Well, well, I said to myself when I heard that New York City Hall was taking down its massive statue of Thomas Jefferson — that’s loyalism for you. New York always did have monarchist sympathies. Perhaps, having removed the effigy of the republican rebel, it will restore the statue of George III at Bowling Green and call Columbia “King’s College” again.
I was, of course, being whimsical. But the actual reason for removing the Jefferson statue is, if you think about it, just as odd. Until now, Jefferson has been remembered for the fecundity of his mind, the brilliance of his pen, and the nobility of the principles that he wrote into the DNA of the nation he helped create. But our present age judges everyone solely by the measure of race, and more or less damns any white man born before World War I.
