Having monitored arguments for and against moving the Talbot Boys statue and participating in past hearings, I’ve shared these observations with our County Council regarding current efforts to relocate the Talbot Boys.
The reason we’re hearing most frequently to keep the statue in its present location is to preserve Talbot’s rich history. That is a noble cause. We don’t want to forget what happened.
But monuments on public grounds are understood to be representative of public speech. So when a monument is understood to commemorate, honor, or celebrate a treasonous effort to divide our nation and preserve slavery, it would ideally not be located on public property.
We have also been offered the suggestion that the Talbot Boys should stay because Confederate soldiers were pardoned and therefore considered to be innocent. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field offered this opinion in Ex parte Garland: Regarding a presidential pardon, “in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense.”
But this is an opinion, not a ruling. We also have Supreme Court Justice Joseph McKenna’s majority opinion in Burdick v. United States: A pardon “carries an imputation of guilt, acceptance, a confession of it.” In any case, a pardon is defined as an executive order granting clemency for a conviction, and is ordinarily granted in recognition of an applicant’s acceptance of responsibility.
We also have precedent. When monuments are found to represent a violation of basic international standards of human rights, in nations that respect these standards, they are removed.
In any case, we have green space in Talbot County, and we could surely find a more suitable location for the Talbot Boys to remind us of our history without upsetting so many of our citizens.
Hoping this will be resolved soon, and thank you for your attention to this matter.
Talbot County
Keith Alan Watts, Esq. says
As to a Court defeat . . . .
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Fees & Costs
On May, 27, 2021 the undersigned filed the following “PIA” (Public Information Act Request) with Talbot County via email.
The County has thirty (30) days to respond and to provide the requested information, which, in the interest of transparency (and to avoid the appearance of obfuscation), citizens, residents, and for that matter all people in Talbot County — including Taxpayers — have a right to know.
After all, after passage of a record-setting $112.8 million dollar County budget, County Taxpayers deserve to know how their “just-raised-taxes” — Ballot Questions “B”, “C,” and “D” — will be spent . . . . such as on our Schools and First Responders . . . or defending the indefensible through federal lawsuits . . . .
“Talbot County Council President, The Hon. C. Callahan referred the undersigned during the Public Comment Section of the Council Meeting held May 25th, 2021 to the “County Attorney” to answer the following:
1) Whether outside counsel has been appointed to defend the “The Talbot Boys” litigation in Federal Court;
2) What the litigation budget is/was to date; and
3) Whether MEDIATION is being considered as an alternative to protracted litigation.
Please also provide information related to the following:
4) Hourly rates of the lawyers and/or paralegals defending the case;
5) Experience and/or expertise of the lawyer(s) handling the defense of this type of Federal litigation and their defense experience(s) with the ACLU and NAACP;
6) What retainer dollars (amount, if any) the Council may have/has expended and/or budgeted to date; and
7) Does the County have insurance to cover the claim?
Finally, when will the Council appoint a County Attorney (as opposed to an “Acting County Counsel”). I look forward to your response. As always, thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Note: No costs whatsoever shall be incurred without the undersigned’s express written authorization following an itemized County estimate.”
Stephen Schaare says
Waiting on Keith Alan Watts, Esq.
James Wilson says
I have a question that I hope someone can answer.
Who will pay for the defense of keeping the statue in place in court? Probably Talbot County Citizens. The defense will be interesting … and expensive.
Stephen Schaare says
Dear Counselor Watts, What would be the maximum penalties( both criminal and civil) for a citizen of Talbot County(mostly good) who physically removed the “Talbot Boys” from the courthouse lawn?
Thank you.
Willard T Engelskirchen says
IMHO a person’s opinion on matters such as the Talbot Boys monument are usually influenced by where they are coming from. By what they have read, and by the stories they have been told. In our case we have on our “family wall” in the same frame pictures of my wife’s great grandfather both as a young man and as an old man. He was in both the Confederate Navy and Army. So what.
I have a copy of Ty Seidule’s book “Robert E Lee and Me – A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.” Mr. Seidule is a retired Brig. General and a Professor Emeritus at West Point where he ran the history department. He has creds. In the introduction to the book he describes a fight at West Point where some wanted West Pointers who had died fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War commemorated with others who had died in action. He describes how this did not fly – it was prevented by an African American graduate of the Point. I suggest those who want to be better informed google Ty Seidule and read what he has written or check out his videos. One is only 5 minutes long.
I also suggest that you google Ta-Nehisi Coates piece in the Atlantic “5 Books to Make You Less Stupid About the Civil War” You can click on the link and read the piece. One of the books is Chernow’s Grant. Coates makes the case that Grant was denigrated by some Southern sympathizing historians who wanted to keep the myth of the noble cause alive.
These are just some ideas to limit the damage of the bad education some of us got growing up.
Marshall Weingarden says
Wikipedia reports that President Lincoln pardoned Confederate soldiers with the rank of colonel or higher, not the enlisted men of the Talbot Boys statue.
Kate LaMotte says
Carol Voyles – EXACTLY.
Michael Davis says
So what if they were pardoned? Trump pardoned many criminals. They still committed crimes.
The statue is racist. The Confederate Flag is a racist symbol. “C.S.A.” was a traitor’s racist movement against the United States.
Getting pardons is no more relevant than if the Talbot Boys changed the color of their hair. Even if they became blondes, that does not make the Confederate Flag any less a symbol of racism.
John W. Pettit says
In 1994, Maryland dedicated a statue on public land at Gettysburg. It depicts two wounded Maryland soldiers, one union and one confederate, helping one another on the field of battle. Should the State of Maryland remove this statue, even though it is an accurate depiction of the divided sympathies of Marylanders during and immediately after the Civil War? For me, the Talbot Boys statue is a historical timepiece and a forceful reminder of an era that must never and will never return.
Patricia Bradley says
Thank you Carol Voyles. Your argument here should help the Council find a way to do exactly what you suggest.