MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. --- The board of a South Carolina museum on Charleston Harbor, where the Civil War began, voted Tuesday against erecting a monument marking the state's 1860 secession from the Union.
The board of the Patriots Point Development Authority split 3-3 on allowing the Sons of Confederate Veterans to place an 11 1/2-foot granite monument at the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum.
The tie vote, coming after the board met in executive session for 90 minutes, means the idea failed. The board voted without discussion in open session.
The monument, envisioned for the center of a plaza, would have had the name of each of the 170 signers and the wording of the Ordinance of Secession.
"Certainly we're disappointed, but we're not giving up right now," said Randy Burbage, the commander of the South Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. "We're going to regroup and formulate a plan."
He said he has heard from others offering sites for the monument and is optimistic it can be erected, perhaps by April 2011, the 150th anniversary of the Confederate bombardment on Fort Sumter in the harbor that opened the war. He would not give details of other possible sites.
The monument has stirred controversy in recent months.
Retired Marine Maj. Gen. James Livingston, a Medal of Honor recipient living in Georgia, wrote Patriots Point board chairman John Hagerty last month saying he personally would not object to the monument.
But, he added, "I am voicing my opinion that such a monument would be disrespectful to the Hall of Honor and to the sacrifice of those remembered in the Medal of Honor Museum."
The Medal of Honor Museum and its Hall of Honor are aboard the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point. The medal, the nation's highest award for bravery in battle, was created during the Civil War by legislation signed by Abraham Lincoln.
Hagerty voted against the secession monument.
"I was persuaded by the arguments, mainly made by the World War II veterans, that it doesn't fit," he said.
"I would be enthusiastic about a monument to the Confederate soldier or the Hunley being placed over here as parts of our maritime history," he said. "But I think the order of secession does not fit with our honoring veterans of the United States of America."
The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, the first sub to sink an enemy warship, is being preserved at a lab in North Charleston.
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