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Originally Posted by Member1
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The Montana territory received a lot of former confederates after the war ended. All the western states did, as the west was still unspoiled territory where a man could get ahead, while the south was so devastated it was next to impossible for the veterans to survive, much less ever hope to prosper again.
Wherever the men went, the Daughters of the Confederacy followed, and they were responsible for erecting most of the monuments that were erected in the west. They were the ones who erected the fountain on the Montana capital grounds in 1916.
Make no mistake about the intention that lies behind every confederate monument. They are all implying that the south occupies this ground, and white people are superior to all others. Those who defy us had best be very cautious, as we are watching and we will strike you down.
There were some mining camps and timber camps that were almost totally populated by southerners who fled the south in Montana, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, and other western states. Here in Idaho, 2 mining camps that are now ghost towns, but once had populations in the hundreds to thousands while the gold and silver weren't mined out were named Dixie and Atlanta.
Those names were obviously intended as warnings; this camp is southern, and all yankees had better keep out.
Of course, the names didn't keep the yankee prospectors away, as gold for the taking is gold. Both camps became battlegrounds, and both burned to the ground more than once before the minerals finally ran out.
And when the mines played out, those who lived there either drifted on to other camps or lost their will to fight on for the Lost Cause and moved into communities where they integrated into all the others who lived there.
But every time the KKK or white nationalism feelings arose, the Daughters of the Confederacy would quickly put a monument up wherever they could. They, and all the other Confederate private organizations, wanted to keep the confederacy alive to fight another day.
Alive for as long as it took for the confederacy to rise again. And with the rise, the life of the pre-war south to be revived in all its glory and squalor equally.
Many of these old confederate groups still exist, but the attrition of time has greatly diminished them all. It's very hard to perpetuate anger for 160 years, after all. But any time nationalist feelings flare up, those who still have the ability to erect another monument will do it if they can, in hopes of keeping the anger as high as possible.
There are monuments that were erected as late as the 1960s in some western states. They arose during the civil rights movement in the south.
The rise of the resurrected Klu Klux Klan in the 1920s saw hundreds of new confederate monuments being erected all over the mid-west, west, and southwest.
The confederacy very nearly ruined the United States of America. The lingering damage won't end until we put our tragic past to rest for good. For as long as one group of us feels like they can threaten another with impunity, they will try to do it.
That's human nature at its worst. But Americans have always sought our better angels. That is what has kept us together and brought on our triumph and ascent as a nation. Without the guidance of our better angels, we are not immune to falling back into tribal divisions that are always destructive and frequently tear a country apart.
Do we want to become a Serbia? Or a Congo?
Do not believe it can't happen here. It can, and it very nearly did, 160 years ago. Only blood spilling on such immensity that brought on partial ruination to about half of us stopped it, and then only from total exhaustion on both sides.
The Serbs are now exhausted, and still living in rubble, with few resources left to reunite, even after 25 years of uneasy truce with each other, but no lasting peace. Do any of us want that for ourselves?
How much is some old symbols of division and hatred really worth to our civilization?
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...... I quoted the City Commissioners statements - they clearly stated their reasons for removing the Scary Racist Fountain.
