Why Is the G.O.P. Fighting to Preserve Monuments to Traitors in the Capitol?

[David Lockmiller]

Why Is the G.O.P. Fighting to Preserve Monuments to Traitors in the Capitol?
By The Editorial Board of the New York Times June 19, 2020
Portraits and statues venerating Confederate leaders are an insult to freedom and democracy.

The New York Times concluded its editorial with these words: "Is this really the hill that the Party of Lincoln wants to fight on in 2020? What an ignoble, lost cause."

I made multiple attempts to post the following comment to the New York Times Editorial published today without success:

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, at page 732:

The complexities of reestablishing law and order in the Southern states dominated the conversation . . . . Lincoln said that “he thought it providential that this great rebellion was crushed just as Congress had adjourned,” since he and the cabinet were more likely to “accomplish more without them than with them” regarding Reconstruction. He noted that “there were men in Congress who, if their motives were good, were nevertheless impracticable, and who possessed feelings of hate and vindictiveness in which he did not sympathize and could not participate. He hoped that there would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over.”

As for rebel leaders, Lincoln reiterated his resolve to perpetrate no further violence. “None need expect he would take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them.” While their continued presence on American soil might prove troublesome, he preferred to “frighten them out of the country, open the gates, let down the bars, scare them off.” To illustrate his point, he shook “his hands as if scaring sheep,” and said, “Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and union.”

Stanton recalled, Lincoln “spoke very kindly of General Lee and others of the Confederacy,” exhibiting in marked degree the kindness and humanity of his disposition, and the tender and forgiving spirit that so eminently distinguished him.”

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Why Is the G.O.P. Fighting to Preserve Monuments to Traitors in the Capitol?