There Goes the Robert E. Lee...
America250 Should Have a Confederate Statue Garden
The celebrations for America250 seem subdued compared to our fervor during the American Bicentennial of 1976. This is not surprising. War in the Middle East, spiraling taxes, no housing for American citizens, income tax still alive and well despite campaign promises, repeated breaking of assurances to the American people by the DOJ, the export of prime American beef from 300 of our slaughterhouses to China, a pittance in remittance tax, all completely contradict the ‘24 Trump campaign.
An area of American cultural ignorance remains, for the preservation of Southern history. Richmond communists dug up the bones of A. P. Hill in 2022 and 2023 in violation of Virginia law, which I wrote about for the Abbeville Institute at the time. Robert E. Lee’s statue was cut up, burned and its remnants sprayed with fecal matter by the City of Richmond in their water processing plant. It is a fate the Bolsheviks would drool over.
Investigating the plight of lost and forgotten historic Confederate monuments should fall to the appointed “citizen members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents” per President Trump’s March 27th 2025 Executive Order. Where are these people? Do they exist?
The lack of cohesive executive messaging continues with the plan for the Arlington National Cemetery Reconciliation Monument. In August 2025, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Army’s Center of Military History announced a deal where Virginia will loan the monument to Arlington for the next 50 years. Supposedly the relocation will take two years. Two years? It was destroyed in a matter of weeks. The base was only saved through extreme effort. Shouldn’t the executive branch be posting jobs for this work to hurry it up, in the face of an employment crisis?
More than 160 Confederate memorials have been torn down. Finding them, restoring them, and placing them in a presidential garden would be a unifying celebration for America250. Other countries have similar monuments. France’s Arc de Triomphe lists 660 names of French heroes, regardless of background. The Garden of Heroes and Villains in England contains 50 statues. Germany has its Walhalla in Donaustauf, where statues are assembled around a rectangular temple.
The White House received $40 million for the National Garden of American Heroes, to include 250 statues of American legends. Trump said the "National Garden of American Heroes" will be in West Potomac Park and the White House ballroom will open in September 2028. The ballroom is in legal limbo. There is no reason not to push ahead with the historic monument garden.
The City of Richmond had monument avenue and destroyed it. Looking to the future, perhaps the National Garden of American Heroes places the statues in a circle. Quezon, in the Philippines, placed their heroes in a series of carved reliefs. That’s another option.
There is no reason to outsource the placement of our history. Monuments Across Dixie makes their statuary in house, in Alabama. There are so many groups, hungry, looking for work, and America250 would be a great opportunity to employ them. So who’s asleep at the wheel?