Grasping Reality on TypePad, by Brad DeLong

We have a Washington Monument in large part because there was a guy who forced his army to obey the law and the civil authorities, and not to grab what it had the power to take through force or the threat of force: "Let me conjure you, in the name of our common Country—as you value your own sacred honor—as you respect the rights of humanity, & as you regard the Military & national character of America... [do not] under any specious pretences overturn the liberties of our Country... open the flood Gates of Civil discord, and deluge our rising Empire in Blood..."

We have a Jefferson Memorial in large part because there was a guy who cancelled not an individual but a king, an empire, and an entire system of government: "To secure these rights, Governments are instituted... deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.... Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive... it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government... in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..."

That we need these monuments to Wokeness and Cancellation, and that it is fitting and proper that they be associated with the names of Washington and Jefferson—oligarchs and slaveholders, but revolutionaries—is a hill I will die on.

We do not need to memorialize our slaveholders and our oligarchs. We do need to memorialize our revolutions. And it is fitting and proper that we memorialize our revolutionaries.

Come and get me Erik Loomis https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/07/what-to-do-about-jefferson

.#highlighted #justice #memory #pubicsphere #racism #slavery #2020-07-13