[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 129 (Wednesday, July 22, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H3658-H3666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REPLACING BUST OF ROGER BROOKE TANEY WITH BUST OF THURGOOD MARSHALL
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass
the bill (H.R. 7573) to direct the Architect of the Capitol to replace
the bust of Roger Brooke Taney in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the
United States Capitol with a bust of Thurgood Marshall to be obtained
by the Joint Committee on the Library and to remove certain statues
from areas of the United States Capitol which are accessible to the
public, to remove all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the
Confederate States of America from display in the United States
Capitol, and for other purposes, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 7573
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. REPLACEMENT OF BUST OF ROGER BROOKE TANEY WITH
BUST OF THURGOOD MARSHALL.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) While sitting in the United States Capitol, the Supreme
Court issued the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision on
March 6, 1857. Written by Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney,
whose bust sits inside the entrance to the Old Supreme Court
Chamber in the United States Capitol, this opinion declared
that African Americans were not citizens of the United States
and could not sue in Federal courts. This decision further
declared that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit
slavery in the territories.
(2) Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney's authorship of Dred
Scott v. Sandford, the effects of which would only be
overturned years later by the ratification of the 13th, 14th,
and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States,
renders a bust of his likeness unsuitable for the honor of
display to the many visitors to the United States Capitol.
(3) As Frederick Douglass said of this decision in May
1857, ``This infamous decision of the Slaveholding wing of
the Supreme Court maintains that slaves are within the
contemplation of the Constitution of the United States,
property; that slaves are property in the same sense that
horses, sheep, and swine are property; that the old doctrine
that slavery is a creature of local law is false; that the
right of the slaveholder to his slave does not depend upon
the local law, but is secured wherever the Constitution of
the United States extends; that Congress has no right to
prohibit slavery anywhere; that slavery may go in safety
anywhere under the star-spangled banner; that colored persons
of African descent have no rights that white men are bound to
respect; that colored men of African descent are not and
cannot be citizens of the United States.''.
(4) While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney's
bust from the United States Capitol does not relieve the
Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the
institution of slavery, it expresses Congress's recognition
of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place
in one of its rooms, that of Chief Justice Roger Brooke
Taney's Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.
(b) Removal of Bust of Roger Brooke Taney.--Not later than
45 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the
Joint Committee on the Library shall remove the bust of Roger
Brooke Taney in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the United
States Capitol.
(c) Replacement With Bust of Thurgood Marshall.--
(1) Obtaining bust.--Not later than 2 years after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the Joint Committee on the
Library shall enter into an agreement to obtain a bust of
Thurgood Marshall, under such terms and conditions as the
Joint Committee considers appropriate consistent with
applicable law.
(2) Placement.--The Joint Committee on the Library shall
place the bust obtained under paragraph (1) in the location
in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the United States Capitol
where the bust of Roger Brooke Taney was located prior to
removal by the Architect of the Capitol under subsection (b).
SEC. 2. REMOVAL OF CERTAIN STATUES AND BUST.
(a) Removal.--Not later than 45 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Joint Committee on the Library
shall remove the statue of Charles Brantley Aycock, the
statue of John Caldwell Calhoun, the statue of James Paul
Clarke, and the bust of John Cabell Breckinridge from any
area of the United States Capitol which is accessible to the
public.
(b) Storage of Statues.--The Architect of the Capitol shall
keep any statue and bust removed under subsection (a) in
storage until the Architect and the State which provided the
statue or bust arrange for the return of the statue or bust
to the State.
SEC. 3. REQUIREMENTS AND REMOVAL PROCEDURES FOR STATUES IN
NATIONAL STATUARY HALL.
(a) Requirements.--Section 1814 of the Revised Statutes (2
U.S.C. 2131) is amended by inserting ``(other than persons
who served as an officer or voluntarily with the Confederate
States of America or of the military forces or government of
a State while the State was in rebellion against the United
States)'' after ``military services''.
(b) Statue Removal Procedures.--
(1) In general.--
(A) Identification by architect of the capitol.--The
Architect of the Capitol shall identify all statues on
display in the United States Capitol that do not meet the
requirements of section 1814 of the Revised Statutes (2
U.S.C. 2131), as amended by subsection (a); and
(B) Removal by joint committee on the library.--The Joint
Committee on the Library shall arrange for the removal of
each statue identified by the Architect of the Capitol under
subparagraph (B) from the Capitol by not later than 120 days
after the date of enactment of this Act.
(2) Removal and return of statues.--
(A) In general.--Subject to subparagraph (C), the Architect
of the Capitol shall arrange to transfer and deliver any
statue that is removed under this subsection to the
Smithsonian Institution.
(B) Storage or display of statues.--The Board of Regents of
the Smithsonian Institution shall follow the policies and
procedures of the Smithsonian Institution, as in effect on
the day before the date of enactment of this Act, regarding
the storage and display of any statue transferred under
subparagraph (A).
(C) State requests.--A statue provided for display by a
State that is removed under this subsection shall be returned
to the State, and the ownership of the statue transferred to
the State, if the State so requests and agrees to pay any
costs related to the transportation of the statue to the
State.
(3) Replacement of statues.--A State that has a statue
removed under this subsection shall be able to replace such
statue in accordance with the requirements and procedures of
section 1814 of the Revised Statutes (2 U.S.C. 2131) and
section 311 of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act,
2001 (2 U.S.C. 2132).
(4) Authorization and appropriations.--
(A) In general.--There are appropriated for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2021, out of any money in the Treasury
not otherwise appropriated, $5,000,000 to carry out this
section, including the costs related to the removal,
transfer, security, storage, and display of the statues
described in paragraph (1)(A), of which--
(i) $2,000,000 shall be made available to the Architect of
the Capitol; and
(ii) $3,000,000 shall be made available to the Smithsonian
Institution.
(B) Availability.--Amounts appropriated under subparagraph
(A) shall remain available until expended.
SEC. 4. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
In addition to the amounts appropriated under section
3(b)(4), there are authorized to be appropriated such sums as
may be necessary to carry out this Act, and any amounts so
appropriated shall remain available until expended.
SEC. 5. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS.
The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of
complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall
be determined by reference to the latest statement titled
``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'' for this Act,
submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the
Chairman of the House Budget Committee, provided that such
statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of today,
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) and the gentleman
from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina.
General Leave
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on the measure under
consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from North Carolina?
There was no objection.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I bring this legislation to the floor today on behalf of
the Committee on House Administration. I thank our chair, Congresswoman
Zoe Lofgren, for her leadership. I thank Ranking Member Rodney Davis
for his friendship and leadership on our committee. I thank Mr. Davis,
and as I said to him privately, I thank him for the spirit in which he
has approached this important but delicate issue.
[[Page H3659]]
Recognizing the issue of removing Confederate statues from the
Capitol has been simmering for years. Since I recognize that, I will
now approach the issue today with the utmost respect for those who are
opposed to the goal of the legislation. But I ask the dissenters to
consider that America has been a divided nation since its founding, and
it is past time for us to close this chapter of American history by
removing statues that depict an era that caused enormous pain to
African-American citizens.
Mr. Speaker, as you, I grew up in the rural, segregated South.
Commonplace were Confederate flags and monuments on public property,
honoring Confederate soldiers and the Confederacy. Many Southern
jurisdictions are now voluntarily removing these statues.
President Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 general election by winning 18
of 29 States. The 11 States that Lincoln failed to carry were
slaveholding States. These States were fearful that Lincoln would find
a way to end slavery and deprive slave owners of their so-called
property.
Eleven Southern States, after Lincoln was elected, immediately
seceded from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America. The
CSA elected its leadership. They printed a currency and stood up a
military.
At Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the Confederate States of America
took military action against the United States of America. For the
following 4 years, more than 600,000 Americans lost their lives on the
battlefield, including, I might say, African-American soldiers who
fought for the Union.
This was not a war between the States; it was a war against the
United States of America by 11 Southern States.
When the Union finally won the war, and both sides buried their dead,
4 million slaves were granted their freedom by the signing of the
Emancipation Proclamation and passage of the 13th Amendment.
{time} 1415
In 1864, each State was granted the privilege to donate two statues
of deceased persons to be displayed in the Capitol that depict the
history of their State. These statues are now known as the National
Statuary Hall Collection. Approximately 10 of these statues depict men
who volunteered to fight against the United States in the Civil War.
All of these statues were donated many decades after the Civil War.
Like many other statues around the country honoring members of the CSA,
and particularly those erected in the South, these 10 statues were not
donated and installed in the Capitol until the 1900s, during the height
of Jim Crow.
Many Americans see these statues and the timing of their placement as
a means to intimidate African Americans and to perpetuate the notion of
white supremacy. We must not continue to honor these combatants by
allowing their images to be on display in the Capitol.
The bill before us today also identifies several other statues for
removal or replacement that are not part of the National Statuary Hall
Collection, including the bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who
authored the 1857 Supreme Court decision of Dred Scott v. Sandford,
which ruled that slaves could not be considered citizens and that
Congress did not have the ability to ban slavery. This opinion, Mr.
Speaker, is regarded as possibly the Supreme Court's worst decision of
all time, and the 7-2 decision was a major factor contributing to the
war.
Another bust not part of the collection is of Vice President John
Breckinridge, 1857 to 1861. In 1860, Mr. Speaker, Breckinridge ran for
President on the Southern Democratic ticket and he lost.
During the Civil War, Breckinridge served in the United States Senate
from Kentucky but became a traitor and enlisted in the Confederate
military, and he was assigned to the army of Mississippi stationed in
Jackson, Mississippi, achieving the rank of major general. He was
expelled from the Senate. Jefferson Davis then appointed him as
Secretary of War. After the war, he fled the country for several years.
So I ask my colleagues, I ask America: Does this bust deserve to
stand outside of the Senate Chamber? I would hope that your answer to
that question will be no.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to answer the summons of our time by
voting to remove all of these offensive statues from the Capitol of the
United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms.
Pelosi), the Speaker of the House.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for
his leadership in bringing us together today, along with our
distinguished leader, Mr. Hoyer; our distinguished whip, Mr. Jim
Clyburn; Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass; Chairman Bennie
Thompson; Congresswoman Barbara Lee; and Mr. Butterfield. I thank Mr.
Butterfield for leading this critical effort, so important.
Mr. Speaker, as our country knows, nearly 2 months after the murder
of George Floyd, America remains gripped by anguish as racial injustice
continues to kill hundreds of Black Americans and tear apart the soul
of our country.
Last month, inspired by the activism of the American people and led
by the Congressional Black Caucus, the House passed the George Floyd
Justice in Policing Act to fundamentally transform the culture of
policing, to address systemic racism, curb police brutality, deliver
accountability, and save lives.
On Juneteenth, I had the privilege as Speaker of the House, by my
authority as Speaker of the House, to remove four paintings of Speakers
of the House who were in the Speaker's lobby, to remove them because
they were part of the Confederacy, three of them before they came to
the Congress and one who came after his participation in the
Confederacy.
It was long overdue. When we were checking out the statues, we found
out about the paintings, and on Juneteenth we said good-bye to those
four.
Now in Congress and in the country, we must maintain a drumbeat to
ensure that this moment of anguish continues to be transformed into
action. That is why, today, the House is proud to pass legislation to
remove from the U.S. Capitol the 12 statues of Confederate officials
and four other statues honoring persons who similarly exemplify bigotry
and hate.
Mr. Speaker, again I thank Leader Hoyer, Whip Clyburn, CBC Chair
Karen Bass, Chairman Bennie Thompson, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and
Chairman G.K. Butterfield for leading this effort.
As I have said before, the Halls of Congress are the very heart of
our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest
ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and what we aspire to as a
nation. Monuments to men who advocated barbarism and racism are a
grotesque affront to those ideals. Their statues pay homage to hate,
not heritage.
Among the Confederate statues in the Capitol--can you believe this?--
are Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, president and vice
president, respectively, of the Confederacy, both of whom were charged
with treason against America. Both were charged with treason against
America, and they have statues in the Capitol.
Now, think of this about Stephens--I hate to even use his words, but
it may be important for people to know why the statues have to go in
clearer terms. The infamous words of Stephens make as clear today as
they did in 1861 the aims of the Confederacy.
In his so-called Cornerstone Speech, Stephens asserted that the
``prevailing ideas'' relied upon by the Framers included ``the
assumption of the equality of races. This was in error,'' says Mr.
Stephens.
Instead, he laid out in blunt and simple terms the awful truth of the
Confederacy. He said: ``Our new government is founded upon exactly the
opposite idea.''
Imagine, exactly the opposite idea of equality of races.
``Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great
truth''--and these are his words; I hate to even use them, but we have
to face this reality--``the Negro is not equal to the White man; that
slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal
condition.''
He has got a statue in the Capitol of the United States.
How can we seek to end the scourge of racism in America when we allow
[[Page H3660]]
the worst perpetrators of that racism to be lauded in the Halls of
Congress?
This bill also removes the statue of John Calhoun, the unapologetic
leader of the Senate's pro-slavery faction, who, on the Senate floor,
celebrated slavery as a ``positive good.''
Mr. Speaker, I know Mr. Clyburn supports removing this South
Carolinian.
On the floor, John C. Calhoun made this vile assertion that ``in few
countries is so much left to the share of the laborer, and so little
exacted from him, or more kind attention paid to him in sickness or
infirmities of age.''
What could he have been talking about?
It removes from the old Supreme Court Chamber the bust of Justice
Roger Taney. And this is because of the persistent leadership of Mr.
Hoyer, who has been on this case for a long time.
Justice Taney was the author of the Dred Scott ruling, which Mr.
Butterfield very clearly laid out as probably one of the worst
decisions of the Supreme Court ever, certainly a horrific stain on the
history of our country, and certainly on the Court.
How fitting it is that the Taney bust will be replaced with a bust of
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a towering champion of
equality and justice in America.
Mr. Clyburn, as well as Mr. Hoyer, has been working on this. Mr.
Hoyer is a Marylander. I am a Baltimorean. As we all know, the airport
in Baltimore is named for Thurgood Marshall. So as one who was born and
raised there, I take pride in his leadership and service to the
country.
Let us recall Justice Marshall's words spoken nearly 30 years ago but
as true today. Justice Marshall said: ``Democracy cannot flourish amid
fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid
rage. America must get to work. In the chill climate in which we live,
we must go against the prevailing wind. We must dissent from the
indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the
fear, the hatred, and the mistrust. We must dissent, because America
can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.''
How much our great Elijah Cummings reflected the words of Thurgood
Marshall, two Baltimoreans.
The Congress now has a sacred opportunity and obligation to do
better, to make meaningful change to ensure that the halls of the U.S.
Capitol reflect the highest ideals as Americans.
Mr. Hoyer, as our distinguished floor leader, had this planned for
awhile that everybody would work together and bring this composite bill
to the floor at this time. Little did we know when those plans were
being made that, at the same time, we would be mourning the loss of our
darling John Lewis. It is a death in the family for us in the Congress.
But he knew that this was in the works, and he is up there looking down
on us to make sure it happens in the most bipartisan way.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a strong bipartisan vote for this important step
for justice, reconciliation, and progress in America.
As far as our John Lewis is concerned: Thank you. Thank you for
bringing us to this place. May you rest in peace.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, at this time, it looks
like I am going to be here on the floor with many of our colleagues who
are going to offer remarks on this legislation, so I will give my
opening remarks after I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. McClintock).
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, the Confederacy was
a fundamental attack on our Constitution and the founding principles of
our Nation, and it should never be romanticized or lauded.
I have got no problems with removing, lawfully, any monument that
specifically honors this rebellion, but that is not what this bill
does. Rather, it begins by removing the bust of Roger Taney from the
Old Supreme Court Chamber.
Now, it is true he wrote the absolutely worst decision ever rendered
by the Supreme Court, the Dred Scott decision, but let's not forget he
also presided over and joined in one of its better decisions, the
Amistad slave case.
If we remove memorials to every person in this building who ever made
a bad decision--and his was the worst--well, this will be a very barren
place, indeed. It is only by the bad things in our history that we can
truly measure all of the good things in our history.
Now, this bill also removes the statues of Confederate sympathizers
sent to the Capitol by the States. Well, that is not our decision. That
is a decision that has always belonged to the individual States, and
several of them are already making these decisions. We should let them.
The only other one is John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who is
honored not for his service to the Confederacy but, rather, for his
service as Vice President of the United States. And, granted, we have
had some absolutely terrible Vice Presidents through our history, and I
am sure we will in the future, but if we are going to start down that
road, we are going to be swapping out statues like trading cards at the
whim of the moment. Our Nation's history should be made of sterner
stuff.
Perhaps we would all be better advised to practice a little temporal
humility and heed the wisdom of Omar Khayyam: ``The moving finger
writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall
lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word
of it.''
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the Democratic whip,
the gentleman representing the Sixth Congressional District of South
Carolina, the State where the Civil War began, who is a national expert
on American history, having been a former history teacher, as I recall.
{time} 1430
Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina
for yielding me the time, and for his leadership and his management of
this significant piece of legislation.
I want to thank Mr. Davis and the other Members on the other side for
their tremendous cooperation in trying to help us move to a more
perfect Union.
Mr. Speaker, 7 years ago, I stood on this floor and I referred to
this Chamber, this great Hall, as America's classroom. And it is in
that spirit that I think of this building as America's schoolhouse. And
what is taught in this building, what is experienced by the people who
visit this building ought to be about the uplifting of this great
Nation.
What people see when they come here, who people see lauded,
glorified, and honored when they visit this building ought to be people
who are uplifting to history and the human spirit.
It is in that light that I recall the writings of one great writer
who wrote that if we fail to learn the lessons of history--I think it
was George Santiano--we are bound to repeat them.
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from history. I study it
every day. Hardly a day goes by when I don't spend some time looking at
some facet of American history.
We did not come to this floor with this legislation to get rid of
that history. A lot of it we don't like; a lot of it we do like. And I
think that what we need to do is discern between what should be honored
and what should be relegated to the museums and to other places to
commemorate that history. That is not eradicating history. That is
putting history in its proper place.
And for those who did not do what I think they should have done, they
have got a place in the history books, but it is not to be honored, and
it is not to be glorified. It ought to be put in its proper
perspective.
So I don't have a problem with the fact that one of the statues in
here, John C. Calhoun--he was a historical figure. He died in 1850, if
my memory serves, 10 years before the war broke out. So we aren't
talking about John C. Calhoun as a Confederate. We are talking about
John C. Calhoun as one of the Nation's biggest proponents of slavery
and the relegation of human beings.
I want to thank my home State of South Carolina, because the people
of Charleston, Mayor Tecklenburg and the city council in Charleston,
decided several weeks ago, the John C. Calhoun statue should be taken
down, and they did it.
[[Page H3661]]
Clemson University--Calhoun, one of the great founders of that
university--is one of the original land grant schools. Clemson
University decided that they would take John C. Calhoun's name off of
their honors college.
So if the State of South Carolina, where he was from sees that, why
is it that we are going to laud him in this building?
I am asking my colleagues to do for John C. Calhoun what his home
State is doing for him, putting him in his proper place, not a place of
honor. They didn't tear down his statue; they very meticulously took it
down to retire to his proper place.
Mr. Speaker, you and I spoke last night about one other gentleman
whose statue is in this building, Wade Hampton. Wade Hampton, he was
not a Confederate, but he was a perseverer. There were three Wade
Hamptons, senior, and the third.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from South
Carolina an additional 1 minute.
Mr. CLYBURN. But Wade Hampton's history should not be glorified. I
don't know what my State's going to do about him, but what I would like
to see us do here is put him in his proper place.
So those two statues that are here representing the State of South
Carolina need to be removed from their places of honor and, at some
point, I would hope the State would bring them back home and put them
in their proper place.
So, I would like to say here today that I am not for destroying any
statue. I am not here for burning down any building. I am here to ask
my colleagues to return these people very properly and lawfully to
their proper place. Put them where they can be studied. Put them where
people will know exactly who and what they were.
But do not honor them. Do not glorify them. Take them out of this
great schoolhouse so that the people who visit here can be uplifted by
what this country is all about.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time
as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to follow Whip Clyburn and the historical
context of being a history teacher, and also the historical context of
serving this institution and what it means. So I thank Whip Clyburn for
his leadership.
I thank my good friend, Mr. Butterfield, for his leadership on this
issue. We are going to work together today to make sure that we are
sending a message to the American people that it is Republicans and
Democrats standing together.
Now, I have a unique district in central Illinois. I am from the Land
of Lincoln. As a matter of fact, Abe, himself, lived in my district. I
represent Lincoln's Tomb, Lincoln's Home. The old State Capitol where
Abraham Lincoln delivered his ``House Divided'' speech in 1858 is in my
Congressional District. It was there when Lincoln not only spoke out
against slavery and, specifically, the Dred Scott decision, but stood
unequivocally in support of a free country, famously saying: ``A house
divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot
endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union
to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it
will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the
other.''
While Lincoln and many others who stood for freedom are represented
throughout this Capitol, there are others that symbolize the opposite.
While we cannot erase our past and should do everything we can--as Whip
Clyburn just stated--we should do everything we can to learn from it
instead.
The statues in the U.S. Capitol represent to visitors throughout the
world what we stand for as a Nation. I support this important
discussion about which statues belong in the U.S. Capitol and, also,
the goal of this legislation.
Before we began debating this piece of legislation, my friend, Mr.
Butterfield, and I had a discussion, a discussion about the 13th
Amendment. And I invite all Members of this institution to come to my
district, to come to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and
Library, where I can show you an original copy of the 13th Amendment;
also, one of the first copies of the Emancipation Proclamation.
This institution is not just an extended classroom. Where Lincoln
lived, where Lincoln is honored, the 13th District of Illinois, that I
am truly blessed to represent, is also a living classroom of the good
things in our Nation's history.
Now, we also have to remember that the National Statuary Hall
Collection was created in 1864 to commemorate States and their
contributions to this country. And many statues being discussed today
were donated by States to the collection nearly 100 years ago. And as
my colleagues earlier said, many States are already working to remove
them.
While I support their removal, I believe the better route would have
been to have some more hearings in the Committee on House
Administration. But today, today, is not about politics. Today is about
coming together as an institution. And today is a day that I can say I
proudly am blessed to be a Member of Congress.
Our country, right now, is facing a very difficult time, and Abraham
Lincoln's spirit of unity is desperately needed. ``A house divided
against itself cannot stand.'' As leaders, we need to come together to
show there is much more that unites us Americans than divides us, and
lead this country, together, Republicans and Democrats, through this
difficult time.
I hope this legislation today, the bipartisanship that we will see,
is a shining example to the rest of the country of what we can build
together.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Let me thank the gentleman from Illinois. I am just delighted that he
mentioned that his home State, the State of Illinois, was, in fact, the
home of Abraham Lincoln.
I am a student of history and love to read that portion of our
history, and I recall that many people believe that it was the
Emancipation Proclamation on January 1 of 1863 that legally ended
slavery in America. The Emancipation Proclamation, as great as it was,
was an executive order.
It was the 13th Amendment, as the gentleman mentioned, that legally
ended slavery in America; thereby freeing 4 million slaves, most of
whom lived in the South.
Mr. Speaker, you should know, and to my friend from Illinois, that it
was on January 31, 1865, a few days after Lincoln's re-election, that
this body, this body, the House of Representatives, passed the 13th
Amendment to the Constitution. It required the ratification of 27
States.
The gentleman from Illinois' home State was the first State, on
February 1, 1865 to ratify the 13th Amendment. My State of North
Carolina was the 26th State, and the State of Georgia was the final
State to ratify the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Hoyer), the State which is the home of both Chief Justice Taney and the
first African American Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the
Honorable Thurgood Marshall.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina,
the former Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, for yielding.
I am glad that I was on the floor to hear the remarks of the ranking
member, Mr. Davis. I am going to bring up a quote. I won't get it soon
enough to read right now, but I will read it.
David Brooks wrote a column in the New York Times and he said we were
facing five crises in America. One, of course, the pandemic.
He said the second crisis was the crisis of confronting racism and
the history of racism and slavery and segregation in our country.
The observation he made was that Americans, post-George Floyd, have
been riveted on the recognition of our past and the recognition of our
present, and how we need to improve the treatment and the reality of
equality in America.
{time} 1445
I think Brooks' observation will be proved today on the floor, Mr.
Speaker, as we come together not in partisan
[[Page H3662]]
disagreement but in unity of purpose, recognizing that our conscience
and the conscience of America has also been pricked by the loss of John
Lewis, who all his life fought for equality.
Mr. Speaker, the Capitol Building is a sacred space for our American
democracy. It is where we write our laws, inaugurate our Presidents,
and say a somber farewell to great Americans who earned our respect,
like Dwight Eisenhower, other Presidents, and Rosa Parks.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot erase the difficult history and painful truth
that this temple to liberty was built using the labor of enslaved
people. But we can, Mr. Speaker, do everything in our power to ensure
that how we use the Capitol today reflects our commitment to equality
and justice for all.
For too long, we have greeted visitors from here and abroad with the
statues of those who denigrated these values by championing sedition,
slavery, segregation, and inequality.
As a Marylander, I have always been uncomfortable that the Old
Supreme Court Chamber prominently displays a bust of former Chief
Justice Roger Brooke Taney, who was from my district, as a matter of
fact, the county across the river from my house, Calvert County.
Taney, of course, was the son of slaveholders and the author of the
1857 Dred Scott ruling that upheld slavery and said that African
Americans could not be citizens. This was a man, Mr. Speaker, who, in
his zeal to protect the interests of slaveholders and uphold a system
of white supremacy, wrote an opinion that twisted the very meaning of
America's founding.
After quoting the Declaration of Independence, ``We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,'' Taney wrote this:
``The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human
family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day,''
meaning 1857, ``would be so understood.'' He went on to say: ``But it
is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not
intended to be included and formed no part of the people who framed and
adopted this declaration.'' Of course, neither did women.
In short, Mr. Speaker, Taney argued that, in his day, in 1857, people
of African descent had come to be seen as human beings, but because our
Founders in 1776 did not view them as such, Black people could never
truly be citizens of the United States.
What he was saying, Mr. Speaker, was that Black lives did not matter.
And so, Mr. Speaker, when we hear that phrase today, that Black lives
matter, it is fundamental to what America is and has become.
Sadly, Roger Brooke Taney--respected in his time, the attorney
general of my State, the Attorney General of the United States, the
Acting Secretary of the Treasury--could not extricate himself from the
false premises of the past.
Abraham Lincoln was, as Mr. Davis pointed out, outraged at the
decision he wrote, arguably, as my friend the Justice said earlier
today, the worst case in the history of the Supreme Court of the United
States.
In short, Taney argued that people of African descent had come to be
seen as human beings, but because our Founders did not view them as
such, Black people could never truly be citizens of our country. Think
of that, the blindness and schizophrenia of 1787 repeated 80 years
later in 1857.
One of the great facets of America is that we can grow. We change,
and we can accommodate to better knowledge, better insight, and better
inclinations. The past, Taney argued, bound those in the present to
follow the errors of their forebears in perpetuity. Let us reject that
premise out of hand lest the more perfect Union will never be
attainable.
What he could not or would not accept is that the passage of time
allows us the space to grow as individuals, as States, and as a country
so that we may see our faults and correct them, not repeat them.
In Maryland, we have grappled with that difficult history of our
State with regard to slavery and the Civil War. While our State did not
secede from the Union, many Marylanders sympathized with slavery in the
South and fought for the Confederacy.
Mr. Speaker, I represent what was the largest slaveholding area of
the State of Maryland. We grew tobacco and some cotton, but mainly
tobacco. Early Maryland was built on the profits of slavery, and it
sent individuals like Taney to serve in America's earliest
institutions. Indeed, in his infamous decision, he drew on his home
State's ban of interracial marriage as justification for his views.
One of the ironies, Mr. Speaker, is that I was elected to the
Maryland State Senate in 1966, and one of my first votes in January
1967 as a Maryland State senator at the age of 27 was to vote to repeal
the miscegenation statutes in my State. Of course, the Supreme Court
had ruled on that before, but we still had not repealed it 110 years
after Dred Scott.
Maryland today, like other States where slavery and segregation had a
long history, is not the same place that it was when Taney wrote his
opinion, nor are these States today the same places they were when many
of the statues and busts of Confederates and segregationists were sent
here to our Capitol during a period of intense and racially charged
sectionalism.
In recent years, Maryland made the courageous and correct choice to
remove a statue of Taney from the grounds of the statehouse in
Annapolis. I strongly supported that decision, as did our Republican
Governor, Mr. Hogan, and our Democratic legislature.
Removing a statue--as my dear friend of over one-half century, Mr.
Clyburn, observed on this floor--does not erase history. That act by
itself will not make right what was so terribly wrong in the past. But
the statues we choose to set in places of honor are a reflection of the
present, not the past. They show our fellow American and foreign
visitors what our values are today.
Our decision to remove statues of seditionists, white supremacists,
Confederates, and segregationists and replace them with defenders of
justice and equality shows that, as a country, we are capable of
critical introspection and growth.
That is our strength. That is the glory of America: working toward a
more perfect Union.
That is why I introduced this bill along with Representative Lee,
Whip Clyburn, Chairwoman Bass, and Chairman Thompson, who sits in the
chair today. That itself is a historic demonstration of the change that
we have wrought. Not only could a Black man from Mississippi be a
Member of the Congress, but he can preside over the Congress. He
matters, and his life matters.
Taney was wrong because, in the 21st century, we must not be Roger
Brooke Taney's America anymore, nor can we be Jim Crow's.
Our bill removes the bust of Chief Justice Taney from the Old Supreme
Court Chamber and replaces it with a bust of Thurgood Marshall, a son
of Baltimore. The irony is the Taney statue was on the east front of
the Capitol, Mr. Speaker. If you turned around and went through the
Capitol 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years, if you went through about
500 feet and walked out on the west front, you walked into Thurgood
Marshall Memorial, as you would today. He was our first African-
American Justice.
How appropriate it is that we honor him in place of Roger Brooke
Taney. Thurgood Marshall is the face of our Maryland in 2020, not Roger
Taney.
Second, our bill no longer allows States to display statues in the
Capitol of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederacy against
our Union during the Civil War.
Let me just say as an aside that none of us are perfect. Our Founders
weren't perfect, but what our Founders did was create a union. The
statues we are removing tried to destroy a union.
Third, there are three specific statues in the collection of
individuals who did not serve in the Confederacy but whose careers were
built on the perpetuation of White supremacy and segregation. Our bill
would require those statues to be removed and replaced as well, as my
friend, Jim Clyburn, said, not destroyed. We urge nobody to tear down
statues--to remove them, yes; to destroy them, no.
They do not reflect the diversity and inclusivity of our Nation
today, nor do they comport with our values as a nation that has reached
a greater understanding of the principles enshrined in the Declaration
of Independence, that all are created equal, and humankind,
[[Page H3663]]
Taney admitted in 1857, would have been the understanding of that
phrase. There are still, sadly, a lot of people in our country in 2020
who do not understand that our diversity is our strength or recognize
clearly that Black lives matter.
Taney forcefully argued they did not. He was willfully wrong. They
do, and they must. I believe that most Americans are deeply distressed
by racial injustice and want to see the progress of the civil rights
movement continue. They want our Nation and our democracy to grow,
mature, and become more perfect. Part of that process is making it
clear through our symbols and public displays of honor what our country
stands for and, as importantly, what it must never stand for again.
So, Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to
join us not as an expression of partisan opinion but an expression of
America's values to our citizens and to the world that we do not
glorify racism, bigotry, and exclusion in the temple to liberty and in
the land of the free.
I hope our colleagues will join in making possible and making sure
that all Americans, no matter their race, can come to this Capitol and
know that they have an equal share in a government that is truly of the
people, by the people, and for the people.
{time} 1500
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from the State of Michigan (Mr. Mitchell), my friend.
Mr. MITCHELL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Rodney Davis) for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I wasn't planning on speaking on this. It is an honor to
speak after Mr. Hoyer.
I heard Mr. Clyburn speak eloquently regarding the removal of
statues, statues including that of former Chief Justice Taney, a statue
honoring him for what we all agree was the most dreadful decision the
Supreme Court has ever made in this country, not based upon the law but
based upon his feelings that African Americans weren't people.
I am speaking today not so much that it convinces anybody in this
Chamber, but I am speaking about history, and I am speaking about my
children, my children and my grandchildren, that they need to remember
the history of this Nation.
The history of this Nation is so fraught with racial division, with
hatred, and the only way to overcome that is to recognize that,
acknowledge it for what it is.
Mr. Speaker, I support this resolution, and I support what Mr.
Clyburn said: to remove statues such as that of Mr. Taney, to lawfully
remove them--not tear them down, not destroy them--return them back to
the States and places from which they came, and to study, to put them
in the study of the history of this Nation, because it should not be
lost. Tearing it down does not do justice to the history of this Nation
and what our young people must understand.
Mr. Speaker, what you have gone through in your life, Mr. Lewis did
and others, we can't simply ignore it and say, because we tore down
statues or we burn things, it is suddenly gone. No, we need to
recognize those things as part of our history in order to move on
beyond them. Because, as many have said, to not acknowledge, to
recognize, to understand our history runs a very real risk of reliving
it. And, my God, we can't continue to do that.
Mr. Speaker, I support the resolution and support the removal of
statues.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a passionate advocate for
underserved communities.
Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, let me first thank the gentleman
for yielding and for his tremendous leadership and constantly reminding
us of the accurate accounting of the United States' history.
Also, I thank our Speaker; our majority leader; our whip, Mr.
Clyburn; Chairwoman Bass; Chairman Bennie Thompson; and, of course,
Congressman Butterfield for moving this legislation forward with the
urgency that it requires.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 7573, which would
remove shameful reminders of slavery and segregation from the United
States Capitol.
Now, in 2017, in the wake of the white nationalist rally in
Charlottesville, I introduced the Confederate Monument Removal Act to
remove all statues of people who voluntarily served the Confederacy
from the Capitol building. So, thank you for including this in this
current bill.
Venerating those who took up arms against the United States to
preserve slavery is an affront to the human dignity of all Americans.
These painful symbols of bigotry and racism have no place in public
places--certainly should not be enshrined in the United States Capitol.
It is past time for Congress to stop glorifying the men who were
traitors and committed treason against the United States in a concerted
effort to keep African Americans in chains.
The movement to honor Confederate soldiers was a deliberate act to
rewrite the very history of the United States and humanize acts
designed to dehumanize African Americans. They are symbols of hatred
and defiance of Federal authority and should not be held in a place of
honor in the United States Capitol.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the
gentlewoman from California.
Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I conclude by saying this: In
this moment, the horrors of systemic racism are front and center, and
the manifestations are before the public each and every day. The
removal of the Confederate statues from the United States Capitol is an
important step in dismantling the systems that hold us back.
As a descendant of enslaved Americans from Galveston, Texas, and
enslaved human beings, I thank you for this bill, and I ask for an
``aye'' vote.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of
my time.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time each side
has remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from North Carolina has 13\1/
2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Illinois has 21 minutes
remaining.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Raskin), a member of the House Committee on
Administration, a great constitutional scholar and friend.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Butterfield for his really
exemplary leadership here.
Mr. Speaker, it is a proud day for Maryland as we move to replace the
bust of Roger Brooke Taney with the bust of Thurgood Marshall.
One Marylander wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision, hundreds of
pages of argumentation about how the Constitution is and must forever
be a White man's compact and that African Americans have no rights that
White people have to respect.
The other, Thurgood Marshall, whose bust will replace that of Justice
Taney, argued Brown v. Board of Education, argued Shelley v. Kraemer,
argued Smith v. Albright, became the first African-American Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court. He made equal protection come alive in
our country. So it is a proud day for Maryland.
I was delighted to hear the gentleman from Illinois' remarks, but I
was amazed to hear another colleague in the minority defending the bust
of John C. Breckinridge on the grounds that we don't honor him for his
service as secretary of war in the Confederacy but we, rather, honor
him for what he did before that in his prior service as United States
Senator and Vice President of the United States.
Well, that is just precious. Think about that for a second.
Breckinridge was serving as a U.S. Senator from Kentucky when he
defected to the Confederacy, signed up to become their secretary of
war, and betrayed the Union. And they still have his bust outside of
the United States Senate saying ``Vice President'' on it, despite the
fact that, on December 4, 1861, he was convicted of treason by the
Senate and stripped of all of his titles--including Senator, President
of the Senate, and Vice President.
So we may as well put up a statue of Benedict Arnold to honor him for
his service to the Continental Army before
[[Page H3664]]
he defected over to the British side and led British groups against
America.
So let's go all the way here. If there are statues of traitors and
racist White supremacist supporters of the Confederacy up in the
Capitol, then we need to get rid of them. This is our opportunity to
remake the social contract as represented by the symbolism in this
great House.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of
my time.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy).
Mr. Speaker, before he speaks, the history that I have read over the
years suggests to me that, on January 31, 1865, when the 13th Amendment
was passed by this body, this Chamber, Mr. Kennedy, the gallery was
full of White abolitionist women from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
who waved handkerchiefs and cheered for a prolonged period of time,
cheering the 13th Amendment.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman.
Mr. Speaker, 155 years ago, Senators from my home State of
Massachusetts, Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, knew that a bust of
Roger Taney deserved no home in our government's highest institutions.
Yet here we are, in 2020, and the bust of a man who tried to codify and
protect our original sin remains only a few hundred feet away.
Statues honoring traitors willing to destroy our Nation so that they
could own Black men, women, and children litter our Capitol, and
somehow we still need to have this debate.
Let me be clear: Dismantling the symbols that glorify White supremacy
is a bare minimum, but dismantling those symbols is no substitute for
dismantling the system that those men created.
This cannot be the end or the best of what we can offer the millions
who took to our streets demanding justice. This cannot be the end of
our work. This shouldn't even be considered the beginning of that work.
It should have been done 150 years ago.
Mr. Speaker, the Senate needs to pass the George Floyd Justice in
Policing Act. We need to dismantle and destroy White supremacy that
exists everywhere, from our education system to our healthcare system,
to our incarceration and juvenile justice systems and our financial
institutions and our economy. That is where we need to be working, and
that is what begins.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of
my time.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the chairman of the Committee on Homeland
Security, a great warrior of many years, Mr. Bennie Thompson.
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman
from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) giving me an opportunity to
speak.
Mr. Speaker, for those of us who are sons of the South, for those of
us who have endured hardship, discrimination, and a lot of things that
are very difficult to even talk about, for this moment in time where we
are today, where we are going to start the process of healing and
setting the record straight as it relates to the real history of this
country, it is fitting and proper that those individuals who fought to
keep many of our ancestors enslaved should not have to be recognized in
a place where people who do good expect to be recognized.
This is not a way of erasing history. It is a way of correcting
history so that those people who come and see it will see it in the
manner for which it is presented. So, at the end of this debate, I hope
we all will be on the same page.
This notion that in America it is not your color, it is not your
race, it is not your sex, we have to stand for something; our values
should mean something as Americans.
So this bill establishes what America stands for, and we should not
recognize traitors in order just to say we are together. Traitors have
a place, but not in a place of honor.
My State recognizes the president of the Confederacy. If he had won
the war as president, none of us of color would be in this institution
today. But thank God he lost and the South lost and we are better
because of it. Mr. Speaker, for that, I ask support of this
legislation.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of
my time.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), from the 18th District of
Texas, a senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary, Committee on
Homeland Security, and the author of H.R. 40, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the manager of this legislation
for his leadership.
Let me also acknowledge and thank Mr. Hoyer for his, as well, and to
Mr. Clyburn, Ms. Bass, Mr. Thompson, and, as I indicated, Mr.
Butterfield.
Mr. Speaker, let me start as I did just a few minutes ago, ``In God
we trust,'' and recognize that God has created, in many of our faiths,
all of us equal as humans. We stand together dealing with the
Confederacy that diminished and denied those descendants, those African
slaves, their humanity. And yet, in a place of freedom, this place, we
honor them.
Mr. Speaker, I welcome H.R. 7573 and am glad to be joining as a
staunch supporter, for, if Justice Taney viewed me as inhuman, then
that means that those today, those babies yet unborn from descendants
of enslaved African Americans, would be inhuman. This is needed not
because we don't put it in the historical context, but because we need
to unify America.
Mr. Speaker, as we have lost a great warrior, John Lewis, and, as
well, C. T. Vivian, I know they are looking down to say that we are not
to honor those who voluntarily serve to deny us our humanity and to
fight for the Confederacy and were treasonous.
{time} 1515
Alexander Hamilton Stephens--it is interesting that he secured the
name of Alexander Hamilton--has a statue in Statuary Hall. It says:
I am not fearful of anything on Earth, I am not fearful of
anything above, except to do something wrong.
That is what Alexander Hamilton Stephens said.
Well, this is wrong. It was wrong to enslave so many human beings and
for that slavery to last over 200 years.
I am delighted with the gentleman from Illinois for his congenial and
historic moment today, and we do it in unity. I offer peace to this
Nation and to this body that we remove these by bringing America
together.
I know the family of George Floyd, who struck a chord in the hearts
of all Americans and Black Lives Matter, would welcome this magnificent
decision today. Let us do it together, under this flag. In God we
trust.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of
my time.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes time to the
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Mfume), my friend, who is not only the
representative of a district in Maryland, but also the former national
president of the NAACP.
Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, 33 years ago, I stood near this spot and
watched Thurgood Marshall come through these doors as a member of the
Supreme Court at a State of the Union address. And as a Marylander and
as a Baltimorean, I had a great sense of pride.
I got to know Mr. Marshall. All he ever said by his eloquence and his
example was this is how we ought to be as Supreme Court justices.
I must tell you, I was dismayed, though, years earlier, to learn as a
young student at Morgan State University the history of Roger B. Taney,
who did just the opposite to my spirit and just the opposite, I think,
to what we believe Supreme Court Justices should act like and how they
conduct themselves.
A gentleman from the other side earlier said that Mr. Taney rendered
the worst Supreme Court decision ever. And he is exactly right. That
decision said that Black people had no rights for which the White man
must respect, and therefore that the Negro might justly and lawfully be
reduced to slavery for his own benefit. It also said that Black people
born in America, like Dred Scott, were not citizens and it eviscerated
the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
So replacing the statue of Taney with one instead of Thurgood
Marshall
[[Page H3665]]
seems to me the way we ought to go as a Chamber. I hope in a bipartisan
fashion, not only for ourselves, but to say to all the visitors that
come through this building that we will continue to hold high real
American heroes that sought to keep us together, and we will not honor
those who sought to divide us.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I
reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance
of my time, and I will close.
Mr. Speaker, it is great to follow our new colleague, Mr. Mfume.
Because of COVID and the restrictions we have in getting together and
getting to know each other like we did before this pandemic, I have not
had a chance to meet you yet. Welcome to this institution. Thank you
for your service here. Thank you for your service leading the NAACP.
I don't know if Mr. Mfume is aware, but many say that the birthplace
of the NAACP is also in Springfield, Illinois, because of the 1908 race
riots that took place in my district.
We are trying to honor those who suffered during that instance in our
Nation's history, still centuries after we saw the scourge of slavery
come to our shores.
We still have a lot of work to do. But I welcome Mr. Mfume. Come to
my district and see the artifacts from those race riots that have been
dug up and displayed for all to see, to be honored. That is what
education and history is.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from Maryland (Mr. Mfume).
Mr. MFUME. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's kind and overly
gracious remarks. I appreciate also his sense of history and for what I
think today is being displayed as a bipartisan effort to draw attention
to and to reconcile a very real problem.
So I will be more than happy to do that. And Lincoln was one of my
heroes in many respects, not just because he signed, as Mr. Butterfield
said, an executive order in 1863, but that he reminded us of what we
were supposed to be as a Nation. Was he flawed? Yes. Are we flawed?
Yes. Do we increase our ability to grow together? The absolute answer
is yes. So I do appreciate the gentleman's comments, and I appreciate
him yielding.
Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I will reclaim my time.
That is exactly why we still, as a Nation, have so much to learn
about each other. We have so much to learn as to why we live, and we
are blessed to live in what I consider the greatest country on God's
green Earth.
The opportunity for every American to do what we do, to serve in this
great institution, is something that should be cherished.
Those issues that seemingly divide us more in a Nation of prosperity,
we need to educate the youth, we need to educate America, and how we
can come together, not just correcting some of the awful, evil parts of
our Nation's history, but let's continue to correct the division that
exists today, not just on this floor, but in this country.
And if we can stand together in this instance, we can surely stand
together and make this country, at a time and place of civil unrest, a
better place for every single American in this country.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank again all of my colleagues. I respect
their opinions, their ideas. But today is a day of history. Today is a
day that we are going to band together in a bipartisan way.
And I commend my good friend and look forward to hosting him in
Springfield, Illinois.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
I thank all of the speakers for their eloquent words today.
Mr. Davis, we have talked a lot about President Abraham Lincoln.
There is one thing I failed to mention, and the other speakers failed
to mention as well. And that was, before the ratification of the 13th
Amendment, Lincoln was actually assassinated on April 14, as I recall,
of 1865, and did not live to see the full ratification of the 13th
Amendment, which was the culmination of a lot of his work. So I just
wanted to put that into the Record.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased with the tone of this debate. I don't even
want to call it a debate. I would call it a discussion for the last few
minutes. I feel the bipartisanship in the air, and I thank Mr. Davis so
very much. It is appreciated.
History teaches us that there are times in our history where eras
must be closed, and we must begin a new era in this great Nation.
We need to continue to strive for a more perfect union, and today is
a good example of that.
I ask my colleagues to vote ``yea'' on this legislation. I ask for a
unanimous vote. Hopefully, we can do this by voice vote. That is my
prayer and that is my hope that we will show the world that we are
united on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7573, as amended.
H.R. 7573 directs the Joint Committee on the Library to remove the
bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the Dred Scott
decision in the Old Supreme Court Chamber with a bust of Justice
Thurgood Marshall, and requires the Joint Committee on the Library to
remove statues of Charles B. Aycock, James P. Clarke, and John C.
Calhoun, as well as a bust of John C. Breckinridge. H.R. 7573 would
also amend section 1814 of the Revised Statutes (2 U.S.C. 2131) to
change the criteria for those eligible for inclusion to prohibit those
who ``served as an officer or voluntarily with the Confederate States
of America or of the military forces or government of a State while the
State was in rebellion against the United States.'' The Architect of
the Capitol would be charged with identifying those statues which do
not meet the revised criteria and the Joint Committee on the Library
would remove the statues and turn them over to the Smithsonian
Institution or their respective states, if desired.
As Chairperson of the House Fine Arts Board and the Vice Chairperson
of the Joint Committee on the Library I am more than pleased to remove
these symbols of cruelty and bigotry from the halls of the Capitol.
This has been a long time coming, and it is long past time to act.
The United States Capitol is one of the most visible, and most
visited, symbols of liberty, freedom and democracy in the entire world.
Who we choose to honor in this space is uniquely indicative of our
values and principles.
Contrary to those who argue in opposition to this long overdue
action, this action does not seek to erase history nor ask that we
forget that history. We must never forget the shameful scar of slavery,
segregation and racism. Instead this is about who we honor. When we
think about the holocaust the words ``never forget'' admonish us to
always remember the millions murdered by the Nazis. But we do not
accomplish that by erecting a statue of Adolf Hitler to put in a place
of honor.
Those who violently rebelled against our government upon the belief,
as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens infamously said,
``that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery
subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal
condition,'' and those who enabled and protected the practice of
holding human beings as property deserve no place of honor in the halls
of our nation's Capitol. Slavery is the ``original sin'' of our
country, and its disastrous effects are felt to this day.
It is long past time to remove these symbols of bigotry and cruelty
from the halls of Congress, and it is long past time to repair the
lasting damage their hatred and racism has visited on the fabric of
this country. The removal of these symbols from the People's House is a
necessary step in this long-overdue work, I urge my colleagues to join
me in supporting H.R. 7573 and in working to right the wrongs of the
past to better perfect the promises of our country.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thompson of Mississippi). The question
is on the motion offered by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Butterfield) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R.
7573, as amended.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. BROOKS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and
nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution
965, the yeas and nays are ordered.
Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this motion
will be postponed.
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