New Republic Recommends: Make the Confederacy's Defeat a National Holiday

In the latest edition of the New Republic senior editor Brian Beutler says it's time for the United States to stop lionizing Confederate heroes.

Here's the gist of his pitch:

This week provides an occasion for the U.S. government to get real about history, as April 9 is the 150th anniversary of the Union’s victory in the Civil War. The generous terms of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House foreshadowed a multitude of real and symbolic compromises that the winners of the war would make with secessionists, slavery supporters, and each other to piece the country back together. It’s as appropriate an occasion as the Selma anniversary to reflect on the country’s struggle to improve itself. And to mark the occasion, the federal government should make two modest changes: It should make April 9 a federal holiday; and it should commit to disavowing or renaming monuments to the Confederacy, and its leaders, that receive direct federal support.

Within 24 hours the article drew more than 245 comments.

It includes this graphic featuring the top 10 Confederates honored at American military installations:

Butler's proposal goes one step further than Jamie Malanowski, who proposed a few years ago that the military rename the installations named after Confederates.