Brown Introduces Bill To Remove Lee Statue At Antietam

Rep. Anthony Brown on Friday introduced a bill to remove the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg.

The announcement was timed to coincide with the 155th anniversary of the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. The Battle of Antietam put an end to the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia's first invasion into the Union.

“Public land should not be home to symbols of hate and bigotry that memorialize leaders of the pro-slavery, traitorous Confederate South,” Brown said in a statement. “Statues and monuments ought to celebrate the brave individuals who have fought and died for our country and true American values. The statue of Lee commemorates a man that owned and beat African Americans, and fought to preserve the institution of slavery. The statue is historically inaccurate and offensive, and I am looking forward to its timely removal.”



If passed, the Robert E. Lee Statue Removal Act requires the secretary of the interior to develop a plan to remove the monument within 90 days of passage, and submit a publicly available report to Congress on the plan and timeline within 120 days.

Reps. John Delaney and Jamie Raskin are also supporting the legislation.

“It was erected for aggressively political and polemical reasons on what was once private land but has since become public land," Raskin said. "To decide to keep it up now would be to glorify and lionize a Confederate general who took up arms against the Union in violent defense of slavery and the Confederate secession.”

Delaney and other lawmakers from Maryland raised questions about the statue last month. The monument was commissioned and positioned by William F. Chaney on private land next to the battlefield without the approval of residents or the National Park Service. It was positioned in area that the Union controlled during the battle. It depicts Lee on horseback--Lee, in fact, traveled to Sharpsburg by ambulance, as he was suffering from a broken wrist. The statue was dedicated in 2003 and the plot became federal property two years later.

"Robert E. Lee was personally against secession and slavery, but decided his duty was to fight for his home and the universal right of every people to self-determination," reads the text on the monument.

Lee owned slaves, and said little in public about slavery. Some accounts say Lee was personally involved in whipping a slave. In 1862, he freed slaves inherited by his wife, but in accordance with his father-in-law's will.

Though both sides in Antietam suffered heavy losses, and the battle itself was a draw, the Confederates were the first to withdraw from what would have been an invasion of Maryland.

We have since clarified imprecise wording about the significance of the Battle of Antietam.