Written Argumentative Essay On Confederacy

Socratic Seminar- Written Argument
The definition of confederacy, is “a combination of persons for unlawful purposes”. The confederacy formed, conflicted, killed, and battled with the Union, why should we honor men who’ve killed so many men from their own country? Not in any way should we stop remembering these leaders or the confederacy, but we should stop publicly honoring them. It is understandable that they wanted to preserve their way of life, but it resulted in a nasty, violent war. These are statues of leaders that memorialize their positions of white supremacy in the past. Confederate monuments and statues honor these men for what they did, not only people to those with a different race, but to their own country. The Confederate statues should be taken down.
Firstly, the statues and monuments are irrelevant and unfair to citizens of the United States. Bryan Stevenson states during an interview, “It is unfair to leave African Americans to drive past statues of men who put their ancestors through suffering”(source 1). Slavery played a major role in the southern way of life. These are men

who fought on behalf of their way of life, whether they owned slaves or not. In the same interview, Bryan made the point that, “taking down the statues would be more welcoming to minorities”(source 1). I agree with Bryan’s statement, because the sight of white supremacist statues are really intimidating to those whose families could have been owned and controlled by them. All in all, the statues and additional monuments are hurtful and intimidating to those with pasts on the topic of slavery.

Secondly, take a step back and look at the bigger picture of the confederacy.

It was a united front turning their backs on their nation, before it was even built to it’s full potential. They were practically a cult of white supremacists who tortured other humans based on skin color. While presenting a speech about the men these statues memorialize, Mayor Mitch Landrieu appointed, “The cult of the lost cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal- through monuments and through other means-to rewrite history and hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity”(source 5). There are too many people today looking at these men as heroes, but they were truly traitors. Why should there be statues of traitors to our country? The last time i checked, we don’t have memorials for Hitler, King George, or any other harmful villains who’ve affected America’s

history.
In conclusion, the statues should no longer stand tall. They are honoring those who killed and harmed endless amounts of soldiers. There are too many people honoring these traitors as role models of white supremacy. Of course there were leaders and soldiers who joined the confederacy for reasons other than slavery, but most joined because of feeling more powerful than others of diversity. If one had ancestors who were harmed, whipped, and killed by white supremacists, simply because of their race, imagine the grief having to memorialize the leaders who fought in order to harm your family. They led millions of people to fight for their way of life. These are not leaders we should be honoring. If we must memorialize them, the Confederate mementos should be kept in museums for learning purposes.