Saturday….in the park…..I think it was the…..

Happy American Independence Day, FA readers!

I don’t apologize for being American; but I do apologize for not writing up a better post during this time of distress and divisiveness.  It feels like a segment of the populace wants to tear apart the very fabric of America.

I had intended to gather my thoughts together on all that’s happened within the past month; but life calls and there’s just no let up.  So instead of me writing, I’d like to ask FA readers (whether you are left or right of center, I welcome the perspective and dialogue) to share with us what your own thoughts are.  What does it mean to be American?  Where do you see the country headed and where should it head?

Meanwhile, find time to relax and enjoy kith & kin with food, music, and entertainment….

Just one more thing…..Statue of George Washington?!  Really?!

Armchaired by the distance of history and applying 20th and 21st century standards of smug moral superiority…

If we purged ourselves of anyone who ever had moral impurity to his character, we’d end up disowning everyone who ever lived, including our own personal ancestors who lived in centuries past where such ethical outrages like slavery were the norm. America wasn’t uniquely guilty of slavery, an institution that’s existed all across the globe for a millennium. What was “unique” was that the first real anti-slavery movement in the world began with Britain and the U.S.

Thomas Sowell:

“During his public life, Washington was known to leave behind slaves he brought with him on his travels to the north, in effect, freeing them. His behavior as a slaveowner is also noted in Richard Brookhiser’s Founding Father:

Abstract moral decisions are much easier to make on paper or in a classroom in later centuries than in the midst of the dilemmas actually faced by those living in very different circumstances, including serious dangers.

One way to understand the constraints of the times and their effects on public attitudes is to examine the difference between the way that many in nineteenth-century America saw the slave trade, as distinguished from the way that they saw slavery itself. If the institution of slavery and the presence of millions of slaves were facts of life, within which many decision-makers felt trapped by having inherited the consequences of decisions made by others in generations before them, the continuing trade in slaves, whether from Africa or within the United States, was a contemporary problem that was within their control. Thus, decades before slavery was abolished, the United States joined in the outlawing of the international slave trade. Even many Americans not yet ready to support the abolition of slavery as an institution nevertheless made the bringing of more slaves from Africa a capital offense in the United States.

The moral distinction between slave trading and the continuation of slavery as an institution might be hard for some in later centuries to understand because, in the abstract, there is no moral difference. Only in the concrete circumstances faced by the people of the times was there a practical social difference.”

On Washington:

“However, even those slaveholders with aversions to slavery in principle were constrained by a strong tradition of stewardship, in which the family inheritance was not theirs to dispose of in their own lifetime, but to pass on to others as it had been passed on to them. George Washington was one of those who had inherited slaves and, dying childless, freed his slaves in his will, effective on the death of his wife. His will also provided that slaves too old or too beset with “bodily infirmities” to take care of themselves should be taken care of by his estate, and that the children were to be “taught to read and write” and trained for “some useful occupation.” His estate in fact continued to pay for the support of some freed slaves for decades after his death, in accordance to his will.

The part of Washington’s will dealing with slaves filled almost three pages, and the tone as well as the length of it showed his concerns:

The emancipation clause stands out from the rest of Washington’s will in the unique forcefulness of its language. Elsewhere in it Washington used the standard legal expressions- “I give and bequeath,” “it is my will and direction.” In one instance he politely wrote, “by way of advice, I recommend to my Executors…” But the emancipation clause rings with the voice of command; it has the iron firmness of a field order: “I do hereby expressly forbid the sale….of any Slave I may die possessed of, under an pretext whatsoever.”
Long before reaching this point in his personal life, George Washington had said of slavery as a national issue: “There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it.” But, like Burke, he saw a need for a plan of some sort, rather than simply freeing millions of slaves in a newly emerging nation surrounded by threatening powers, just as the freed slaves themselves would be surrounded by a hostile population. In short, the moral principle was easy but figuring out how to apply it in practice was not. Moreover, in a country with an elected government, how the white population at large felt could not be ignored. When Washington congratulated Lafayette for the latter’s purchase of a plantation where former slaves could live, he added: “Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country; but I despair of seeing it.” He saw legislation as the only way to end slavery and said that a legislator who did that would get his vote.”

Slaves that Washington took north with him when he entered public life he quietly left behind when he returned to Virginia after completing his terms as President- in effect freeing them on the sly,” as one biographer put it, at a time when to free them officially could have set off controversies that neither he nor the new nation needed. George Washington was, after all, trying to hold together a fragile coalition of states bearing little resemblance to the world power that the United States would become in later centuries.

As a slaveowner in Virginia, Washington thought of ways he might sublet much of his estate, in which his current slaves “might be hired by the year, as labourers” by tenant farmers. He was clearly casting about for some way, as he put it in a letter, “to liberate a certain species of property which I possess very repugnantly to my own feelings.” But there were no takers. Washington’s behavior as a slaveowner is also worth noting:

Beginning in the early 1770’s, he rarely bought a slave and he would not sell one, unless the slave consented, which never happened. not selling slaves was an economic loss. Slave labor on a plantation with soil as poor as Mount Veronon brought in little or nothing…The only profit a man in his position would make was by selling slaves to states where agriculture was more flourishing. Washington would not. “I am principled against selling negroes as you would do cattle at a market…” From 1775 until his death, the slave population at Mount Vernon more than doubled.

As Southern states in the nineteenth century began to tighten restrictions on the right of slaveowners to free their slaves, in order to forestall the social problems that were widely feared, the laws made manumission increasingly difficult, legally complicated, and a costly process. Those slaveowners who were prepared to grant manumission found it less onerous to let those who were legally their slaves simply live as de facto free persons.”
-Pg 149-151, Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell

Newsweek

America’s recent college graduates appear ignorant of such niceties. They see every figure, every icon and every expression solely through a contemporary lens. They simplify everything as either progressive or evil— and then move to strike down evil.

The Confederate Constitution, and the speeches of its president, Jefferson Davis, contain countless lessons. Building upon the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, they tweak a few words and change a few emphases to yield a racial stratification purportedly blessed by God and nature. Our own three post-war constitutional amendments, built upon that same foundation, instead find God and nature blessing equality and freedom.

A humanist might compare the documents seeking ways to help society avoid ever again falling again into an acceptance of racism. A humanist might wonder how the symbols of secession became symbols of patriotism. A humanist might track America’s several reassessments of the Confederacy to gain insights into the changing nature of American society.

Today’s young progressives, however, cannot fathom even learning anything—even salutary lessons—from a race-based, slave-based society.

Robert E. Lee was a figure of historic complexity, a man torn by conflicting loyalties. Shakespeare could have written him soliloquies rivaling those of Hamlet, extracting life lessons about courage in battle and nobility in defeat. But the judgment of today’s young progressives? Purge the villain.

Thomas Jefferson penned one of history’s most elegant paeans to liberty. George Washington dispensed with stratified royalty and nobility in favor of a broad-based citizenry. Both owned slaves. The potential lessons are immense. They, like all people, were products of the society in which they lived. Did they appreciate the obvious internal tensions? Today’s young progressives are uninterested. Slavers are unworthy of respect, period—nothing more ought to be considered.

Teddy Roosevelt was history’s greatest conservationist. He bequeathed his love of the wilderness, and many of his nature trophies, to New York’s Museum of Natural History. The grand statue adorning its entrance, TR astride a horse flanked by walking figures identifiable as an African and a Native American, was dedicated to highlight his kinship with all of humanity. To the contemporary eye, however, the walking figures appear stereotypical and subservient. An institution dedicated to the humanities—say a museum—could develop an entire curriculum around such a statue. But to the progressives running this museum, it’s a dated embarrassment begging to be retired.

Christopher Columbus was a bold explorer who sailed into the unknown, changing history both for the better and for the worse. Today’s young progressives see only the worse. Lincoln freed slaves who approached his memory with gratitude. But today’s young progressives see no reason to be grateful.

It’s been commonplace for years—at least on the Right—to decry the hollowing out of humanities education and the abandonment of the Western canon. It is now worse than anyone imagined. American universities have demonstrably failed to teach our young that our cultural legacy has inherent value. It’s only a matter of time before they discover that text can be more offensive than sculpture. With that discovery, books will burn.

America is experiencing the zealotry associated with the birth of a new faith. From Abraham to Muhammad, religious founders have toppled the idols of the old order. A humanist, historian or anyone versed in any traditional faith would see it. American media instead reports about idealistic, if misguided, vandalism.

The humanities are indeed dead in America. It’s long past time to stop funding the institutions that pretend to preserve them, subsidizing students who pretend to study them and paying the faculties who’ve failed to teach them. Once we’ve cleared away the detritus, perhaps we can invest in a humanities education that teaches the value of our rich cultural legacy.