Does the removal of the Lee statue remove history?
In a post titled Virginia Isn't Bound by 1890 Deed to Perpetually Display Robert E. Lee Monument , the blog the Volokh conspiracy covered the Virginia Supreme Court decision concerning the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, VA.
The blog quoted from the decision:
The merits of the arguments for and against the retention of the Lee Monument in its present location are for the political branches to consider. Our function as a Court is to address the legal claims before us. The essence of our republican form of government is for the sovereign people to elect representatives, who then chart the public policy of the Commonwealth or of the Nation. Democracy is inherently dynamic. Values change and public policy changes too. The Government of the Commonwealth is entitled to select the views that it supports and the values that it wants to express. The Taylor Plaintiffs erroneously assert that the Commonwealth is perpetually bound to display the Lee Monument because of the 1887 Deed, the 1890 Deed, and the 1889 Joint Resolution. A restrictive covenant against the government is unreasonable if it compels the government to contract away, abridge, or weaken any sovereign right because such a restrictive covenant would interfere with the interest of the public.
One wonders if such arguments could justify the removal of the Lee statue from the Gettysburg battlefield?
Of the Court text -- The essence of our republican form of government is for the sovereign people to elect representatives, who then chart the public policy of the Commonwealth or of the Nation. --, the Virginia government,including the Virginia Supreme Court, in earlier embodiments, enforced anti-miscegenation laws, which existed in Virginia up to 1967 and the Loving case. That was the "public policy" of Virginia.
As a footnote, of "fake news" (as it existed at the time of the Civil War), from Wikipedia:
The Miscegenation hoax, taking the form of a pamphlet subtitled The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, was published by New York World staff in December 1863 as part of an anti-Lincoln Copperhead campaign leading up to the 1864 presidential election. The 72-page piece coined the term miscegenation (from the Latin miscere "to mix" + genus "kind") and was put together by World managing editor David Goodman Croly and reporter George Wakeman. The work purports to be a sincere advocacy of the virtues of racial mixing, but it is a literary forgery intended to argue against racial equality, and to blame the Lincoln administration for allegedly supporting this goal
The blog quoted from the decision:
The merits of the arguments for and against the retention of the Lee Monument in its present location are for the political branches to consider. Our function as a Court is to address the legal claims before us. The essence of our republican form of government is for the sovereign people to elect representatives, who then chart the public policy of the Commonwealth or of the Nation. Democracy is inherently dynamic. Values change and public policy changes too. The Government of the Commonwealth is entitled to select the views that it supports and the values that it wants to express. The Taylor Plaintiffs erroneously assert that the Commonwealth is perpetually bound to display the Lee Monument because of the 1887 Deed, the 1890 Deed, and the 1889 Joint Resolution. A restrictive covenant against the government is unreasonable if it compels the government to contract away, abridge, or weaken any sovereign right because such a restrictive covenant would interfere with the interest of the public.
One wonders if such arguments could justify the removal of the Lee statue from the Gettysburg battlefield?
Of the Court text -- The essence of our republican form of government is for the sovereign people to elect representatives, who then chart the public policy of the Commonwealth or of the Nation. --, the Virginia government,including the Virginia Supreme Court, in earlier embodiments, enforced anti-miscegenation laws, which existed in Virginia up to 1967 and the Loving case. That was the "public policy" of Virginia.
As a footnote, of "fake news" (as it existed at the time of the Civil War), from Wikipedia:
The Miscegenation hoax, taking the form of a pamphlet subtitled The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro, was published by New York World staff in December 1863 as part of an anti-Lincoln Copperhead campaign leading up to the 1864 presidential election. The 72-page piece coined the term miscegenation (from the Latin miscere "to mix" + genus "kind") and was put together by World managing editor David Goodman Croly and reporter George Wakeman. The work purports to be a sincere advocacy of the virtues of racial mixing, but it is a literary forgery intended to argue against racial equality, and to blame the Lincoln administration for allegedly supporting this goal
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 9:39 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home