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Why General Lee Doesn't Deserve A Statue But Jefferson Does

Why General Lee Doesn't Deserve A Statue But Jefferson Does

Reprinted with permission from Creators

In New York City, a statue of Thomas Jefferson has graced the City Council chamber for 100 years. This week, the Public Design Commission voted unanimously to remove it. "Jefferson embodies some of the most shameful parts of our country's history," explained Adrienne Adams, a councilwoman from Queens. Assemblyman Charles Barron went even further. Responding to a question about where the statue should go next, he was contemptuous: "I don't think it should go anywhere. I don't think it should exist."

When iconoclasts topple Jefferson, they seem to validate the argument advanced by defenders of Confederate monuments that there is no escape from the slippery slope. "First, they come for Nathan Bedford Forrest and then for Robert E. Lee. Where does it end? Is Jefferson next? Is George Washington?"

No historical figure is without blemish, they protest. And it's unfair to condemn our ancestors using today's standards. If owning slaves is the discrediting fact about Lee, how then can we excuse George Washington? As if on cue, "TFG" chimed in with a statement chiding the city for "evicting" the "late, great Thomas Jefferson, one of our most important founding fathers." Not so important, apparently, that former President Donald Trump felt the need to learn about him though, because the next phrase was "a principal writer of the Constitution of the United States." Sigh. No, Jefferson was in Paris during the Constitutional Convention. He authored another founding document Trump hasn't read. But never mind.

There is an answer — a reason why it's right to remove Robert E. Lee from his pedestal in Richmond, Virginia, yet wrong to exile Thomas Jefferson from a place of honor in American life. It requires grappling with the full complexity of human beings and the mixed legacy of history. We must, as William Shakespeare said, "Take them for all in all," that is, judge them for their entire lives, not just a part.

People who defend monuments to Lee on the grounds that he played an important role in our history are confusing significance with honor. Lee surely played a huge role in our history, but as the leader of an army whose aim was to destroy the union. That made him a textbook traitor. As Ulysses Grant put it in his memoir, recalling his feelings upon accepting Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Lee had fought "valiantly" but for a cause that was "one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse."

Is it fair to judge Lee by our modern standards? Perhaps not, but even by the standards of his own day, he is wanting. Much has been made of Lee's supposedly agonizing decision to resign his U.S. Army commission because he could not "raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children." But others, including Gen. Winfield Scott, who offered Lee command of the Union army in 1861, also hailed from Virginia, yet remained loyal, as did Virginian Gen. George Henry Thomas, the "Rock of Chickamauga," and an estimated 100,000 white Southerners who fought for the Union.

Lee's image has been sanitized and even beatified by purveyors of the "Lost Cause" narrative about the Confederacy. They've depicted Lee as an upright, chivalrous defender of tradition, a moral man and a Christian. But, as Adam Serwer reminds us, Lee was a cruel slave master. In the words of Wesley Norris, one of his slaves who attempted to escape and was whipped, "Not satisfied with simply lacerating our naked flesh, Gen. Lee then ordered the overseer to thoroughly wash our backs with brine, which was done." As the leader of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee enslaved all of the Black Union soldiers he captured as well as free Black Pennsylvanians his army encountered.

As the author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson enshrined the ideals that made this nation. Jefferson's words formed our national identity as free people and marked a departure in human affairs. A 19th-century Hungarian nationalist, Lajos Kossuth, called the American Declaration of Independence "the noblest, happiest page in mankind's history."

Was Jefferson a hypocrite? Oh, yes. One of history's most flamboyant. He owned slaves and almost certainly fathered children with his dead wife's half sister, Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman. But he never defended the institution (as Lee did), quite the contrary. He wrote, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

Do we overlook Jefferson's shameful private behavior? No, but we take him in full. His contribution to human liberty, despite his personal behavior, entitles him to a place of honor. There will always be an asterisk, but to say that statues honoring him "shouldn't exist," as the New York City assemblyman did, is to dismiss the Declaration, the American anthem.

As for George Washington, there would have been no nation to criticize or lionize without him. If Jefferson was the poet laureate of liberty, Washington was the living exemplar of republican virtue. Having led the revolution, he could have proclaimed himself king or dictator. Some urged him to do so. When King George III was told by the American artist Benjamin West that Washington intended to resign and return to private life after winning his country's freedom, the king said, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

He was. Many a revolutionary leader came after him. Most became despots in turn. None has achieved his greatness.

Yes, Washington held human beings in bondage, and that was terrible. Owning slaves is a blight on his record, but the rest shines bright. No nation that has judgment — and gratitude — can fail to honor him forever.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her most recent book is Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense."To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: mercuryatlasnine at Pixabay

Rep. Jim Jordan

Jim Jordan Gets A History Lesson On Vaccine Mandates

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Always determined to attack Democrats any way he can, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio has been loudly pushing anti-vaxxer ideas. On Monday, September 6, the far-right Republican congressman tweeted that "vaccine mandates are unamerican." And it didn't take Twitter users long to remind Jordan that in fact, vaccine mandates have a long history in the United States.

From businesses to the U.S. Armed Forces to schools, vaccine mandates existed in the United States long before the COVID-19 pandemic. And one of the medical experts who gave Jordan a badly needed history lesson was Houston-based Dr. Peter Hotez, who has made countless appearances on MSNBC and CNN in 2021. In response to Jordan, Hotez tweeted:

Twitter user Morten Øverbye, based in Oslo, Norway, reminded Jordan that a vaccine mandate came from George Washington, the United States' first president, back in 1777:

Here are some of the other tweets that fact-checked Jordan:

#EndorseThis: Kimmel Explains Why Trump Won’t Show His Taxes

#EndorseThis: Kimmel Explains Why Trump Won’t Show His Taxes

Donald Trump’s ongoing determination to conceal his tax returns — unlike any other president since Nixon — is annoying Jimmy Kimmel, who snarks: “He’s holding onto those tax returns tighter than an extra-crispy drumstick from KFC.” But the late-night comic has his own theory to explain why Trump doesn’t want us to see his tax returns. It’s an ego thing.

That oversize Trumpian ego heaved into view when he visited Mount Vernon, the home George Washington, with Melania, Emmanuel Macron, and the French president’s wife last year. We’re only learning details about the embarrassing incident now, but it seems that Trump insulted the Washingtons’ distinguished American home. He said the rooms were too small.

Quickly bored by the tour, he demanded to know whether Washington was “really rich” — and confided what the first president would have done “if he was really smart.” You’ll never guess.

As Kimmel observes: “If he were your uncle, it would be funny, right?”

Right! So click and chuckle as if someone else is president.

As Republican Politicians Cower, Where Is America’s Cato?

As Republican Politicians Cower, Where Is America’s Cato?

While the pipe bombs sent in recent days to vocal critics of the current U.S. administration failed to detonate, the act lodged itself firmly in the American psyche.

Combined with devastating gun violence at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, these violent acts from within have left the US even more divided, rattled and uneasy. And they pose the question of what leaders of a democracy must do.

True leaders – ones with courage and conviction – would have immediately denounced these attacks for what they were: acts of domestic terrorism. They would have called for unity and peace, denounced the divisive political rhetoric that fuels hate, and offered words that might have comforted the heartbroken and called a nation to find its better self.

As America enters the final stretch before the midterm elections, the Republican members of the House and Senate have also largely stayed quiet. They have put party and self-interest before country. They have prioritized re-election and power over institutional norms and civil discourse and abdicated practically every role the constitution envisioned – primarily that of checks and balances.

It is no coincidence that only retiring GOP House Representatives and Senators have spoken out against the vitriol spewing from the executive branch – and even then, only tepidly or fleetingly. Republican opponents who previously distanced themselves from the current President during the 2016 GOP primaries have now lined up behind him, fearing that falling afoul of him will jeopardize their political fortunes.

More alarmingly, the White House is now an open source of disinformation, content to offer the public “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories that once existed only in the far reaches of the internet and the fringes of society. It is not an exaggeration to say that the White House has given sustenance to the darkest elements of American political life.

And while many sitting Republican politicians are undoubtedly aware of the damage this is doing to their democracy, few if any have the courage to speak out against it. It’s unimaginable that out of all the congressmen and senators not one is willing to sacrifice his re-election chances by doing what’s morally right. Not one.

One could ask, where is the Cato in today’s republic?

Cato, the incorruptible Roman senator and Stoic, stood up to Julius Caesar and warned his fellow senators about the leader’s dishonorable motives. His reputation as a fierce defender of truth and justice was so great that centuries later, George Washington, John Adams, and Samuel Adams were each reportedly praised as being “the American Cato.”

Fast-forward to today, however, and an American Cato is nowhere to be found. Having felt the political tailwinds of vulgar speech, demographic agitation, and invented truths, Republicans running for office lack the courage and conviction to save American democracy from within. It remains to be seen how America’s political institutions will recover from this wholesale abdication of leadership.

[Frank Giustra is a Canadian businessman and global philanthropist whose foundation focuses on poverty alleviation and assisting people caught in natural disasters.]