‘Southern cause’? Missouri’s Confederate memorial skips over the evils of slavery

The Missouri Division of State Parks will hold an informational hearing and discussion Saturday at the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville.

The state wants to hear from residents about the site’s operation and discuss future plans for the 135-acre grounds.

The site has been the subject of controversy. In 2003, then-Gov. Bob Holden ordered the site to stop flying the Confederate battle flag, prompting a noisy argument over the symbol. In 2005, then-Gov. Matt Blunt ordered it restored for a day.

In 2014, members of a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans lobbied to restore the flag at the site. As of now, though, only the U.S. flag and the Missouri flag are flown there.

The issue may come up Saturday. It’s part of a broader, important discussion about how soldiers who fought the United States should be remembered and why it’s important to tell the full story of slavery and the war that ended it.

Confederate monuments around the state and the nation have toppled following the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Other statues and monuments celebrating racists are being renamed and reconsidered. These are healthy, necessary steps.

The Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville shouldn’t be closed. The site was constructed around a home built for aging Confederate veterans in the late 1800s, and roughly 800 people are buried there.

The cemetery is on the National Register of Historic Places. The site serves as a quiet place for reflection and recreation for some residents.

Yet Missourians should insist that the state tell the complete story of the Civil War, the Confederate soldiers who fought in it and the central issue that provoked it, which was human bondage.

That context can be hard to find if you look on the state’s web posting about the site. “Today, Confederate Memorial State Historic Site commemorates the more than 40,000 Missouri soldiers who fought for the Southern cause,” it says.

No, Missouri. They didn’t fight for a “Southern cause.” They fought to protect slavery. The website should say so.

There are other questionable references. “Step on to the peaceful grounds of Confederate Memorial State Historic Site and experience where the last voices of the ‘Lost Cause’ lingered,” the website says.

You can almost hear “Dixie” in the breeze.

There’s a page that displays illustrations of Confederate flags; another shows elderly Confederates in uniform. A monument to Confederate dead stands at the site. Some of the remains of notorious Confederate guerilla William Quantrill are interred in the cemetery.

Supporters say the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site is designed to preserve state history and commemorate those who lived here years after the Civil War ended. The site marks what was essentially a retirement home, they say.

Fine. But Missouri should tell the full and horrific history of slavery and the stain this left on our country. Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state, and considered secession to defend the practice. Thousands of slaves were held in Missouri, including in Jackson County.

“Slavery in western Missouri was often just as brutal as elsewhere in the South,” wrote Diane Mutti-Burke, a history professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

These facts are scattered across the state, but it takes real work to find them. If Missouri wants to celebrate Confederate veterans at a taxpayer-supported public place, it should commit to a highly visible physical location where the entire story of slavery and the Civil War can be told.

As of today, the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site is not that place.

Next year, Missouri will celebrate the 200th anniversary of its admission to the Union. We can’t think of a better time to remind ourselves that some Missourians were enslaved at the time.