After the violence last weekend in Charlottesville, there is now an increased effort across the country to remove Confederate statues. But one place that won’t see those statues go away anytime soon is the U.S. Capitol. Washington bureau reporter Alberto Pimienta filed the following report.

At the center of the deadly events in Charlottesville was a plan to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, a confederate general. 

But beneath the Capitol dome, in what’s known as the crypt, stands another statue of Lee. 

There are a total of 10 Confederate statues in the Capitol complex. For some historians, that is inconceivable. 

"I don’t think you can find throughout world history any movement which has attempted to remove itself from a government, which has committed what amounts to treason, bearing arms against the United States government, which is memorialized in so kind a manner," said Gauthman Rao of American University.

Removing them is a tall order. Each state has two statues in the Capitol. A lot of them are in Statuary Hall. 

State legislators, not members of Congress, decide what statues will honor their states. Then, governors have to give final approval. 

Only a handful of Democrats are calling for the statues to come down. And Republicans say states should decide. 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wants all Confederate statues to be gone, but Speaker Paul Ryan says that’s a decision for states to make.

One person against the statues coming down: the President of the United States. 

Some historians disagree with the president’s comparison.  

"These were people dedicated to building the United States of America. They were pioneers of a concept of democracy, again, not a perfect one. Whereas Robert E. Lee took up arms against the United States and led an armed rebellion against the United States of America," Rao said. 

This week, the descendants of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are saying they agree the statues must go.