Jacksonville’s Civil War Memorials

[Jim]

I have been researching these monuments and what drove many of them to be stood up in the first place.

During reconstruction, few were stood up. It seems it was during the 1890's there was a boom in CSA related monument building.

After the Panic of 1893, the south and the west became extremely populist due to resentment of financial manipulations going on in NYC and Washington DC.

Many CSA veterans, now in their 50-60's resented what they considered anathema to the life they fought for with control centered in the north.

In response, many of the statues and monuments were stood up as a reminder that at one time there were people who fought against the treachery of a federal government.

Its an interesting historical/cultural research.

I'm pretty certain it had far more to do with Plessy vs Ferguson in 1896 along with hundreds of states and local laws that were racially repressive during the next 2 decades than an economic crash in 1893.

I never expected my brief research to be exhaustive by any means.

I wanted to see what was happening in the general life and culture that would lead to so much monument building.

True the Civil War impacted every state, but what drove it to happen some 20 years after?

It was a pov I hadnt heard much on and so I was checking it out.

The answers you seek are right here in this thread.  Jim Crow laws.  Go research that.  We are talking about hundreds of local and state laws that  decimated the rights of blacks in the south.   

More than anything, the Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen until that time, and both sides were Americans.

No to take away from the main point of your post but this is grossly inaccurate.  The Civil War might not even make it to the top 20 at that point.  Bloodiest for the US population only?  Sure, but world?  The Taiping Civil War (fought almost at the same time as ours) claimed between 30 and 100 million lives.  Ours? Less than 1 million.  And don't ask Native Americans about casualties. 50 - 100 million there as well.

[spuwho]

Jim Crow laws didnt build monuments.

[Tacachale]

More than anything, the Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen until that time, and both sides were Americans.

No to take away from the main point of your post but this is grossly inaccurate.  The Civil War might not even make it to the top 20 at that point.  Bloodiest for the US population only?  Sure, but world?  The Taiping Civil War (fought almost at the same time as ours) claimed between 30 and 100 million lives.  Ours? Less than 1 million.  And don't ask Native Americans about casualties. 50 - 100 million there as well.
[/quote]

You misread my comment: I said "loss of American life". It was by far our worst conflict in terms of losses. I did say it was one of the bloodiest conflicts the world had seen up to that point, which depending what you count, it was.

[Jim]

Jim Crow laws didnt build monuments.

Neither did an economic downturn in 1893.

But if you to want to talk contributing factors, I don't advise arguing against every credible report on the subject ever written.

[spuwho]

Jim Crow laws didnt build monuments.

Neither did an economic downturn in 1893.

But if you to want to talk contributing factors, I don't advise arguing against every credit report on the subject ever written.

Non sequitor.

[thelakelander]

Sure, laws that marginalize the majority of the local population's ability to participate in political decisions can lead to certain types of monuments being built. You simply have a cause (Jim Crow laws) creating a situation that leads to several different reactions (monuments/commemorations added from a viewpoint based upon those in charge of the political structure).

An example would be Santo Domingo. It's been around since the 15th century. When Rafael Trujillo took over, he renamed it Ciudad Trujillo, to honor himself and built a lot of monuments and structures to himself.  After his assassination in 1961, the place rightfully was renamed Santo Domingo. In this case, laws marginalizing the population didn't rename the city. The dictator in control of the Dominican Republic did.

[Tacachale]

For a bit of context as to what was going on in Jacksonville at the time, African-Americans were relatively well represented in local government in 1887, 10 years after Reconstruction ended. When LaVilla was an independent city, it always had sizable (though not proportionate) African-American representatives. When Jax annexed LaVilla and other suburbs later that year, it led to a contentious election. Black and white Republicans were able to form a successful ticket with the Knights of Labor and cleaned up in the elections in both 1887 and 1888; Mayor C.B. Smith became the last Republican elected until 1995, and there were multiple African-Americans in City Council, as well as appointed positions, including policemen.

That was troubling to the white Democrats and the Democratic-controlled state government. The post-Reconstruction constitution of 1885 authorized the state to intercede in local government. After Jacksonville's Republican government thoroughly botched the response to a yellow fever outbreak in 1888, the state government stepped in with a bunch of measures to keep the elected officials out.

First, the state instituted prohibitively high surety bonds for elected officials, which none of the black representatives could afford. With them frozen out, the state installed new representatives more to its liking. Then, the state dissolved the city charter and replaced home rule with a system in which the City Council would be appointed by the governor. This government then passed a number of other disenfranchising laws targeting African-Americans. By the time home rule was restored in 1893, African-American influence in the government had been greatly reduced.

It was after that point that the white Democratic government started allowing Confederate monuments.

[thelakelander]

Damn....

[Tacachale]

Interesting quotes from the paper "Learning How to Jim Crow: Jacksonville, Florida's White Progressives, 1887–1892" by Jay Driskell:

The discussion of the bill [to remove home rule] in the state legislature reveals the clear connections that Jacksonville's white progressives made between disease, development and disfranchisement. In the House debate, Representative Frank Clark of Polk County, defended the bill declaring it was necessary to free Jacksonville, "that great city on the St. Johns, the metropolis of the State, from an incubus that has oppressed her people and paralyzed her interests for years."lviii Clark's choice of the word "incubus" (a mythical male demon that preys sexually on sleeping women) could easily have described the specter of black political power as much as the recurrent threat of yellow fever. In the minds of his listeners, it likely evoked both. Meanwhile back in Jacksonville, the Florida Times-Union urged passage of the bill as a "wise and righteous measure," arguing that few "men of capital would lend a half a million or more ... dollars to any city subjected to the miserable ward system" of government.lix The Times-Union expressed concern that any funds raised ought to be under the firm control of "men chosen for their preeminent fitness alone without regard to partisan influences." lx The racial subtext here was quite clear. The day before the bill was up for a vote in the state house of representatives, the paper declared that "under the present charter, there is no hope of electing honest, capable, faithful officials. An experience of two years has demonstrated this fact."lxi [The Republican government had badly mismanaged the yellow fever epidemic.] So long as there was the possibility that black men would have any influence over the dispensation of the "half million or more" dollars needed to modernize the city's sewer system, fears of Jacksonville's black majority would continue to trump the terrors of yellow fever. When the bill stalled in the state senate, the Times-Union demanded to know: "Shall the negro rule or shall the white man rule?"lxii

On Monday morning, 8 April 1889, the Florida House passed without amendment, House Bill No. 4 on a vote of 55 to 7.lxiii Once it became clear that the bill would soon be law, the racial subtext became even more explicit in letters to the Times-Union. "Five Ladies of Jacksonville" applauded the return of "decent government," recounting their experiences of being "elbowed off the sidewalk by negroes walking three abreast, and defiantly refusing to give an inch of the way." Another correspondent related how he had witnessed a seventy year-old lady elbowed off the sidewalk by "three negro women ... Do you suppose," he asked, "if our day police force was not made up entirely of colored men, such astounding indecency would be permitted?" Yet a third letter writer described his hesitation at chastising a black paper boy for insolence due to the presence of a "colored policeman."lxiv Though white Jacksonvillians certainly welcomed the promise of a healthier city, they also looked forward toward an urban future in which white supremacy was secure.

http://www.jaydriskell.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2013-AHA-Learning-How-to-Jim-Crow-Driskell.pdf

[thelakelander]

Charleston's proposal to address on of their Confederate memorials. This plan would add a plaque to a monument memorializing the context of the environment surrounding its installation:

http://abcnews4.com/news/local/city-takes-first-look-at-plaque-that-would-add-slavery-context-to-john-c-calhoun-statue

"This statue to John C. Calhoun (1782 - 1850) is a relic of the crime against humanity, the folly of some political leaders and the plaque of racism. It remains standing today as a grave reminder that many South Carolinians once viewed Calhoun as worthy of memorialization even though his political career was defined by his support of race-based slavery. Historic preservation, to which Charleston is dedicated, includes this monument as a lesson to future generations.

It was erected in 1896, replacing an earlier monument begun in 1858, three years before the Civil War (1861 - 1865). Calhoun served as Vice President of the United States under two Presidents, as U. S. Secretary of War, as U.S. Secretary of State, as a U.S. Senator and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. A brilliant political theorist, he was the author of two important works on the U.S. Constitution and the Federal Government.

A member of the Senate's "Great Triumvirate" that included Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Henry Clay of Kentucky, Calhoun championed state's rights and nullification, the right of an individual state to disobey/ignore a Federal law with which it did not agree. Unlike many of the founding fathers who viewed the enslavement of Africans as "a necessary evil" to possibly be overcome, Calhoun believed/advocated the institution of slavery as "a positive good."

The monument was erected at a time when many South Carolinians still saw the Confederacy a noble experiment based on its commitment to slavery. They believed in white supremacy and enacted decisive legislation legalizing racial segregation, ideas now condemned by all and universally recognized as repugnant to the United States of America's core ideals and values."

Would something like this work for Jax?

[lastdaysoffla]

Yes.

[Tacachale]

^I think it could work. It's also something that's relatively easily achievable. However, I expect that a lot of the people most active in the removal effort would not find it sufficient (and the "leave 'em up" folks would hate it).

[jlmann]

a great solution and well-worded plaque.

what's brilliant about such plaques is that one can only object to the verbiage if you are an ignorant racist.  Look forward to ridiculing the morons who do

[lastdaysoffla]

^I think it could work. It's also something that's relatively easily achievable. However, I expect that a lot of the people most active in the removal effort would not find it sufficient (and the "leave 'em up" folks would hate it).

I'm in the "leave 'em up" camp and think this would be great. I suggested a similar a solution during the more heated debates in other threads a few months ago, yet was branded a racist and confederate sympathizer. 

I think added context like this would be best because it would tell the historical timeline of these monuments.