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Thomas Jefferson

New York City Council Endorses Donald Trump for President: This Isn’t an April Fools Joke

October 24, 2021
by Peter Feinman
NYC Public Design Commission calls for toppling statues of slave-owner Ramses II at Abu Simbel (Wikepedia)

In a stunning and surprising move the Public Design Commission in New York City voted to endorse Donald Trump for the presidency in 2024. Amazingly, this action was taken three years before the election. It occurred in a jurisdiction that voted overwhelmingly against him in both 2016 and 2020. One might legitimately wonder why the Commission is so eager to encourage people to vote for Trump.

To answer that question, one should consider two facets of the puzzle: the historical and the political. The decision by the Commission to remove the statue of Thomas Jefferson from the Council chambers is both a political issue for the election itself (and possibly the 2022 Congressional elections as well) and an historical one as America prepares for the 250th anniversary of the signing of a document Jefferson wrote at the birth of the country.

NEW YORK AND THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY

During the 2021 legislative session, the New York State Senate and Assembly authorized the creation of a state commission for the 250th. Besides the obvious historical reasons for such a commission, as a matter of procedure, federal money for the 250th will be distributed through state commissions. Therefore it behooves states to create such commissions.

The bill is waiting for the Governor signature. Under the previous Governor, bills like this one tended to linger until the fourth quarter when they would be authorized. As an example, the bill for the quadricentennial of the non-New York 1619 event was not finally signed until 2020, meaning after the anniversary had occurred. A commission was to be created perhaps to be made public in March, 2020. That also was the time of covid, so in the end there never was a 1619 Quadricentennial Commission in New York.

A similar delay will not occur here. The new Governor obviously is quite busy right now including preparing for her own election campaign in 2022. I have been told that she soon will sign the bill. It definitely is to her advantage to own the 250th as New York was very involved in the American Revolution and in its continued legacy.

In some ways, there is no rush. While the Federal program is gearing towards 2026, things in New York will just be getting started then and will continue until Evacuation Day, November 25, 2033. In fact, the first big event in New York occurred just after July 4, 1776. The event is the toppling of the statue of King George III on July 9, 1776, at Bowling Green, just a few blocks from City Hall and the city council chambers.

So the first big event in New York as part of the 250th will be the response by New Yorkers to the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Undoubtedly this will be a big tourist event. The toppling of the statue will be re-enacted. Perhaps there will even be a convoy to Connecticut where the metal from the bronze statue became bullets for the Patriot army. The only one missing from this Declaration event will be Thomas Jefferson. He will be missing because:

“Jefferson embodies some of the most shameful parts of our country’s history,” said Adrienne Adams, Queens, co-chair Black and Latino caucus, New York City Council.

One possible disposition of the statue under discussion is to the New-York Historical Society. However in response to that suggestion current New York State Assemblyman Charles Barron said:

“I don’t think it should go anywhere. I don’t think it should exist. I think it should be put in storage or destroyed or whatever.”

The physical removal of Thomas Jefferson from the New York City Council chambers is easier than cancelling him from the American Revolution and its legacy. The legacy of the Declaration continued on in the efforts to end slavery in the United States. The legacy of the Declaration continued on in the efforts of white women to gain the same rights as white men. The legacy of the Declaration continues on to this very as an ideal by which to measure ourselves and to bend the arc of history. But not in the New York City Council. Will it cancel George Washington too?

THE POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS

Why do I say the action of the Public Design Commission in New York City is an endorsement of Trump? I certainly do not mean to suggest that the individual members of the Commission support him or want other people to vote for him. I am saying that their actions encourage people to vote for him. The Commission has taken a stand in the culture wars. Not everyone agrees with that decision or supports that side in the culture wars.

At this point there is no reason to pretend that we are not a divided country. We are an intensely polarized country. Masks have been weaponized. Vaccinations have been weaponized. 1619 has been weaponized. The American flag itself has been weaponized. People who fly it or show it or have it painted on a truck are presumed to have a particular political and cultural point of view. In an article entitled “A Fourth of July Symbol that May No Longer Unite”( NYT 7/3/21), the issue of the connection between the flag and a political party was raised. Peter Treiber, a farmer who has a flag painted on his potato truck, often is presumed to have political views which he does not share. He is concerned that the left has all but ceded the flag to the right.

Joe Biden, of course, embraces the flag. But in the Democratic Party, he is the remnant of the dying past and not the wave of the future. One should always keep in mind that he is the only Democrat who could have defeated Trump in 2020 and at this point is the only Democrat with a chance of beating him in 2024. There is no Plan B. Whether Democrats understand that or not is problematical. Whether the Woke care or not is even more problematical.

One should understand the Woke actions of the Public Design Commission in this light. For those toppling, removing, cancelling or whatever Thomas Jefferson, the joy and satisfaction may be fleeting. At the same time the Commission was taking this action, columnist Tom Friedman appeared on CNN. First he appeared on Anderson Cooper and then portions of the interview were replayed by Don Lemon. Clearly they understand the importance of the message Friedman is delivering: “Our next presidential election could well be our last as a shining example of democracy (September 29, 2021, print).

Friedman did not really say anything new, only more emphatically and with greater urgency. His recent op-ed piece asked “Have We Reshaped Middle East Politics or Started to Mimic It? (September 15, 2021, print). We now have Sunnis and Shiites where an “epidemic of tribal political correctness from the left served only to energize the tribal solidarity on the right.” His thinks Democrats are digging themselves into a hole and should stop digging. He defines American as a center-left to center-right country. By contrast the politically-correct-Woke-Progressives are all left all the time. And they communicate in an elitist derogatory manner. Whereas Trumpicans claim the Joe Biden presidency is illegitimate, the Woke claim the country of the United States is illegitimate born in original sin. Far from accepting the advice of Friedman to tone it down, they will instead double down.

The political consequences for the Woke assault on the legitimacy of the United States will be detrimental to the Democrats. It did not help them in 2020 Senate and House elections. The Virginia governorship is at risk this year. It will not help Democrats in the 2022 elections. It already is taken for granted that the Democrats will lose the House of Representatives. Then the January 6 Committee will be replaced by the first of the impeach Joe Biden committees. At the moment the 2020 presidential candidate loser is going like gangbusters within his own party and chomping at the bit to declare his candidacy for 2024. He can smell the blood in the Biden polls.

In the meantime, America’s third civil war rages on. It is being fought at the local level in school districts throughout the country. School Board members are seeking protection. Covid has enabled parents to see online what is being taught in the schools. People can relate to 1619, systemic racism, critical race theory, and diversity-equity-inclusion in their own communities. They can see which party waves the American flag and which does not. They can see which party praises the Founding Fathers and which party topples them. There are plenty of online venues where these issues are being discussed. The front-page headline of my local paper today (October 24) is “Are schools making progress on diversity?” Parents already are voting with their feet to remove children from republic schools and to recall school board members. They are energized.

These issues go right to the gut of voters. America’s greatest con artist can fake being a patriot, the Woke cannot. One should keep in mind that regardless of the vote in 2024, roughly half the country will not accept the results or even agree on the results. The only real issue is what happens then.

Historian Annette Gordon-Reed: The Culture Wars, Juneteenth, and 1/6

July 25, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Credit: Tony Rinaldo Photography

Nationally renowned American historian Annette Gordon-Reed has been everywhere this past year speaking out on history and the culture wars. Actually she has not been anywhere except for her home in New York City.  It just seems that way because during the COVID pandemic she has been everywhere virtually without having to leave home. That also means I have had the opportunity to hear her virtually without having to leave home either (and read her as well).

This blog is dedicated to highlighting a year of Gordon-Reed. I do not claim to have watched all her performances, read all her articles, or articles about her, but there are enough examples to provide a good insight into the thinking of one of America’s foremost historians discussing some of the hot-button cultural war topics of the times. To include all her performances would make for a very long blog.

Spoiler alert: Annette Gordon- Reed speaks normal.

July 2, 2020: Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape 

The AHA executive director James Grossman hosted David W. Blight, Yale University, and Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University. The interview is available online.

In this blog, I will focus on the comments of Gordon-Reed and given the space limitations will not be able to cover everything. One notes that the interview occurred shortly after the murder of George Floyd.

She commented that the culture war fight over monuments shifts attention from economic and social concerns. While that is true, symbolic acts are important, too. For example, the toppling of the statue of King George III in lower Manhattan after the signing of the Declaration of Independence was not simply a mere “symbolic” act. The challenge is to use the symbolic to further the other issues and not diminish them.

Gordon-Reed took great issue with the lumping together of the founders of the United States of America and the founders of the Confederacy. The founding documents of the Confederacy typically are overlooked compared to the military exploits of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Although the names of two political entities are similar and both share the American Revolution in common, the values expressed in the two sets of founding documents are not the same.

One could go one step further than she did. If England had ever freed the colonies on its own initiative as it later did Canada, it is quite possible that it would have divided the colonies into multiple nations. Without the shared experience of the American Revolution and leadership of George Washington, little held the 13 colonies together in 1776 beyond the previous allegiance to England. The Confederate Constitution provides us with a glimpse of how the South might have been governed as an independent country right from the start if there had not been a United States.

She considers July 4, 1776, to be the birthday of the country. She said there was nothing inevitable from the arrival of the English in 1607 in Virginia to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. She adds that 1776 also unleashed the anti-slavery movement (although it took until Juneteenth for it be fulfilled nationally). Although she did participate in The New York Times 1619 Project, her comments indicate she does not support replacing 1776 with 1619.

On the subject of memorials, monuments, and flags, Gordon-Reed said we need to have this kind of discussions [referring to the vote in Mississippi on changing the state flag] because people do terrible things. She opposes taking down monuments outside the law but supports the Jeffersonian idea of having periodic discussions about the monuments we do have. For the statue of Teddy Roosevelt at the American Museum of Natural History, she favors the removal the two people on his side due to the impact on children who see it. Personally, I favor adding a (white) Rough Rider of the same size and musculature as those two.

October 29, 2020: Jefferson: Then and Now (Massachusetts Historical Society)

The reputations of all of the founders have changed dramatically over the course of American history, none more than that of Thomas Jefferson. Historians Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University, and Peter Onuf, University of Virginia, will discuss the implications of recent political and social developments for our image of the slave-owning author of the Declaration of Independence, emphasizing the importance of situating Jefferson in his own historical context for a better understanding of the history and future prospects of democracy in America. Online here.

Sometimes, Gordon-Reed really tells it like is us with no sugarcoating. For example, there could not have a United States of America without slave states – get over it. This observation may be too real for people who prefer two-dimensional history. She comments that in the real world, Jefferson didn’t know what to do about slavery. He had faith in science and the enlightenment. Change would continue. We had defeated the most powerful nation on earth and there was an optimism that good things would happen as time went on. The idea of infinite possibilities seems naïve today but not then – the Founders thought things could become better.

One telling comment rings especially true: we need to believe in a shared past.

Gordon-Reed, as a biographer, tends to think of Thomas Jefferson as a person and not a cliché. He was both a slave-owner and author of the Declaration of Independence. Both aspects are part of who he was an individual human being. She suggests we think of him as a complex person who wanted to make a mark in the world and did.

Gordon-Reed adds a personal note on her attraction to Jefferson.  She became Jefferson fan in school. She learned that life and people are not simple. Jefferson had to have had a curious mind and that appealed to her. Yes historical researched shows people are flawed people but that does not eliminate the human need for heroes. We can recognize the importance of people and commemorate them without the adoration. She predicts that if we can revive a civic sense of democracy, then Jefferson will be an important figure.

She considers patriotism to mean being critical and telling the truth. After all, you can love your children without believing everything they do is right.

May 4, 2021: Black America’s Neglected Origin Stories (Atlantic, online, print June issue)

She begins her article with the revelation that she took Texas history in the fourth and seventh grades. I wonder how many states teach state history even once. In a book review on her new book, On Juneteenth, University of Texas Professor H. W Brands notes that the 7th grade teaching of Texas history to Texans occurs at the same age Catholic children are confirmed and Jewish kids are bar- and bat-mitzvahed (NYT May 9, 2021).

In those grades, she learned about the period of Spanish exploration in Texas. In particular, she recalls “stray references to a man of African descent—a ‘Negro’ named Estebanico—who travelled throughout Texas. She calls him “one of the first people of African descent to enter the historical record in the Americas.” Estebanico’s facilities with languages garners additional attention leading to more generalized comments about Africans as language-learners in American history. She notes that the 1520s is roughly a century earlier than when the most popular stories date the arrival of Africans. Gordon-Reed devotes a paragraph to observing the Virginia origin story [meaning 1619] leaves out this earlier time.

Next she turns to the origin stories of Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620. She recognizes the importance of origin stories for individuals, groups, and nations. While these two stories include interactions with the local people, she laments the absence of Africans in either one. Gordon-Reed suggests St. Augustine, Florida, beginning in 1565, to be added to the mix.

Her next point is more crucial. In her studies of American history, the British and its colonies tend to be privileged in the narrative. Spain, France, and the Dutch tend to be historical footnotes, ignored or minimized. England was the winner in all these relationships. The implication of Gordon-Reed’s observations is that beside the traditional issue of the role of Africans in American history, there is separate issue of the privileging of English or Anglo history in American history. I would refine that further to privileging the New-England-Massachusetts-Harvard perspective based on where these histories were written. White people from New York to the Confederates can be shortchanged in these histories as well.

May 9, 2021: Texas on Her Mind (NYT)

In the aforementioned book review, Brands makes a telling point about her. He cites the story she would have learned about Cynthia Ann Parker. This staple of the 7th grade class tells of “a white girl stolen by Comanches on the Texas frontier and adopted into the tribe. She bore a son, Quannah, who became the last great warrior of the Comanches.”  He quotes Gordon-Reed realizing “that so many wrong things were packed into this one narrative.” Such as the Comanches “defending from the whites … land they had seized from other Indians. She discovered that Indians held slaves, with some [of them] for this reason siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War.” Kidnapping girls to make them brides also offended her.

I would comment that for Gordon-Reed, the curious individual growing up in this milieu in Texas of Africans, Comanches, Confederates, Indians, Spanish, and (white) Texans helped prepare her to tackle a subject like Thomas Jefferson. She has the perceptive ability to see beyond the two-dimensional stereotypes. She was blessed with encountering to many of them they could not all be true.

June 18, 2021 On Juneteenth — A Virtual Discussion with Annette Gordon-Reed (American Philosophical Society)

Her new book, On Juneteenth, combines history and family memoir of her life in Texas. As a child, Juneteenth was a fun day of drinking soda pop to excess, fire crackers, visiting family and friends like July 4 is a national holiday. Gordon-Reed identifies family as the essence of the holiday and separation of family as enslavement.

Given all the current fuss about the Alamo and slavery, she comments that it is impossible to teach Texas history and the Alamo without including slavery. The Texas Constitution differs from the U.S. Constitution in that it is explicit about slavery and racism. Mexico had outlawed slavery. The Texas slaveholders wanted to be part of the Cotton Kingdom with slavery and not Mexico without it. Mexico’s desire for a buffer with the Comanche often is overlooked as well.

Slavery in Texas predates slavery in Virginia. It began in the 1500s (1528) with Spain. The story was not one of plantation but exploration. One African even reached the Pacific as one of four survivors.  Gordon-Reed wonders what the impact would be if these Spanish/African memories were added to America’s origin story that didn’t privilege the English and Virginia. She wants such an adjustment to be considered.

July 12, 2021: Jan. 6 was a “turning point” in American history

 Interview by Chauncey DeVega, Salon

Gordon-Reed sees January 6 as “potentially a turning point in the country’s history….The whole concept of democracy and the republic are at stake. Confederates have not abandoned the “Lost Cause.” The defenders of Confederate statues have not repudiated that past. They have not changed.

Strangely enough, the Confederates actually seem to have won the cultural battle over the Civil War. When Gordon-Reed was growing up in Texas, she only occasionally saw a Confederate flag. Now she sees them more than she ever had in her entire childhood. In the constant battle for power, she points to the plantation weddings as an example of how white people today can block out the real meaning of plantations in American history. She might have added that to some extent that has been going since the book and the movie Gone with the Wind in the 1930s  Just because people admire the chivalry, nostalgia, and romantic setting of a medieval castle does not mean people want to live in the Middle Ages.

July 4, 2021: Between Juneteenth and the Fourth of July (NYT)

Let me conclude this overview with her own words:

Almost as soon as they were published, Jefferson’s soaring words in the Declaration’s preamble took on particular meaning to African Americans: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”,,, Every major Black leader or commentator on Black life in the United States, from the 18th century until today, has used the Declaration to analyze and critique the status of Black Americans.

What does all this mean as the Congressional investigation of 1/6 is set to begin? Gordon-Reed is right to point out the importance, I would say necessity, of having a shared story for the country. Obviously we do not have one. The January 6 Commission will show for the record that we live in two separate countries making little pretense that we are united. Whether or not we can create that shared narrative by July 4, 2026, is highly problematical. But if the history organizations want to contribute to that effort, then Annette Gordon-Reed would be an excellent choice to spearhead that effort.

[F]ortunately, the Declaration does not belong solely to historians. Like all good writing, the words took on a meaning outside the context in which they were written.

The notion of equality referred to in the Declaration has become an animating principle in American life. Indeed Jefferson, by the end of his life, understood that his words on the subject had taken on a larger meaning. They even influenced Gen. Gordon Granger and, thus, played a role in Juneteenth….

It may be hard for some to do this in our fractious times, but both holidays should be used to reflect upon the common value that Juneteenth and the Fourth have come to express: the recognition of the equal humanity and dignity of people the world over.

When Did Lincoln Become a Democrat?: Inauguration 2021

January 22, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Tom Hanks at the Lincoln Memorial (https://www.fangirlquest.com/travel/happy-birthday-forrest-gump/)

Inaugural Day is a day for Presidents. January 20, 2021, was no different. There were Presidents physically in attendance. There were Presidents there in spirit through mentions of them in speeches. There was a President who provided the backdrop for a celebration of America. Truly it was a day for Presidents.

Of all the Presidents, the one who loomed most prominently over the proceedings was Abraham Lincoln. I make this claim based on no scientific study of the speeches but simply based on my aural and visual impressions of the day. It was a day for Lincoln.  In some ways, that should not be surprising given the Civil War references to the current situation. The biggest change was the reference to a war between the Red and the Blue instead of the Blue and the Gray. Nonetheless, it should be noted that Lincoln was a Republican president and the people celebrating his life were Democrats; the Confederate-based Republican Party never sings his praises.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s examine the Presidents and the setting for Inaugural Day.

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT THE FOUR PRESIDENTS WHO WALKED INTO….

“Peaceful transfer of power” was one of the phrases that We the People have heard frequently in the past few weeks and months. It refers to something routine in the United States and rare in the world. It refers to one person in power freely relinquishing that position not simply to another person but to a person in political opposition. We take this action for granted so much so that it rarely is commented on until this election.

George Washington stepped away from power twice. Even once would have been remarkable but he did it twice. The first occurred when the “Indispensable Person” to the victory in the American Revolution stepped down from power and returned to his farm. He immediately was compared to the Roman Cincinnatus. King George III who was on the losing side was in shock and stated:  “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

But Washington was not through. A few years later he became the first President of the United States of America. After two terms, he stepped down. A few years later, his Vice President who had become President stepped down and peacefully transferred power to his bitterest rival after a contentious election. Later then became lifelong pen pals. They both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the birth of the country they had created. So besides the upcoming 250th anniversary, it also will be the bicentennial of that momentous day.

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nations, how many have had a peaceful transfer of power?

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nations, how many have an over 200-year tradition of a peaceful transfer of power? 100 years? 50 years? 10 years?

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nation, how many have had ceremonies with the current leader and three predecessors (four if it hadn’t been for the pandemic)?

Of the over 190 countries in the United Nations, how many have five predecessors who are even alive?

We take much for granted. We take for granted what George Washington did in setting this country on course to being a constitutional republic and not a monarchy, banana republic, or dictatorship.

We take much for granted in how our Presidents become members of a very small club.

George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter January 7, 2009 (Photo by David Hume, Kennerly /GettyImages)

How George Bush the father became a surrogate father to William Clinton who had no father growing up he could call his own.

George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Sully, Kennebunkport on June 25, 2018.
(Evan F. Sisley / via Associated Press)

How First Michelle Obama and George Bush the son could so casually and without artifice stand together.

Michelle Obama hugs George W. Bush, Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, Sept. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

We are reminded of what we take for granted by the behavior of the sore loser who did not participate in this inaugural ritual. The person who wanted to be President for Life unlike the far wealthier George Washington whom he mocked for not naming anything after himself.  The person who only considered the votes of “real Americans” to be valid and worked for weeks to steal the election. The person who instigated a coup attempt and as always did not have the courage of his convictions because he has neither courage nor convictions. The person who sulked in the corner out of sight when he couldn’t be the center of attention and would have to peacefully transfer power to the winner.  His behavior will become part of the historical record in contrast to Washington and so many others, a testament to how the immature child failed to live up to the adult responsibilities of the job.

THE EYES OF THE WORLD ARE UPON US  

The eyes of the world continue to be upon us. When people who are not free wish to free, they do not think of China or Russia. The global symbol for freedom remains the Statue of Liberty.

In the span of a mere two weeks, another symbol of the United States, the Capitol, experienced two of the widest swings in imagery possible. Today we live so much in the moment that it is hard to realize how much has happened in those few days. One President of the United States instigated an insurrection so he could steal the election and remain in power. The House of Representatives then impeached that President for a second time. A new President was inaugurated. He took his oath of office at the very site of the American carnage perpetrated by his predecessor. In a few days, the Senate, in that same building will take up the trial to convict the former President. While the former party of Lincoln will not allow that conviction to occur, at least the actions will become part of the official record of the country for posterity and all the world to see.

On January 6, 2021, the world was in shock in what it saw happening in the United States. On January 20, 2021, the world was in relief that the peaceful transfer of power had occurred.  One day, when there once again will be tourism, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall, and Lafayette Square will become even more visited sites than they were before American experienced the twin disasters.

THE PARTY OF LINCOLN

Since my first blog on the end of the Republic Party as the party of Lincoln appeared in 2016, I am not surprised that now it is becoming official. Even prior to January 6, various elected Trumpicans had openly proclaimed that the Republican Party was now the party of Trump.

The Trumpicans who helped incite the insurrection were not acting in the spirit of Lincoln.

The Trumpicans who sought to steal the election by disqualifying electors were not acting in the spirit of Lincoln.

The Trumpicans in the House who voted in support of the President of the United States’s attempt to steal the election through an insurrection were not acting in the spirit of Lincoln.

The Trumpicans in the Senate who will vote not to convict the President of United States for his attempt to steal the election through an insurrection will not act in the spirit of Lincoln.

The abrupt and expected flip-flop of Kevin McCarthy documents the political calculation that there is more to gain from being the Trumpican Party than the Republican Party. Next year when the pandemic is over, the economy has recovered, and more and more of the truth of Trump regime and his life have been revealed, the wisdom of forsaking Lincoln for Trump will be tested.

In the meantime, January 20, 2021, was a day of Lincoln and the country is better for it.

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?