Four KY representatives vote against removing statues from U.S. Capitol

Four of Kentucky’s six congressional representatives voted against a resolution to remove certain statues from display in the U.S. Capitol. The statues represent men who supported slavery and white supremacy in some way, including the bust of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, who authored the Dred Scott decision.

House Resolution 7573 passed 305 to 113, with 72 Republicans joining all the Democrats in voting for the bill. Included in the Yays were Democrat John Yarmuth and Republican Brett Guthrie.

Voting against the resolution — thus voting to keep the statues in place — were Republicans James Comer, Andy Barr, Hal Rogers, and Thomas Massie.

Here is a list of the persons whose statues are to be removed under the bill (all biographical information retrieved from Wikipedia):

Roger Brooke Taney (March 17, 1777 – October 12, 1864) – Taney was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He delivered the majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), ruling that African-Americans could not be considered citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories of the United States.

The bill calls for Taney’s bust to be replaced with one of Thurgood Marshall.

Charles Brantley Aycock (November 1, 1859 – April 4, 1912) – Known as the Education Governor, he was the 50th Governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. After starting his career as a lawyer and teacher, he became active in the Democratic Party during the party’s Solid South period, and was a strong proponent of the white supremacy campaigns of that period. Aycock was one of the leading perpetrators of the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, in which whites took over the city government by force, the only coup d’état in U. S. history.

John Caldwell Calhoun (March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) – Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority states’ rights in politics. … He saw Northern acceptance of those policies as a condition of the South remaining in the Union. His beliefs and warnings heavily influenced the South’s secession from the Union in 1860–1861.

James Paul Clarke (August 18, 1854 – October 1, 1916) – Clarke was a United States Senator and the 18th Governor of Arkansas. Clarke was elected Attorney General of Arkansas and served from 1892 to 1894. He served as Governor of Arkansas from 1895 to 1897.[2] Clarke was devoted to “upholding white supremacy as the keystone of the Democratic Party. ‘The people of the South,’ he said in his closing speech of the election, ‘looked to the Democratic party to preserve the white standards of civilization.’

John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) – Breckinridge was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. He represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress and became the 14th and youngest-ever vice president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and served in the U.S. Senate during the outbreak of the American Civil War, but was expelled after joining the Confederate Army. He was appointed Confederate Secretary of War in 1865.

The bill also calls for removal of statues of “Persons who served as an officer or voluntarily with the Confederate States of America or of the military forces or government of a State while the State was in rebellion against the United States.”

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