In the latest efforts by the Left to tear down monuments and attempt to rewrite history, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has ordered the removal of four portraits of past speakers of the House from the halls of Capitol Hill due to their affiliation with the Confederacy, as reported by the New York Post.
Pelosi ordered the removal to coincide with June 19th, also known as “Juneteenth,” the anniversary of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas. Describing Capitol Hill as “the very heart of our democracy,” Pelosi declared that “there is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress…for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy.”
The four speakers whose portraits were removed were Robert Hunter (D-Va.), Howell Cobb (D-Ga.), James Orr (D-S.C.), and Charles Crisp (D-Ga.); all except Crisp served as speaker before the Civil War, while Crisp served afterwards.
Pelosi has additionally called for the removal of over a dozen statues located in the Capitol that commemorate Confederate figures. But since she does not have the authority to remove those features of the Capitol, she instead set her sights on the paintings, which even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) admitted was within her purview.