CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
A Potentially Problematic Past
by
M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
The Mayor of Washington, DC has formed a commission to investigate the statues and monuments in our nation’s capital with the idea of removing or “contextualizing” the person represented if they have a “potentially problematic past.” In some way, everyone has a potentially problematic past. Reasons for commemoration of certain persons in a given period in our history would be interesting to know. It is never that they are perfect persons it is usually that they are inspiring or noteworthy. That Congress authorized the commemoration at a particular time is also important and what those reasons were should be respected from Congress to Congress. Appropriations for statues and works of art on behalf of the public are difficult to obtain so the fact that an artist created a work of art that is a part of our monument system is significant and tells, in its own way, part of the American story. Applying one-dimensional measures of worth to the past threatens the integrity of the story itself. Miss Constitution hopes that the commission is not a form of “cancel culture” but has as its motive the addition of information that might add to, not denigrate, the memorial. Removing monuments of American history, much less allowing mobs to tear them down, is a type of cultural genocide. Adding statues and monuments to expand understanding and perspective is legitimate if done with intellectual integrity. This project requires the inclusion of professional non-ideological historians of great import.
Miss Constitution thinks one of the more sensitive issues is who among the Founders owned slaves. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson certainly did. Of the two, George Washington, is the indispensable Father of the Country, not only for his generalship during the American Revolution, but for his conduct and judgment while serving as the first President of the United States. Without him there would be no United States at all. Without him Britain would have attempted to re-colonized way before their second try in the War of 1812. What became a bloodbath in France during the French Revolution, beginning in 1789, was handled relatively civilly in America. Regardless, Washington owned slaves and did not free them until he declared them free in his Will upon his wife’s death. Martha Washington freed them a year later though she was still living. What is interesting is that many former slaves remained on Washington’s adjacent farms and cultivated the land as tenant farmers. As important as Washington is in our country’s history, Congress declined to make his home, Mt. Vernon, a national park and authorized no funds to obtain it and protect it for the education of future generations. Congress’s failure to acquire Mt. Vernon also tells a story. Why would they not think it worth preserving? In ruins by the mid-19th century, Mt. Vernon was saved by a small group of women who purchased it for safekeeping. If one drives twenty minutes out of Washington, DC, the restored Mt. Vernon is one of the nation’s treasures, though still privately owned by the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association. Many of the former slaves continued to care for the property and give “tours” to visitors who came to see where the great man lived. Toward the end of his life Washington created a distillery that made Rye Whiskey and that whiskey was one of the few “cash cows” for the former President. That he owned slaves in that era should not be dispositive in Miss Constitution’s view.
Slavery existed in America from about 1640 to 1865. Two-hundred and twenty-five years +/-. It did not begin in 1619 when a Dutch ship with 20+ slaves headed to West Africa had to dock when supplies ran out. The slaves were most likely made indentured servants like everyone else. Slavery in America began more randomly and more accidentally than deliberately. British America was formed by mostly Protestant emigrants for religious utopian and trading purposes having heard about the New World by those early explorers who survived dangerous ocean journeys and wrote about what they saw. These were common poor people, not the wealthy. They were financed by corporations like the Virginia Company and were supposed to find commodities for these corporations that could be traded for profit. From1607-1650 it was all about survival. There was famine, disease, and attack. Shiploads of orphans and indentured servants provided the labor force for clearing the wilderness and establishing a stable food source. When Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan revolution in England took over in 1653, the labor force diminished as there was no need to escape religious persecution and come to America. When the Dutch lost Brazil (New Holland), 1652, America began to be a target for the Atlantic slave trade spearheaded by the Portuguese. For a relatively few persons who could afford it, a new labor force of mostly West Indian slaves worked the mid-Atlantic tobacco and burgeoning southern rice fields. Many Americans objected vociferously to the practice, but it grew in the labor starved south especially along the Atlantic coast. When cotton became a practical fiber, after the invention of the cotton gin in 1794, slavery became even more entrenched into the economic system of America. The slave trade was outlawed by the United States Constitution as of 1808 and slavery was made illegal in 1865 after the Civil War. Though it took one hundred plus years more, there are no racist laws on the books in the United States. Most Americans admire and support the black community and are genuinely inclusive in their hearts.
An important fact is that slavery still exists. There are at least 40 million people enslaved in the world today. The United States in not included in those nations that engage in the practice. In fact, it is the United States that calls attention to the plight of enslaved persons, especially children, and rescues those they can. Perhaps the Commission will recommend honoring those persons who have led the fight against modern-day slavery with a statue or monument to add to the others so beautifully placed all over our nation’s capital. Congress would have to agree and appropriate the funds for the artist and the installation. Our “potentially problematic past” is really just the history of our nation. The story should be true and accurate, not “cancelled” or cleansed, and should be an ongoing story of how a nation rises to its aspirational values.
Copyright©2020 by M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
APPLES OF GOLD – Voices From the Past that Speak to Us Now by M. E. Boyd is available at
www.amazon.com
