Montgomery County has already spent $20,000 boxing up and cleaning a Confederate statue that was vandalized earlier this summer.

And the Montgomery County Council plans to meet Thursday night to decide where to relocate the 102-year-old bronze statue of a Confederate soldier standing next to Rockville’s Red Brick Courthouse. The memorial had the words “Black Lives Matter” spray-painted on its base, in July.

SEE ALSO:

• Confederate Monument Vandalized in Rockville
• What Should Be Fate of Confederate Monument in Rockville?
• Letter to Editor: Confederate Statue Unfit to Stand on Public Land

“We need to find out if we will get approval to relocate the statue” and then the county will get estimates to pay for moving it, said Greg Ossont, deputy director of the Department of General Services.

In an effort to determine a new, more appropriate location, Montgomery County residents voted earlier this month on a list of five new locations for the statue. The list included: Beall-Dawson Historical Park in Rockville, Darnestown Square Heritage Park in Darnestown, Callithea Farm Special Park in Potomac, Jesup Blair Local Park in Silver Spring and Edgehill Farm in Gaithersburg. Poll results are expected to be discussed on Thursday.

“We share County Executive Isiah Leggett’s view that the statue does not belong in the center of government outside the courthouse,” said County Council President George Leventhal in a news release. “(We) believe it should be relocated to a site where we are able to tell the full story of Montgomery County’s participation in the Civil War from all perspectives.”

Baltimore Evaluates Nine Confederate Monuments

In Baltimore, a special commission also plans to meet Thursday at 9 a.m. to re-evaluate and lead community discussions about the city’s nine Confederate monuments, continuing the national conversation about the display of racially controversial memorials, flags and other insignia.

In spite of some objections to the monuments, Toomey said, he believes the monument evaluation committee in Baltimore City is unnecessary.

“The monuments are not just the history of Baltimore City, they are just not the history of Maryland, they’re American history,” Toomey said. “And no one, no mayor has the right to say what part of American history will be remembered and what will be forgotten.”

According to Howard Libit, a spokesman for Baltimore’s mayor, the review will “ensure that the city stays on the side of respecting history. There is a balance between respecting history and continuing to display items that may be offensive,” Libit said.

Memorial to Author of Dred Scott Court Ruling

In Frederick, city leaders are deliberating whether to remove the bust of former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney from in front of City Hall. Taney’s opinion in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case protected slaveholders’ rights and excluded African Americans from citizenship.

Despite the city’s efforts to remove the statue, there remain other tributes honoring Taney around the city including Taney Avenue, his grave and his house, which is a historical landmark.

This is where the mess of drawing a distinction begins, Toomey said, like which Confederate-oriented statues should and should not be removed. Though he agrees with the decision to not fly the Confederate flag over government buildings, Toomey said, the monuments should remain in place.

“If anyone was a slaveowner … you would have to take down the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial and blow a path through Mount Rushmore or change the name of the capital,” Toomey said. “Where does it stop?”

»Officials boxed up the Confederate statue with plywood outside of Rockville’s Red Brick Courthouse after its base was spray-painted with “Black Lives Matter” in late July. The council plans to approve a new location Thursday and move it to one of five locations throughout the county at a later date. (Capital News Service photo by Marissa Horn; Patch file photo of statue, on right.)