Rep. Andrew Clyde and a group of GOP lawmakers wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday. In it, they demanded he keep the Reconciliation Monument in place until the end of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process.
The Pentagon’s Naming Commission scheduled the monument for removal. The panel is concerned with renaming and removing military installations named after the Confederacy following 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.
Clyde argues that the memorial was a tribute to American unity following the Civil War rather than honoring the Confederacy. He believes that it would desecrate the graves of Confederate troops buried there.
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The letter reads: “Despite bipartisan support for this monument, the Naming Commission, established by the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, clearly overstepped its legislative authority when it recommended that the Department of the Army remove the Reconciliation Monument from Arlington National Cemetery.”
“[T]he Reconciliation Monument does not honor nor commemorate the Confederacy; the memorial commemorates reconciliation and national unity,” it says.
“Furthermore, the Naming Commission’s authority explicitly prohibits the desecration of grave sites. Considering the hundreds of gravestones encircling the monument, it would be impossible for these graves to remain untouched if the Department of the Army proceeds with its proposed removal of the monument – both being a clear violation of Congress’ enacted statute and legislative intent.”
Clyde and 43 other House Republicans, including Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala, signed off on the letter.
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The then-President Woodrow Wilson unveiled the memorial in question in 1914. This came after the United Daughters of the Confederacy commissioned it. Congress authorized the reinternment of Confederate remains to Arlington National Cemetery just 14 years before.
Its new home is to be a site the Virginia Military Institute currently owns and uses. The Republicans demand that the process be on hold until Congress agrees to a funding deal.
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They cited an amendment offered by Clyde to the defense spending bill. If passed, it will stop the statue’s removal completely.
“The Department of Defense must respect Congress’ clear legislative intentions regarding the Naming Commission’s legislative authority, and to move forward with the removal of the Reconciliation Monument would be a clear affront to the separation of powers principles outlined by our Founding Fathers in our Constitution,” the letter reads.
The Pentagon is also facing a lawsuit from a group called Defend Arlington. They are representatives of the ancestors of Confederate veterans and are suing over the statue’s removal.
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