A report on a petition to rename Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland, brings into further focus the considerable public discussion of the last few years of how we should deal with the memorialization of historical figures whose views and actions regarding slavery and race, and the related issues of European colonialism, clash with our current (and, I hope, more permanent) sensibilities on these issues. See, e.g., here and a related blog post here.
The simple response has often been this: Confederate memorials Out/Founding Fathers memorials In. But there are other example of the dilemma, as well. I wrote this five years ago, when the status of Woodrow Wilson was at issue (as it is, again), and I think this basic formulation of how we should approach each situation still makes sense.
It was one thing to be a bystander to the evil of governmental race discrimination, or even to being a willing beneficiary of the slave system (e.g., Washington, Jefferson, Madison). Such people's positive societal contributions may keep them out of permanent historical hell. But those, like Calhoun, who seized the opportunity to be enthusiastic apologists for and defenders of the slave system and made that the centerpiece of their public careers are beyond the pale. By affirmatively acting to role back what little progress had been made once slavery was abolished, Wilson probably put himself beyond the pale in the 20th Century. Racism was not THE centerpiece of Wilson's Administration, but it was not merely an incidental part, either. Woodrow Wilson lived simultaneously in two worlds at the time of his election to the Presidency in 1912: The polite Progressive Movement which focused on reining in the excesses of concentrated wealth centered in Wall Street; but also the only semi-reconstructed aristocratic South which was resentful of Yankee (Wall Street) control over the American economy. These worlds joined forces over their resentment of the J.P. Morgan's of America. Some good did come out of it, but the cost was a full reimplementation by the federal government of Southern Jim Crow policies. Wilson's 1912 election as the first post-Civil War Southern President was seen in the South as a triumph over the hated Yankees -- and Wilson governed accordingly, and not at all reluctantly. (A. Scott Berg's admiring 2013 biography of Wilson lays out the facts underlying this analysis, even though Berg himself seems to view Wilson's racist policies as a relatively minor flaw as compared to his Progressive achievements. After reading the book, I drew a different conclusion.)
How to apply this formulation is not always easy -- but debates over such applications can be useful. Take the question of Richard Montgomery High School -- and, indeed, the name of our own county, which was also named after the aforementioned Revolutionary War general, who was killed during an incursion into Canada in 1775. General Montgomery had been a career British officer who fell into disfavor in the British Establishment for being sympathetic to the colonists and them emigrated to New York; he rose to prominence in the early days of the Revolution when he was chosen to succeed Philip Schuyler (Alexander Hamilton's future father-in-law) in command of a large Continental Army force when Schuyler fell ill. General Montgomery never set foot in what is now Montgomery County; some now wish to remove his name from the high school because because, two years before his death, he married a woman whose family owned enslaved people. Specifically, his wife was the daughter of prominent New Yorker Robert Livingston, who owned owned enslaved people, and he then came into possession of such "property." Indeed, General Montgomery's wife's uncle Philip was deeply involved in the international slave trade, although her father had a mixed record on slavery, not dissimilar to (but a bit more enlightened, in a relative sense, than) Jeffersons'. See
here.
Ulysses S. Grant also married into a slave owning family, and while he eventually freed the slave he eventually owned, his father-in-law was an unabashed supporter of slavery.
The point about Generals Montgomery and Grant is that their historical significance is pretty much unrelated to slavery. And that, arguably, their contributions far outweighed the taint of slavery, which was a common part of our sinful past. We could say the same about Washington and Jefferson, who were far more implicated in, and benefitted from, slavery. We certainly cannot say the same about John C. Calhoun, Chief Justice Roger Taney (the Marylander who authored the Dred Scott decision), and all the Confederate generals who are commemorated. (There are virtually no public memorials to Confederate General James Longstreet, and there is a reason why: After the Civil War, Longstreet affirmatively fought against White Supremacists who sought to suppress the formerly enslaved. See So when, in order to send a signal that, as a practical matter, the South had not entirely lost the Civil War, White Supremacists began erecting statues lauded the general's "virtues", Longstreet was left out.)
While Woodrow Wilson presents what many would see as a tougher case (for the reasons set forth above, I believe he falls on the Confederate side of the ledger), Winston Churchill presents what may be an even tougher case. Churchill embodied European colonialism, with all the exploitation and racist rationalizations that grew out of it. One of his most significant quotes came in 1942, in the midst of the struggle against Hitler, when he said, "I have not become the King's First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." Churchill was a politician of his time, and but for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II, no one in the United States would even think of commemorating him. But that is a huge BUT FOR. See As much as any other individual in history, he legitimately symbolizes the destruction of the 20th Century Voldemort.
I hope that discussion in the Winston Churchill High School community (and in the County generally) will be an opportunity to work through and develop a deeper understanding of the flaws and virtues of members of the human race, and how they are dealt with in the public square.
here.
Ulysses S. Grant also married into a slave owning family, and while he eventually freed the slave he eventually owned, his father-in-law was an unabashed supporter of slavery.
The point about Generals Montgomery and Grant is that their historical significance is pretty much unrelated to slavery. And that, arguably, their contributions far outweighed the taint of slavery, which was a common part of our sinful past. We could say the same about Washington and Jefferson, who were far more implicated in, and benefitted from, slavery. We certainly cannot say the same about John C. Calhoun, Chief Justice Roger Taney (the Marylander who authored the Dred Scott decision), and all the Confederate generals who are commemorated. (There are virtually no public memorials to Confederate General James Longstreet, and there is a reason why: After the Civil War, Longstreet affirmatively fought against White Supremacists who sought to suppress the formerly enslaved. See So when, in order to send a signal that, as a practical matter, the South had not entirely lost the Civil War, White Supremacists began erecting statues lauded the general's "virtues", Longstreet was left out.)
While Woodrow Wilson presents what many would see as a tougher case (for the reasons set forth above, I believe he falls on the Confederate side of the ledger), Winston Churchill presents what may be an even tougher case. Churchill embodied European colonialism, with all the exploitation and racist rationalizations that grew out of it. One of his most significant quotes came in 1942, in the midst of the struggle against Hitler, when he said, "I have not become the King's First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." Churchill was a politician of his time, and but for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II, no one in the United States would even think of commemorating him. But that is a huge BUT FOR. See As much as any other individual in history, he legitimately symbolizes the destruction of the 20th Century Voldemort.
I hope that discussion in the Winston Churchill High School community (and in the County generally) will be an opportunity to work through and develop a deeper understanding of the flaws and virtues of members of the human race, and how they are dealt with in the public square.
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