Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) announced during a Senate floor speech on Thursday that he would offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would allow military bases named after Confederate generals to keep their names. During the speech, he chastised the left’s “historical revisionism.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted on Wednesday to require the Department of Defense (DOD) to rename military bases and other installations named after Confederate generals.
The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), would give the DOD three years to remove the Confederate generals from military bases.
Hawley was one of the lone voices against Warren’s move to rename military bases named after Confederate generals, such as Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
President Donald Trump signaled his opposition to the move, suggesting that he would not sign the NDAA if it were to include this amendment.
Hawley said during his floor speech that Warren’s amendment would not do anything to find justice for the death of George Floyd or heal the nation’s wounds.
Hawley said that Warren sponsored the amendment “for what purpose? To achieve justice for George Floyd? To bring our nation together? No, I don’t think so. The purpose was to erase from history every person, name, and event not righteous enough.”
The Missouri populist said that Democrats would like the country “to fight a new civil war in our culture, day and night, without end.”
Hawley said that the Civil War gave America essential lessons for the future and that removing the country’s monuments would only sow more division.
“I suggest to my colleagues that the Civil War gave not only gave us villains, it also gave us heroes and a more perfect union to love. Maybe we should learn from those heroes,” he said.
Hawley continued:
That story is being erased, a nation united in the cause of justice is divided, and we are at increasing war with our selves. Mr. President, this cannot continue, this great nation and its good people cannot continue our life of freedom together if we vilify and destroy each other from within.
Hawley announced at the end of his speech that he would offer an amendment to the NDAA to allow bases named after Confederates to keep their names.
“I will offer an amendment to undo this effort at historical revisionism,” he said. “I will offer it, not to celebrate the cause of the Confederacy, but to embrace the cause of union. Our union. Shared together as Americans.”
Hawley concluded, “It is time for our leaders to stop using their position here to divide us. Let us work together instead to build on the history and responsibility that we share as Americans to continue that unfinished work of this nation that we call home.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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