Should the statues and monuments to such slave-holders as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison be taken down?
Absolutely not. Historical context must be applied.
Slavery has been a fully accepted institution and tradition for at least 8,000 years. It was part of almost all cultures. Slaves were usually acquired through conquest, usually people of close proximity and similarity. Greeks enslaved Greeks. Germanic tribe enslaved Germanic tribe. Persians enslaved Persians. Arabs enslaved Arabs. Chinese enslaved Chinese. Africans enslaved Africans. Native Americans enslaved Native Americans. Pacific Islanders enslaved Pacific Islanders. The fact is, everyone has a heritage of slavery. Every soul alive today has ancestors that were slave-owners, as well as ancestors who were slaves. This is not to demean the experiences of any slaves, including those brought to the Americas from Africa, but rather to point out that this situation goes back into the depths of history and was pervasive around the world. This is critically important to understand if we are going to properly evaluate the mindsets and values of individuals and cultures embroiled in slavery as we travel from our time back through time.
There are far worse human traditions than slavery. Genocide and cannibalism come to mind. Abject disrespect for nature probably also ranks worse in the big scheme of things. Human consciousness and beliefs of what is right and wrong have evolved (thankfully, in a very positive direction). We cannot rightly apply our modern sense and sensibilities to cultures that had not yet experienced this evolution. Through most of human history, slavery was rarely questioned, though mistreating slaves often was. From our perspective, we can certainly applaud those few individuals of olden times who seemed to stand against slavery. There were some. Jesus was not among them. No one in the Bible questions slavery. His own brothers sold Joseph into slavery. Many or all of the entire Israelite clan were in slavery several times. They didn’t like it for themselves, but they had no problem with it when the table was turned and they were the slave-masters. Should we tear down all Jewish Synagogues and Christian Churches because of this gross lapse of moral judgment? Of course not.
This wide cultural approval of slavery extends right into the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment. Yet, increasingly, slavery was being reconsidered by a liberal elite (certainly not by conservatives). By the time of the American Revolutionary War, a much larger number of people, but by no means a majority, were developing a sour view of slavery. Vermont became the first state to abolish slavery, in 1777, even as the abolition movement was in its infancy. Few other laws against slavery came about prior to the 19th Century. In 1811, Spain was the first country to abolish slavery internally and in its colonies. In 1833, Britain abolished slavery.
This period of the relatively early part of the 19th Century should be the earliest general cutoff date for stronger condemnation of those individuals, and cultures, that now were well aware of concerns being raised about the very legitimacy of slavery and soon a burgeoning abolitionist movement, but willfully refused to change and continued to support (conserve) the evil institution. Figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison were active well before this cutoff period, and should be given leniency, especially in consideration of their own stated misgivings regarding the tradition in which they, themselves, were involved. Even as slave-holders, they were in the vanguard. All spoke out against slavery. Jefferson called it a “moral depravity.” Madison suggested that slaves be liberated to enlist in the Continental Army. Washington wished that “slavery in the Country may be abolished,” and in his will did free all of his own slaves at his death in 1799 (but not wife Martha’s, from a previous marriage, and legally bound to her descendants). George Washington’s slaves left Mount Vernon in 1801, 64 years before all slaves in his native Virginia, including most of Martha’s, would be freed. At the time, the shock effect on the nation of a man of Washington’s stature and moral credibility freeing his slaves was enormous. If not unheard of, no one of George Washington’s fame and fortune had ever made such a thundering, audacious, claim against slavery. It might be claimed that the nascent American abolitionist movement bumped into a higher gear at that signal event.
Even more so, these founding American fathers should be given generous credit, which should override their culturally-accepted slave-holding status, by virtue of their heroic work to establish a new nation, the first in history, to be self-governed. By establishing, and bravely fighting for, American ideals — liberty, equality, justice FOR ALL — these people unleashed democracy upon the world, which has now spread to well over 100 countries (some now doing a better job at it than we are). Those founding fathers were smart enough to realize that their words would assume a life, and power, of their own. There might still be worldwide accepted slavery, if not for this development. Soon enough, a Civil War in 1861–65, would finally end slavery in the United States.
Those who rose to prominence during or later than this cut-off period, such as John Calhoun, continuing to defend slavery (and seek its expansion into new states), and, of course, the Confederates who were willing to kill other Americans to conserve this evil tradition, are the irredeemable. The statues of these traitors to American ideas and America itself should never have been erected in the first place. They were traitors to America, and to virtue. They must come down, and their flag relegated to contextual museums. But not Washington. Not Jefferson. Not Madison. Their flag was the American flag. They invented America. Without any one of these three, the America we know does not exist. They knew what they were attempting to create, and calculated that if it lasted beyond a generation or two, it would become something closer to the ringing words they left behind. Read the Declaration of Independence, read the Preamble to the Constitution, and see there an opponent of oppression of all kinds. Not just former slaves, but Native Americans, women, workers, immigrants, LGBTQ people, disabled Americans, and many others have fastened their demand for equal rights to the thoughts and words of these particular individuals. If you believe in American ideals, which mandated the eventual end of slavery, you can thank these old slave-holders for lighting the fuse to its demise.
George Washington, of course, is the most important of the three; indeed, no one else compares. “The Father of Our Country” did not just fall into that highest of accolades; he fully, fitfully, flawed as he was, earned it. Washington is, without doubt, the most important American to ever live. He was the steadying force for a wobbly nation before and after the Revolution: the General, the tactician, the hero, the first president of a toddling nation; for all of his power and fame and wealth, he was remarkably humble. And he was the most revered, now and then (not withstanding the haters). He was the anti-Trump. It’s probable he actually told a lie somewhere along the way, but he damned sure didn’t tell three every time he opened his mouth. Though more qualified to be court clown, Trump seems to want to be an emperor, perhaps the next Vlad the Impaler. Some would have made Washington king; he didn’t even want to be president. He was the first and last to have held that sentiment, the rest of them hungry for power, for good or ill. Then, after two terms, he had had more than enough, though there were no rules that mandated his departure. He could have easily held on to power for life. Instead, Washington established the sacred precedent of perhaps America’s most glowing historical success: the peaceful relinquishment and transfer of power. If she has so far failed at every other ideal, America has schooled the world in that regard. Wouldn’t you know, the anti-Washington, Trump, the ducktail-comb-over coiffed, tin hat conservative tyrant, with beautiful teeth and a daughter he would like to “date” and a son-in-law in charge of everything who made everything worse, would deign to threaten that most regal of American achievements? If we could invent the quintessential “American” fictional episode, it would be a resurrected General Washington, in full Continental Army uniform, single-handedly storming the Oval Office on Biden’s inauguration day to find the intransigent, ever grandstanding, traitor Trump, refusing to leave and pitifully crying for his cultists to crown him emperor, with William Barr and his Injustice Department about to do just that, when the FOOC punches both their lights out and pitches their fat asses out the window… and the golden crown, too. Whereupon, they are taken into custody by federal agents. Now that would be the inglorious finale to the Trump presidency that it so fully deserves.
Meanwhile, those who would topple or deface Washington’s monuments, or those of his Virginia compatriots, have not a clue what they are conspiring. These were no Confederates. These were the founders of America. Vandalism against their memory or honor is not “woke,” it’s not “revolutionary,” it’s not “justice,” it’s just plain old petty, spoiled and stupid. Such defamers don’t know how wrong they are. They only have the right to even voice objection to that time and circumstance because of the vision and efforts and sacrifice of democracy’s true heroes that they would try, but cannot, ever, throw down… nor in their wildest dream match up to. Just stop it, you fools, or you cannot be trusted to know up from down, right from wrong.
There are two further issues to consider that dovetail with this 21st Century zeal to reclaim, and sometimes rewrite, the history of slavery and oppression. The first is horrible; the second is worse.
So you think it’s cool to hate slavery and cruelty and violence and feel compelled to condemn all who participated in it, even so far back when it was a socially accepted tradition and institution, the very foundation of some economies? OK. So then you are well aware that there are more slaves today in the world than there were 200 years ago. Yes, there are an estimated 40 million slaves in the world today! You knew that, right? Slavery, still serving capitalism. And you, brave statue toppler, are fighting hard to stop it, right?
No, you are probably not. In fact, you may well be fully supporting modern day slavery, rarely out in the open but still proliferating in countries near and far. While spray painting Washington, Jefferson or Madison, you may well be wearing shoes made by a slave. You may have a phone in your pocket made by a slave. You may be wearing clothing or jewelry made by a slave. You may have food in your refrigerator harvested by a slave, including produce grown right here in America. You may delight in eating seafood that was hauled up by slaves. You may wear a sports team or MAGA hat made by a slave. You may crave chocolate brought to you by slaves. You may have investments in gold or silver or diamonds or other valuables dug out of dirty, dangerous mines… by slaves.
Alright, maybe you didn’t know about these slave-produced goods, but surely you have protested and picketed your state and local prisons, which effectively make slaves of inmates, earning the prison labor industry over a billion dollars per year! And certainly you must have marched in lockstep with thousands of others against sex trafficking, an enterprise in which up to 20 percent of all modern slaves are captured, ongoing around the world, including right here in the USA!
No, you haven’t lifted a finger against these atrocities either? Then maybe you should get your own moral house in order by actually changing your mindset and behavior and consumption patterns before you go waving pitchforks at the statues of people whose moral buckles, much less shoes, you couldn’t carry. Do the world a favor and educate yourself about modern slavery, in which an estimated quarter are children. And then take personal action to make sure you are not helping to enable it.
Then there is this consideration. Do not be too smug about your own “modern” moral superiority compared to Washington and Co. Consciousness is still rising! The ARC (Accelerating Rate of Change) continues its inexorable bend. Just as the vast majority of humankind once lived in unconscious and/or unmoved acquiescence to slavery, so, too, do we today live in the stupor of a far worse moral criminality. One hundred years from now, people are going to look back and say, “How could they do that?” to the wanton destruction of nature, and, especially, our worldwide, industrial scale enslaving, torturing and murder of TRILLIONS of animals every year… when we no longer need to. This is matricide, plain and simple, the murder of Mother Earth. It dwarfs all inhumanity of man against man. That new statue of YOU going up somewhere, your name emblazoned on some organization or building, even the memory of you by your great-grandchildren, may well be rightly threatened by what beliefs and behaviors you exhibited during the dawn of this looming new, and greatest, “civil” rights movement.
Don’t speak of peace and love when you’re chewing on the dove!
Copyright 2020, Rusty Reid
