In July 1776, New Yorkers celebrated the first Independence Day by destroying a symbol that honored a leader once respected but lately denounced as an oppressor — namely, a two-ton lead statue of King George III.
Aroused by the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in the city, a crowd of soldiers and civilians gave “three Huzzas” and marched down Broadway to the Bowling Green, where they found the king sitting on a horse, dressed as the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. They tossed ropes over the statue and pulled it down in a crash. The men chopped off the head and mutilated the nose. A few soldiers peppered the remains with musket fire.
The parallel to today seems clear enough: Crowds toppling statues to make a political statement is as old as America itself. It’s part of a venerable protest tradition. Would-be Twitter wits have made it a meme.
Yet the comparison, though superficially accurate, is also quite misleading. The destruction of King George’s statue is not like the destruction of statues today. The context is different. The practical effect is different. And, most importantly, the availability of peaceful means of any offending statue’s removal is different.
The New Yorkers of 1776 were under invasion by their king. British forces, 25,000 men and 150 ships strong, loomed off the city. Gen. George Washington, commanding the defense, ordered a public reading of the Declaration on the evening of July 9 to steel his men’s spines and focus their minds on what they fought for. The Declaration, he said, should “serve as a fresh incentive to every officer, and soldier, to act with Fidelity and Courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms.”
Today’s protesters are not at war with their fellow Americans. Rhetoric to the contrary is neither helpful nor true, and the pulling down of statues inflames passions already charged by months of coronavirus anxiety. It makes a political statement not to unify people against a common danger but to divide them against each other.
The assault on King George III had a practical as well as symbolic function: The Continental Army needed the lead. Once the statue was on the ground, it was hauled off to a foundry in Connecticut, where it was melted down and turned into 42,088 musket balls.
Today, each statue removal causes a new headache over what to do with it. Placement in a museum sounds reasonable, except that most museums don’t have the resources to house enormous objects that require maintenance, preservation, security, and sensitive interpretation.
Indeed, removed Confederate statues, unable to be melted down for bullets, often end up warehoused in secret locations.
As a result of the Revolution, communities have a peaceful process to decide how to commemorate the past. When the George III statue was unveiled in 1770, New Yorkers didn’t really want it. They preferred a celebration of William Pitt, the prime minister who supported repeal of the Stamp Act of 1765. But since the city had no monument to the king, it was thought impolitic to have one of Pitt alone. So the assembly ordered two statues to ensure they didn’t offend their sovereign.
Over the past five years, dozens of cities and institutions have removed symbols offensive to the community. True, some states have laws against removing statues, which smacks of the old British way, and legal complexities can tie down their removal in lawsuits for years. But state legislators are elected, and laws can be changed. Patience and the hard work of political persuasion is the price of democracy, an option not available in 1776.
The story of King George’s toppling has a seldom-appreciated coda. Washington did not approve. Though he admitted it was “actuated by Zeal in the public cause,” the action had “so much the appearance of riot and want of order, in the Army, that he disapproves the manner.” Removal of statues, he said, should be “left to be executed by proper authority.”
Washington grasped that, however gratifying it might be to destroy a symbol of injustice, the process mattered. If the city descended into chaos, what was the point of fighting for the right to make their own laws?
Washington is still right. The removal of statues should be done by “proper authority”: the elected officials voted into office by the people of a community.
David Head teaches history at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution.
