Overview

Recent years have seen a ""new Civil War,"" a debate over who should be honored in Statuary Hall in the United States Congress. This book is the first ever to review the history of the relationship between Statuary Hall and both Civil Wars, the one which was fought in the 19th century and the one ongoing now. Statuary Hall was created in the midst of the war, in 1864, via legislation authored by Representative Justin Morrill of Vermont to fill the space left by the House of Representatives when it moved to its current chambers. The year before, the ""Statue of Freedom"" was emplaced atop the Capitol Dome. Morrill's legislation invited each state to honor two of its citizens by providing representative statues. The first statue, of Nathanial Greene of Rhode Island, was emplaced in 1870, and by 1971 each state had emplaced at least one. Eventually the space in the former House chamber proved too small, and beginning in 1933 some of the statues were displayed elsewhere in the Capitol building. As of 2020, only 38 were still in the original Statuary Hall. Each state (and the District of Columbia) has total discretion as to its choice of honorees. Perhaps it was not surprising then that after Reconstruction and the rise of the ""Lost Cause"" myth, some states of the former Confederacy chose to honor Confederate leaders. These include statues of Jefferson Davis (1931), Robert E. Lee (1909), Alexander Stephens (1927), and Edmund Kirby Smith (1922). Until 2003, all but one of the original statues (William Jennings Bryan's of Nebraska, emplaced in 1937, was replaced in 2019 by one of Indian chief Standing Bear), were undisturbed in place. However, the dawn of the 21st century and the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War brought renewed attention to the issue of who should be honored and who should not be honored; and the ""new Civil War"" debate began. Recently, as Confederate monuments have been taken down in many cities, and as federal legislation was passed requiring the re-naming of army bases originally named for Confederate Generals, suggestions (and demands) for replacements in Statuary Hall have increased. Several changes have been made, and it is likely the future will see several more. Lee was removed in 2021 and Smith was replaced in 2022 by educator Mary Bethune. In May 2024 North Carolina removed Charles Aycock and replaced him with Billy Graham, and later that same year Arkansas removed James Paul Clark and replaced him with Daisy Bates and replaced Uriah Rose with Johnny Cash. There is no ongoing discussion about removing the statues of the President and Vice President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens. But stay tuned.

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