Foundering Fathers

This is a small action, but it is motivated by a principle that is becoming more and more popular: Public memorials to historical figures need to be evaluated not just on the figures’ contributions to civil society, but their other beliefs and actions, especially regarding the matter of slavery. If this view were adopted, it would have sweeping consequences. If the name of James Madison must be struck from public buildings, schools, and towns because he owned slaves, what about George Washington? What about Thomas Jefferson? James Monroe? John Marshall? Henry Clay? Andrew Jackson? The list of names that would have to be removed from public places goes on and on; it would mean thousands of new names required all across the country.

Before we the people initiate such a heady project, it is fair to inquire whether this notion can withstand scrutiny. Must we relegate historical figures with a connection to slavery to the dustbin of history?

To begin, whatever cut-off point we identify delineating acceptable and unacceptable historical personages would have to be arbitrary—unless of course we get rid of nearly every public testament. Slavery, after all, was essential to the American economy for centuries. The Southern plantation gentry had slaves to grow their cotton, but it was shipped in Yankee boats to England, or to Northern textile mills to be spun into cloth. Who was culpable for this state of affairs? One could argue that anybody who wore cotton garments at any point prior to the Civil War is guilty in some respect. By the same token, the system of slavery was largely acceptable to most quarters of the nation for most of American history prior to the Civil War. If James Madison is to be excluded from the annals of honor, why not Alexander Hamilton? He was personally opposed to slavery, but he did not try to have it outlawed by the Constitution at the convention in Philadelphia.

And why should we limit our denunciations to those who owned slaves? Why not anybody who committed what we judge to be public or private misdeeds? Franklin Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans during World War II. Should his name be stricken from all public memorials? John F. Kennedy, while angling for the presidency during the 1950s, tended to vote against civil rights measures while in Congress. Ditto Lyndon Johnson. Should their names be removed as well? Teddy Roosevelt signed restrictive laws on immigration during his presidency and told Congress, “Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all.” Surely that must make some immigrants feel unsafe. Should we therefore blast his visage from Mount Rushmore? Abraham Lincoln won the Republican nomination in 1860 in part because he was more moderate on the slavery issue than William Seward. Should he be wiped from history for this?

Assuming that we can identify any such standard, it does not follow that those who fall on the wrong side of it must be refused public recognition. Honor is not the same as worship. To honor somebody is to hold him in esteem, to respect him. It does not require us to excuse or justify everything he did. Look again at the names of slaveholders from America’s past—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Clay, Marshall, Jackson. Are they worthy of honor? Of course they are! They laid the foundations for the stable, prosperous, and free republic that we all enjoy today.

We owe them a debt of gratitude for their endeavors, notwithstanding the misdeeds they committed. If I contract somebody to paint my house, and I find out later that he is an adulterer, does that excuse me from paying what I owe? Of course not. By the same token, my debt for the painting does not oblige me to act as though he did not wrong his spouse. So it goes with the Founders who owned slaves: We should appreciate them for their endeavors, for our lives are manifestly better because of their struggles, but honoring them does not require us to ignore or excuse their errors. Madison’s home Montpelier, for example, just opened an exhibition, “The Mere Distinction of Colour,” exploring slavery at the plantation.

Wiping the Founders from the public memory, moreover, endangers the perpetuation of our republic. They were no doubt flawed men, but they were flawed men who invented this system of government. If we wish to make the most of our government, we have to understand how it functions. That requires us to understand what these men thought and did. The decisions they made, and the assumptions behind them, reverberate through the generations, into the present day. Public memorials are a way to keep us mindful of their continued influence, so that as we endeavor to understand civil society, we remember to look to them.

While planning the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote that it would be a school whose students and faculty would not be “afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” It is an important motto to remember in this age of “safe spaces,” anxieties about “microaggressions,” and the like. Nobody should feel afraid of the figures from our history, nor compelled to redact them from the public memory. Instead, we should honor statesmen from our past for the good things they did and not hesitate to rebuke them for the bad. In this way, we properly pay the debt we owe them, and we also learn to be better citizens.

Jay Cost is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that James Madison High School was located in Verona. It is located in Madison.