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Philip Schuyler

To Topple or Not to Topple Statues: The Battle between “Come Let Us Reason Together” versus “Abso-fricking-lutely!”

July 8, 2020
by Peter Feinman
To Topple or Not to Topple, That Is the Question (Alex Waltner – Swedish Nomad)

To topple or not to topple, that is the question. Statues have become the latest battleground in America’s Third Civil War. At this point, it is impossible to determine which statue will be our Fort Sumter. It is reasonable to assume that just as one could not predict that it would the George Floyd murder as the straw the broke the camel’s back, one cannot know which attack on a statue will be the trigger for violence.

In the meantime, last month, Bret Stephens and Charles Blow, columnists for The New York Times, offered quite contrary views on the question of “to topple or not to topple.”

BRET STEPHENS

In his column “After the Statues Fall,” (June 27, 2020, print), Stephens posits four familiar words as a template for answering the topple question: A MORE PERFECT UNION.

Stephens suggests for any given individual, the question should be asked whether that person contributed to the effort to create a more perfect union in the United States. If the answer is “no,” and he includes all Confederate-related figures here, then the person fails the test. The statues should come down and the buildings and military installations should be renamed. Stephens mentions some other examples of non-Confederates who don’t deserve a public building and non-Confederates who do deserve honors on net because of what they contributed to making a more perfect union.

Then he turns the big two: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. These two slaveholders who were instrumental to the creation of the United States. He doesn’t mention it, but the latter provided the words or ideals upon which we declared our independence and the former made it possible for that declaration not to be stillborn or a dorm-room manifesto. Eliminate them and there is no country. Stephens writes:

If their fault lay in being creatures of their time, their greatness was in the ability to look past it. An unbroken moral thread connects the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. An unbroken political thread connects the first president to the 16th to the 44th. It is impossible to imagine any union, much less the possibility of a more perfect one, without them.

Stephens contrasts thinking critically about the past for the sake of learning from it with behaving destructively toward the past with the aim of erasing it. He concludes in favor of debate on whether to topple or not to topple:

An intelligent society should be able to make intelligent distinctions, starting with the one between those who made our union more perfect and those who made it less.

By coincidence such an intelligent discussion was held a few days later. The American Historical Association (AHA) held an online presentation with David W. Blight and Annette Gordon-Reed entitled “Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape” moderated by AHA Executive Director Jim Grossman, on Thursday, July 2. Whether or not they had read this column I don’t know. If not, then the discussion was even more fascinating. They expressed many of the same concepts that Stephens did. They used the term “criteria” instead for the judging of people on an individual basis with Confederates not passing muster. They even thought several hundred people listening to the online event would volunteer for a national commission.

There you see the problem. Stephens’s template for the evaluation of people works well in an academic setting. It is great for high school or college debates. It could work at some academic conferences. However, the evaluation process is bound to be subjective. There would be legitimate differences of opinions even if everyone agreed on the template. Obviously, it ignores the emotional component. Stephens proposes a solution for an intelligent society in a “come let us reason together” setting. That has nothing to do with where America is right now nor is there any political leader proposing a “come let us reason together” approach. This scenario is great on paper but is not possible in the real world as it exists now.

CHARLES BLOW

By coincidence, the next day, Charles Blow offered a significantly different perspective full of emotion. The title is:

Yes, Even George Washington: Slavery was a cruel institution that can’t be excused by its era (June 28, 2020, online).

In case there was any doubt, the opening line is:

On the issue of American slavery, I am an absolutist: enslavers were amoral monsters.

The very idea that one group of people believed that they had the right to own another human being is abhorrent and depraved. The fact that their control was enforced by violence was barbaric.

Blow’s template is a very direct one: if you owned people you were “abhorrent and depraved.” Period. There is no other evaluation needed. No netting of the good the people-owner might have done elsewhere. If you own people, then case closed.

There is no room for doubt. No uncertainty. And no exception.

Some people who are opposed to taking down monuments ask, “If we start, where will we stop?” It might begin with Confederate generals, but all slave owners could easily become targets. Even George Washington himself.

To that I say, “abso-fricking-lutely!”

Blow presents an all-or-nothing evaluation with removal as the one option.

I say that we need to reconsider public monuments in public spaces. No person’s honorifics can erase the horror he or she has inflicted on others.

Slave owners should not be honored with monuments in public spaces. We have museums for that, which also provide better context. This is not an erasure of history, but rather a better appreciation of the horrible truth of it.

Blow’s analysis is intensely emotional for him unlike the Stephens column. It also is easy to apply.

But Blow leaves many unanswered questions. If these people like George Washington are so horrific for what they did that they do not deserve public monuments in public spaces, what about the other ways in which such people are publicly honored. What about

The state of Washington

The city of Washington

The mountain of Washington

The university of Washington

The bridge of Washington

The parks of Washington

The dollar bill of Washington

The neighborhoods of Washington.

Dismantling the Washington Monument is challenge enough, but how do you get demolish half of Mount Rushmore?

And let’s not forget that without Washington there would be no United States of America?

Blow doesn’t address these issues. His end game remains undefined. He feels good about toppling the monuments and statues to George Washington but leaves all the other public expressions of him unmentioned.

In my blog Schuyler Owned People: Should Schuylerville Change Its Name? June 18, 2020, a lifetime ago), I raised a similar issue with the Mayor of Albany’s decision to remove the statue of Philip Schuyler. What about all the other public Schuyler examples from a state-owned house, federal owned house, municipality named after him, county named after him, and his role in American history at Saratoga?  As a mayor, her jurisdiction is limited. I did note that one councilmen wanted the removed of all the people-owner names of streets and parks which in Albany means Washington Park. Blow had the option of going where the Mayor could not. As a columnist, he could have advocated for the full cleansing of Washington from the public arena. The logical extension of Blow’s argument means consign everything Washington to a museum, rename it, or demolish it.

WHAT DOES BLOW WANT?

Considered these toppling examples.

The toppling of the statue to Saddam Hussein signified the end of his rule.

The toppling of the statue of Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, signified the end of the Soviet Union.

The toppling of the statue of King George III signified the declaration of independence from British rule, a declaration after a long war which proved successful.

Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the toppling of the statue of George Washington, father of the country, signifies that the topplers are calling for the end of the United States, the end of a country based on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that he won for us and he then held us together as a country.

Is that what Blow wants? While I don’t doubt that among the woke there are people desirous of exactly such an endgame. They reject not only the symbols of the founding of the country but the founding itself. Blow does not appear to one of them. His call to relocate statues from public spaces to museums (presumably private ones with no public funding), suggests he is not advocating for the overthrow of the United States. But his call for the removal not toppling of statues and monuments of people-owners is simply a feel-good baby step that ignores the larger issues. He has an obligation to explain to the American public what his end game is. He has an obligation to explain to We the People where he would draw the line and why on the issue of the public display of the name of Washington among others. He has an obligation to explain his end game because if he doesn’t, others will do it for him.

P.S. The damnatio memoriae (or “condemnation of the memory”) was tried in ancient Egypt on Queen Hatshepsut and King Akhnaton. Will we now have to erase the names of Pharaohs who had slave labor including Nubians and demolish their buildings or is that up to Egypt? What should we teach about these “abhorrent and depraved” people like Tut?

 

Schuyler Owned People: Should Schuylerville Change Its Name?

June 18, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Major General Philip Schuyler by J. Massey Rhind

“Reconsidering the Past, One Statue at a Time,’ was the front-page above-the-fold headline in The New York Times on June 17, 2020 (print). The article begins by noting the “boiling anger” that exploded after the murder of George Floyd. It has gone national. In religious terms, we are witnessing the attempt to purify America by cleansing it of all vestiges of its racist past.

Back on July 19, 2019 (online), Maureen Dowd, op-ed columnist for The New York Times wrote a piece entitled  “Spare Me the Purity Racket.” She wrote:

The progressives are the modern Puritans. The Massachusetts Bay Colony is alive and well on the Potomac and Twitter. They eviscerate their natural allies for not being pure enough while placing all their hopes in a color-inside-the-lines lifelong Republican prosecutor appointed by Ronald Reagan. The politics of purism makes people stupid. And nasty.

She was writing about the Mueller Report and had no idea about the world we are now living or what John Bolton would reveal. Still now as the purification of America is underway, it is worth considering what the end game is. How far will the cleansing go? Exactly what is at stake here?

Consider the situation in the Peoples Republic of Seattle. The President of the United States had called upon people to liberate their states (from Democratic governors). He operated under the naturally short-sighted thinking that only his people would do the liberating and not the other side. Welcome to the real world.One might think that the Seattle autonomous zone was about George Floyd. Perhaps it was at first but that is not how purification works. Moe’ Neyah Dene Holland, a Black Lives Matter activist in Seattle said:

We should focus on just this one thing first. The other things can follow suit. Because honestly, black men are dying and this is the thing we should be focusing on. 

The reference is to the expanded agenda of purification which had been identified. First, three demands were posted on a wall. Then five were posted on a fence. Then there were 39 online. That’s the way the purification process works. Where does it end?

NEXT CONFEDERATES

The next target for purification has been the Confederates. With police reform, there has been a legal process at the local, state, and federal level to pass new laws and make changes. The same has applied to Confederates regarding the naming of military bases, the removal of statues, and the changing of street names. But some people also have taken the purification process into their own hands and acted independently of the law. Statues have been toppled. That’s the way the purification process works.

NEXT COLUMBUS

At first glance, Columbus would seem to have nothing to do with George Floyd or police reform. You are wrong. Once it is started, purification just keeps going and going and going. Columbus like the Confederates already has been under attack. Cleansing actions have been undertaken in multiple states to remove the presence of Columbus. The current situation provided an opportunity to further act to purify the country.

Ironically, in the village where I live, the march on May 25 to protest police brutality began in Columbus Park. The park is located not that far from Columbus Ave. The march against police brutality stayed focused on the issue of the police. To the best of my knowledge there was no call to rename the park or the street on which Spanish-speaking people live. Nor has there been any indication of traumatized people stressed out for living with the Columbus name. At some point, these people are going to have to be educated in the steps required to purify the village of Columbus. The questions of racism and genocide will be raised time and time again until every statue, every street, every building has been purified of the Columbus name. That’s the way the purification process works.

As the ongoing situation in New Mexico demonstrates, people called Hispanic who are of Spanish, white, Caucasian descent have a non-politically correct view of he Spanish in the 1500s and 1600s just as Italians do of Columbus. Is there room in America for peoples who have different heroes?

NEXT SLAVEOWNERS 

Albany, N.Y. Mayor Kathy Sheehan has announced that the city will be taking down the statue of Philip Schuyler because he was a slave owner. Dr. Alice Green, Executive Director at the Center for Law and Justice, said: “He enslaved them, he devalued them, and the lesson for young people is that: Why are we glorifying people who treated us that way?”  An objection was raised by former state legislator and city historian Jack McEneny:  “Philip Schuyler is one of the people who… if we didn’t have him, we would’ve lost the battle of Saratoga.” In response, Dr. Alice Green, said: “I don’t believe in censorship. I do believe if somebody wants to glorify Philip Schuyler… they should, but not on my government property.”

There are other examples glorifying Philip Schuyler. One is the nearby Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site located on state government property and operated by the New York State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation. Another is the Schuyler House, Philip Schuyler’s country house, located near the Saratoga battlefield and owned and operated by the National Park Service on federal government property.  What is the basis for removing the statue but keeping state and federal ownership of his houses? Why should taxpayer money be used to support the homes of a slave owner? Shouldn’t these houses be privatized as Green suggested? One thing always leads to another. That’s the way the purification process works.

What about Schuylerville, the village where the Schuyler House is located? Shouldn’t its name be changed? Schuylerville has asked for the Schuyler statue to be relocated to it from Albany with the intention of displaying it at (or near) either of the federal sites. It has no intention of changing its name. As with the Americans of Spanish and Italian descent, the residents of the village have a non-politically correct perspective. Is there room in America for peoples who have different heroes?

What about the streets with the name of a slave owner? Just as the name “Columbus” must be purged as part of the purification process, so too must the names of all slave owners be eliminated from America’s streets and buildings. This process too is already underway especially at colleges where buildings have been renamed. However it has not yet been extended to the individual street names. Systemic racism means simply removing a statue is not enough. All vestiges of slavery need to be removed. Those street names after slave owners have to go if the municipalities and country are to be purified of the reminders of slavery. That’s the way the purification process works.

Do you think I am exaggerating? A reporter in Albany asked, do all the slave-owner named streets and parks have to go along with the Schuyler statue including those named after the founders of the city and the country.

Yes, said Derek Johnson, who is black and represents the South End on the Albany Common Council. “If we’re going to be consistent, all of them should be changed,” Johnson told [reporter Chris Churchill]. “Right is right.”

NEXT ALEXANDER HAMILTON

A bigger problem is Schuyler’s daughters. They appear in the musical Hamilton as one of them married Alexander Hamilton. The daughters were all beneficiaries of white privilege. What are they doing on Broadway in positive roles? Shouldn’t they be removed from the musical? If seeing a statue is traumatic what does that make seeing living examples of these daughters of white privilege singing and dancing before an appreciative audience? What does that make the people who pay to see them? “Who will the story?” the musical famously asks. The real story is one of slavery and not that of Hamilton’s immigration. That’s the way the purification process works.

NEXT THE FOUNDING FATHERS

Then what about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington who also appear in the musical. As Derek Johnson said, they all have to go  Imagine the trauma experienced by the black actors performing in the role of an author of the Declaration of Independence and the father of the country. Doesn’t that qualify as cruel and unusual punishment? Both founding fathers already have been under attack. Seventy-five-per-cent-white Sally Hemmings has become a cause célèbre as a black person in the life of Jefferson. Washington has been attacked for tracking Ona Judge Staines. How can the country be purified if slave owners are the people who founded it? They and the country they created have to go. That’s the way the purification process works.

NEXT JULY 4

The birthday of the slave country is July 4. The Declaration of Independence was written by people who owned people. The purification of the United States demands that the people be liberated from a country based on racism. Indeed, The New York Times received a Pulitzer Prize for showing that America is a slave-based country. The newspaper also identified the birthday of the new country to be created: 1619.

NEXT THE CONSTITUTION

Just as the birthday of the country needs to be changed, so too the governing document needs to be scrapped. It is the product of racist slave owners. The purification of the United States demands that the people be liberated from a governing document created by slave owners.

Systemic racism cannot be eliminated as long as the birthday and governing document of the country are based on racism. Instead of celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States, the country needs to be cleansed of its sin. A new country based on 400 years should be created. Only then will the purification be completed. That’s the way the purification process works.

I am not saying this scenario will happen. I hope the readers of this blog understand that but based on past experience I know that many won’t. I am not saying that people in Politically Correct Command Central have a plan and are deploying the politically correct people (PCPs) to implement it. I am not saying there even is such a command center. I am not saying that the people protesting for police reform [a subject to be addressed in a future blog] aren’t patriotic Americans who want the country they love to live up to its ideals. I am saying the purification process described here is a logical conclusion to the forces that now have been unleashed. There really is no way to tell where this process will stop. We need a new national narrative for the 21st century.