Governor is not inclined to review Confederate symbols

by Michael Dresser

Gov. Larry Hogan, who banished the Confederate battle flag from specialty Maryland license plates after the shooting of nine people in a racially driven attack in Charleston, S.C., said Thursday that the state would conduct no further review of Civil War-related symbols.

Hogan, speaking at a State House news conference, said he supports the decision of the South Carolina legislature to remove the rebel battle flag from that state’s capitol grounds, and he noted his decision to recall about 157 Sons of Confederate Veterans commemorative license plates. But he drew the line there.

More extensive measures would be “political correctness run amok,” he said.

In particular, Hogan rejected calls to remove the statue of Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the Dred Scott decision that held that slaves had no legal rights, from the State House grounds. He pointed out that the Taney statue is on one side of the State House while one of Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice, is on the other. “They’re both part of our history,” Hogan said.

The Republican governor said that just this week he took part in the reopening of the State House room where George Washington, a slaveholder, resigned his military commission in 1783.

Hogan said he would have no objections it Baltimore wanted to conduct its own review of Confederate memorials or names. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced this month that she would convene a commission of experts representing art, history and community organizations to research the city’s Confederate monuments and other historical assets. Panel recommendations could include preservation, new signs, relocation or removal by the end of the year.

“The city has every right to do so,”

Hogan said. “I would have no interest in that.”