America’s most hallowed ground is meant to honor patriots, not traitors.
Yet only weeks before our nation celebrates its independence, 192 Republican members of the House of Representatives voted to reinstall a Confederate Memorial within the sacred grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, which lies just across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial and our nation’s Capitol.
All four U.S. House members from Utah voted to honor traitors to our nation. Their votes betrayed the service and sacrifice of brave American patriots.
My brother, Major Matthew Patrick Burke, served a tour as an orthopedic surgeon at Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq. Soon after returning from deployment, he was struck in training and killed in the line of duty. He is now surrounded by American heroes at Arlington National Cemetery.
More than 400,000 patriots now rest at Arlington, many of whom gave their last full measure of devotion to defend a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Arlington Cemetery was founded during the Civil War, which had to be fought to defeat insurrectionists against the United States and its Constitution. It is shocking — and profoundly disappointing — that Utah’s House delegation believes that these traitors should be celebrated on Arlington’s hallowed grounds.
The Confederacy was borne from denial of the 1860 election. Rather than accept the election of Abraham Lincoln, eleven rebellious states tried to secede from the United States both because of their disdain for the Constitution and because they adamantly opposed the prospect of freedom and legal equality for all. One of the most prominent leaders of the insurrection explained: “Our new [Confederate] government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; . . . that the [Black man] is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.”
The Confederate insurrection eventually reached the gates of our nation’s capital city before being repelled and put down through the sacrifice of some of the first soldiers to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery. These honorable Americans helped save the nation and gave rise to what Abraham Lincoln aptly called “a new birth of freedom.”
The family of slain U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who rests only a few rows from my brother at Arlington, presciently warned that the future of our country should not be entrusted to those who neither respect the sacrifices made in the name of freedom nor understand the concepts of liberty and equal protection of the law.
His Gold Star Family memorably asked, “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America — you will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities.”
Every member of Utah’s House delegation favored a tribute to enemy soldiers who slaughtered more than 100,000 American soldiers in battle. All of them voted to honor hostile soldiers ultimately responsible for inflicting more than 828,000 casualties, including the deaths of 303,356 Union soldiers who were interred by 1871 in Congressionally-mandated national cemeteries, including Arlington.
In voting to sully America’s most sacred burial ground, Utah’s representatives elevated their allegiance to their political party over our country. The world may little note nor long remember their shameful efforts to honor the Confederacy, but the fate of the nation could conceivably hinge in the coming months on their fidelity to a solemn vow.
Each member of Congress enters office upon taking an oath, which was composed during the Civil War, by swearing or affirming to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Not since the defeat of the Confederacy has the American Experiment faced such danger from domestic sources. Our last national election was marred by a violent insurrection that ransacked our Capitol and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power for the first time since the Civil War.
A Constitution that many Utahns believe to be divinely-inspired may again hang like a thread. American citizens should resolve to support and defend our Constitution not with empty words but with civic deeds, lest government of the people, by the people, for the people, soon perish from our place on this earth.
As Utahns and Americans, we should heed the call to re-dedicate ourselves with increased devotion to the great task of ensuring that the sacrifices made to defend our freedomespecially by those buried at Arlington — shall not have been made in vain.
Utahns should pay tribute to our nation’s honored dead by showing the courage to put country over party, and by honoring American patriots instead of traitors.
Paul C. Burke is a member of the Utah State Bar.
Paul C. Burke, a member of the Utah State Bar, took an oath to support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States. He invites Utah’s Congressional delegation to join him on his next visit to Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery.
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