Republican Furious Joe Biden Tearing Down Confederate Memorial in Arlington

The looming removal of the Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) this week has sparked outrage from the Republican congressman leading the charge to stop the 109-year-old monument's dismantling.

Despite mounting condemnation from dozens of Republican members of Congress, the Confederate Memorial will be removed before December 22 from the nation's largest military graveyard, where 400,000 people are buried in Arlington County, Virginia.

U.S. Representative Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican, has led the effort to stall the monument's removal. Last week, Clyde and more than 40 of his House GOP colleagues sent a letter to Department of Defense (DOD) Secretary Lloyd Austin demanding that the department "immediately suspend all removal activities" related to the memorial, sometimes referred to as the "Reconciliation Monument," according to a statement from Clyde's office on December 11.

An independent commission recommended last year that the memorial be removed in its report to Congress on the renaming of military bases and assets that commemorate the Confederacy. However, the Republicans' letter to the DOD contended that the memorial should not be taken down because it "does not honor nor commemorate the Confederacy; the memorial commemorates reconciliation and national unity."

Kerry Meeker, a spokesperson for the ANC, told Newsweek in an emailed statement on Sunday that cemetery officials are "complying with a Congressionally mandated requirement to remove the Confederate Memorial by Jan. 1, 2024."

Meeker told Newsweek that nothing will replace the Confederate Memorial once it's removed "no later than" Friday.

Clyde blasted the decision to proceed with taking down the monument in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.

"Joe Biden's woke DOD intends to move forward with its misguided plan to remove the Reconciliation Monument—which commemorates national unity—from Arlington National Cemetery," Clyde said on X. "The Left wants division and destruction—not unity and reconciliation."

Newsweek reached out via email on Sunday to Clyde's office for comment.

As of Sunday, a safety fence has been installed to block off the memorial site, which is in Section 16 of the ANC. Meeker said in the statement that the monument will be carefully removed and relocated.

"All bronze elements of the memorial will be relocated," according to an ANC statement. "The granite base and foundation will remain in place to avoid disturbing surrounding graves."

Meeker told Newsweek that the Confederate Memorial will be temporarily stored in a secure DOD facility in Virginia on Friday "until the final disposition has been determined."

The memorial, which was unveiled in 1914, offers a "nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery," the description on the cemetery's website states. Standing on a 32-foot-tall pedestal, a bronze, "classical female figure" wearing a crown of olive leaves, represents the American South. She holds a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook, and has a Biblical inscription at her feet that reads: "They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks."

The statue stands on a pedestal with four cinerary urns, one for each year of the war, and is supported by a frieze with 14 shields, one for each of the 11 Confederate states and the border states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. The monument is adorned with thirty-two life-sized figures that represent mythical gods alongside Southern soldiers and civilians.

One of those figures is portrayed as an enslaved woman depicted as a "Mammy" holding the baby of a white soldier. Another is depicted as an enslaved man following his owner to war, according to ANC.

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Arlington Confederate Memorial Removal

The Confederate Memorial, which was unveiled in 1914 in Arlington National Cemetery, offers a “nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery,” the description on the cemetery’s website states. The memorial is set to be removed by December 22, 2023.

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The monument was designed by American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and the first Jewish graduate of Virginia Military Institute, according to the ANC website.

Ezekiel was buried at the base of his creation in 1921 along with three other Confederate soldiers.

"The Confederate Memorial offers an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the history and meanings of the Civil War, slavery, and the relationship between military service, citizenship and race in America," the ANC website states.

During the Confederate Memorial's removal, the surrounding landscape, graves and headstones will be protected, Meeker said.