Why Tom McClintock opposes a bill to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol

Rep. Tom McClintock opposed this week removing Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol — and he explained that his vote is hardly an endorsement of the Confederacy.

Instead, the California Republican explained, it is about a need to practice humility, respect state prerogatives and not see everything as an either-or issue.

Clearly, McClintock said in a House floor speech, “The Confederacy was fundamentally an attack on our Constitution and the founding principles of our nation, and it should never be romanticized or honored. I have no problems with lawfully removing monuments that specifically honor this rebellion.”

But, he noted, “That’s not what this bill does.”

The House voted 305 to 113 to require removing from the Capitol statues of those who voluntarily served the Confederacy and replace the bust of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney — who wrote the Dred Scott decision saying Blacks could not be U.S. citizens — with a bust of Thurgood Marshall, the nation’s first Black justice.

Also gone would be statues or busts of Confederate sympathizers, including former Vice Presidents John C. Calhoun, James Breckinridge and others.

The Senate is unlikely to consider the bill.

Asked about a proposal to change the names of military bases named for those who served in the Confederacy — which the Senate passed Thursday as part of a massive defense policy bill — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “What I do think is clearly a bridge too far is this nonsense that we need to airbrush the capital and scrub out everybody from years ago who had any connection to slavery. “

The Kentucky Republican pointed out that early presidents were often slave owners, and each state gets to pick its statues.

“For myself with regard to military bases, whatever is ultimately decided I don’t have a problem with,” he said.

The House found big bipartisan support for its statue removal effort. Seventy-two Republicans, all 232 Democrats, and Independent Justain Amash voted for the bill, while 113 Republicans, including Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California, were opposed. Rep. Paul Cook, R-Calif., did not vote and other California Republicans voted aye.

“The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and what we aspire to as a nation,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

“Monuments to men who advocated barbarism and racism are a grotesque affront to those ideals. Their statues pay homage to hate,not heritage,” she said.

McClintock explained his position in two general ways.

First, he cited Taney’s record.

“It is true: He wrote the worst decision in the court’s history, Dred Scott. But he also presided over and joined one of its better decisions, the Amistad Slave Case,” McClintock said.

The House bill says lawmakers recognize “one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms, that of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.”

Scott, a Black man, was a slave who sought freedom. Taney’s decision said black people could not become U.S. citizens. When the Constitution was adopted, Taney wrote, it was accepted that Blacks were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

Taney as chief justice supported freedom for slaves involved in the 1841 Amistad case. Regarded at the time as a major victory for anti-slavery forces, the decision allowed freedom for the African slaves on the ship who had rebelled against their captain and murdered him and the cook.

Look at the statue issue this way, McClintock urged: “If we remove memorials to every person who ever made a bad decision in this building – and this was surely the worst – the Capitol would be a very barren place, indeed. It is only by the bad things in our history that we can truly measure all the good things in our history.”

His second argument is that statues of confederate loyalists were sent to the Capitol by individual states, which can choose who they want to honor in the building.

As a result, removal is not Congress’ decision, McClintock said.

“That’s a tradition that has always been reserved to the individual states, and several are already doing so. We should let them,” he said.

Kentucky’s John C. Breckinridge “is not recognized for his service to the Confederacy but rather for his service as Vice President of the United States,” McClintock said. Breckinridge, vice president from 1857 to 1861, became the Confederacy’s Secretary of War and was declared a traitor by the U.S. Senate.

“Granted, we have had some absolutely atrocious vice presidents in our history, but if we are going to start down that road, we’ll be swapping out statues like trading cards at the whim of the moment,” he argued. “Our nation’s history should be made of sterner stuff.”

Ridiculous, countered Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. “We may as well put up a statue of Benedict Arnold to honor him for his service to the Continental Army before he defected over to the British side and led British groups against America,” Raskin said.

McClintock’s advice to his colleagues? Heed the wisdom of Omar Khayyam: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”