
TheHill.com reports that
South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan (R) is calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to reverse her order for portraits of previous House Speakers who served in the Confederacy to be removed from the Capitol.
In a letter to Pelosi on Friday, Duncan argued that taking down the portraits is an attempt to erase history. The GOP lawmaker said that “every leader in history, including ourselves, has flaws and imperfections” and suggested that taking down the paintings was a “slippery slope.”
“I write you in opposition of this request, specifically the request to remove the portrait of former Speaker of the House James L. Orr of South Carolina. The 3rd Congressional District of South Carolina is the modern Congressional district Mr. Orr would have represented when he was a Member of Congress,” he wrote.
“Mr. Orr was a Congressman from South Carolina for four terms, served as Speaker from 1857-1859, was the last Speaker to preside in the Old House chamber, and one of only two Speakers to hail from South Carolina. As you are very aware, it has been the tradition of the House to have a portrait displayed of the past Speaker after their service,” he added.
Duncan highlighted Orr’s time in politics, noting that at the end of the Civil War, he was appointed under former President Andrew Johnson (D) to serve as the commissioner to represent the provisional government of South Carolina as it rejoined the Union, and was the first governor in South Carolina to be elected by popular vote before going on to become the ambassador to Russia after being appointed by former President Ulysses S. Grant (R).
“To say the least, Mr. Orr not only served his home state of South Carolina, but our great nation as well in many capacities in different Presidential administrations,” Duncan wrote.
“You were elected to be the Speaker for the whole House of Representatives, not just for the people of San Francisco. I am very concerned at the precedent that your action sets and that it will end with removing history.”
Duncan slammed “cancel culture,” questioning whether portraits and statues of the founders of the country would also be removed given their ties to slavery or if politicians who have made comments about Confederate leaders in the past should have their memorials taken down.
“Will we next remove statues of Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson over ties to slavery? What about the memorial of Franklin D. Roosevelt over his position on internment camps?” he continued.
“Should the Baltimore memorial of your father Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. be removed for his comments concerning Confederate leaders?” he asked.
The House Republican argued that controversial statements made by Democrats should also be addressed before portraits are removed, adding that he believes it could further divide the nation.
“And if it is so important that we police those who have made controversial comments, why then are you attempting to discipline former Members who have been dead for over 100 years, when you as Speaker have refused to discipline current Members of your caucus who have made anti-Semitic statements?” he wrote.
“Simply put, this is a dangerous path to go down and I do not believe that removing a portrait outside the chamber of the People’s House will benefit our country, foster more equality, or help Americans achieve greater economic prosperity.”
Duncan requested that if the portrait has to be removed from the Speaker’s Lobby in the Capitol, that it can be displayed in his congressional office in the Rayburn House Office Building.
Pelosi called for the portraits’ removal on Thursday, which comes on the heels of her request to remove 11 Confederate statues from Statuary Hall last week.
“We didn’t know about this until we were taking inventory of the statues and the curator told us that there were four paintings of Speakers in the Capitol of the United States, four Speakers who had served in the Confederacy,” she told reporters Thursday.
A renewed debate over removing Confederate imagery and other figures including Christopher Columbus has erupted across the country after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody late last month.
As we were watching Fox News yesterday morning, before my wife and I went to work. the preceding story about Speaker Pelosi came on.
My wife was outraged.
My wife is a transplanted “Yankee”, who has lived down here in Dixie for over 30 years and loves it.
She asked me, “Why isn’t anybody standing up to her? She’s trying to erase America’s History!”
She was right.
These presents attempts at rewriting and censuring history, in the name of virtue signaling, political correctness, “racism”, and “hurt feelings” is the biggest exercise in Liberal Hypocrisy that this ol’ Son of the South has seen in my ever-lengthening lifetime.
The absolute drooling hatred being exhibited right now by Modern American Liberals toward my region of the country is unbelievable.
Y’know, I knew that they have been participating in a move to turn our nation into a Democratic Socialist Barrio by any means necessary, including making our brave Men and Women in Blue into Societal Pariahs, but, I did not know that they were going to take their lust for power out on my ancestors again, as well.
Yes. MY ancestors.
You see, boys and girls, if you were standing over by my shoulder, right now, in KJ’s Inner Sanctum, otherwise known by my bride as my “man cave”, you would see two things: a giant framed poster of all the names found in the Bible given to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and my family crest, which I sent to my Daddy (Southern colloquialism for male parental unit) back in July of 1978 from the York Insignia Shoppe in York, England, while I was on a singing tour with a 15-voice choir.
On the bottom of the crest is a very recognizable name which was the first name of one of General Robert E. Lee’s relatives.
My father was also a fighting man from the South, as I have related to you before.
He was a Master Sergeant with an Army Engineering Unit, who stepped off of a perfectly good boat onto the living hell that was Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944.
I suppose the Liberals will want to get rid of those statues, next.
But, I digress…
I am proud of my Southern Heritage.
I am proud of my Family Heritage.
For you see, Christianity runs deep in my family.
And, those Confederate Generals all viewed themselves as Christian men.
Just like those men, we are all flawed, as man himself is a fallen creature.
However, we continue to strive to do what is right.
These Southern Americans, whom Pelosi and the rest of the virtue-signaling Far Left and Vichy Republicans seek to dishonor and hide away, like Bill Clinton’s little black book, were flawed men, as well.
However, the Federal Government recognizes them as United States of America Veterans.
” Every soldier’s grave made during our unfortunate civil war [sic] is a tribute to American valor… And the time has now come… when in the spirit of fraternity we should share in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers… and if it needed further justification it is found in the gallant loyalty to the Union and the flag so conspicuously shown in the year just passed by the sons and grandsons of those heroic dead.” …President William McKinley, 14 December 1898.
These portraits and statues MUST be left alone, to serve as a reminder of mistakes made, by NORTH and South, and as a reminder that, like a family often does, we fight among ourselves, but our true strength lies in forgiveness, compassion. courage, and integrity.
Four character traits that both the Far Left Democratic Party and Modern American Liberals in general seemingly have forsaken in their quest to restore power to their minority political ideology.
Character traits which they had better suck up and find soon, because the young fascists of Antifa and BLM could very well turn on them after they are through treating them as “useful idiots”
And their “feelings” won’t matter at all.
Then again, as I have recently pointed out, Marxists love to destroy historical artifacts, as Lenin and Stalin demonstrated, so maybe they will cut the Liberal Democrats some slack.
Probably not.
Now that they are censoring food items from our grocery shelves and purposefully erasing history, I wonder when the book burning starts?
Until He Comes,
KJ