Madison monuments to Confederate soldiers removed on mayor’s order

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The Madison mayor said city-owned monuments to confederate soldiers will be removed.

Mayor Paul Soglin said in a news release Thursday that removing the monuments “is no disrespect to the dead,” and that he has instructed Forest Hills Cemetery staff to remove the Confederate’s Rest commemorative memorial and a larger monument.

“The Civil War was an act of insurrection and treason and a defense of the deplorable practice of slavery,” Soglin said in the statement. “The monuments in question were connected to that action and we do not need them on City property.”

The cemetery’s Confederate’s Rest section is devoted to 140 Confederate soldiers, a majority of whom died while held in prison at Camp Randall. The portion of the cemetery is the only tribute to the Confederacy in the area.

“Taking down monuments will not erase our shared history,” Soglin said. “The Confederacy’s legacy will be with us whether we memorialize it in marble or not. I agree with other mayors around the country also speaking out and taking action. We are acknowledging there is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. In Madison, we join our brothers and sisters around the country to prove that we, as a people, are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile, and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves.”

The memorial described the solders as “valiant and unsung heroes.”

Stu Levitan, the chairman of the Landmarks Commission, questions whether the mayor had the power to do this. Levitan believes any changes to the memorials that are designated as landmarks should have first gotten approval from the Landmarks Commission. However, Levitan doesn’t question the message behind their removal.

“This is America. We do not honor people who fought to preserve slavery, who fought to destroy the union. They were rebels,” he said.

A marker naming the solders buried will be put in place of the two removed memorials.

“We are not desecrating the graves. We are not digging the soldiers up and send them back to Alabama. But we are going to have an appropriate sign that explains why they are were there and the cause that they were fighting for,” Levitan said.

President Donald Trump on Thursday denounced the removal of monuments to Confederate figures as “sad” and “so foolish,” days after white supremacists and neo-Nazis took to Charlottesville, Virginia, to violently protest the planned removal of a statue of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee .

The Confederate’s Rest monument was removed by Thursday. Soglin said it will take time to remove the second memorial on the grounds.

“Just as these monuments miscast the feelings of Madisonians in terms of erroneously portraying that the Civil War was righteous when it was tyranny. We have to assert ourselves in terms of our values and what we believe in,” Soglin said.

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