Pelosi Wants to Remove 11 Confederate Statues from Capitol. Almost All Are Democrats

By Chris Enloe

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced last week that she wants to remove 11 Confederate monuments at the United States Capitol.

Pelosi wrote to the Joint Committee on the Library, which manages Capitol displays, and requested that statues of officials with Confederate affiliation are removed.

"The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation," Pelosi wrote. "Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals. Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed."

As it turns out, nine of the 11 statues that Pelosi wants removed are of Democrats.

• Jefferson Davis (D): President of the Confederate States of America and former Democratic U.S. senator from Mississippi

• Wade Hampton (D): Former Democratic governor of South Carolina and lieutenant general for the Confederacy

• John E. Kenna (D): Former Democratic congressman and U.S. senator from West Virginia and member of the Confederate States Army

• Uriah Milton Rose (D): Chairman of the Resolutions Committee of the Arkansas Democratic Party

• Alexander Hamilton Stephens (D): Vice President of the Confederate States who served as governor of Georgia and a Democratic congressman from Georgia

• James Zachariah George (D): Former Democratic U.S. senator from Mississippi and member of the Confederacy as well as the Mississippi Secession Convention

• Zebulon Baird Vance (D): Former Democratic governor of North Carolina, U.S. senator and congressman, and member of the Confederate Army

• Joseph Wheeler (D): Commander in the Confederate Army and former Democratic congressman from Alabama

• Edward Douglass White (D): Former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and a Democratic U.S. Senator from Louisiana who served in the Confederate Army

Pelosi also wants statues of Robert E. Lee, a commander in the Confederate Army, and Edmund Kirby Smith, another Confederate general, removed from the Capitol. Neither men had stated political party affiliations.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) responded to Pelosi's request by explaining that individual states are responsible for the statues, therefore the states have the power to remove them.

"When it comes to statues, states have the power to select who to come forward," McCarthy explained, The Hill reported.

(H/T: Just The News)

Author: Chris Enloe

Source: TheBlaze: Nancy Pelosi wants to remove 11 Confederate statues from Capitol. Almost all are Democrats