Tuesday Talk*: Goodbye, Thomas

John F.  Kennedy thought well enough of him to tell a collection of the “best and the brightest”:

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

And he did write words upon which we dearly cling.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

But that was then and this is now.

But for the last two decades, some Black and Latino Council members, citing Jefferson’s history as a slaveholder, called for the statue to be banished — a push that gained significant momentum in the last year, as the nation has broadly reconsidered public monuments that can be viewed as symbols of systemic racism.

What began as the removal, if not the tearing down by mobs, of statues of Confederate generals has swiftly slip down the slope to a broad array of others, from Abraham Lincoln to abolitionist Col. Hans Christian Heg, because mobs aren’t always particularly knowledgeable about history. And now the statue of Thomas Jefferson will be removed from the City Hall chamber of the New York City Council.

“Jefferson embodies some of the most shameful parts of our country’s history,” Adrienne Adams, a councilwoman from Queens and co-chair of the caucus, said at the hearing.

And whether “embodies” is the right word, there is little question that Jefferson failed to conduct his life in a way that would be approved today. He was a slave owner. He raped his slave, Sally Hemings. Some may quibble over the details, but neither reflects conduct that can or should be ignored.

But does this mean that Jefferson should be “canceled,” his statue removed from the chamber despite the words he wrote that form the fundamental basis for a nation? Where is the tipping point? What good must a person do to not let other conduct, certainly horrible but hardly unusual for his times, be sufficient to not remove a statue from its place of honor?

The notion that statues “embody” historical wrongs began with the call to remove the statues of confederates, which raises long-held questions about why there were statues of them still standing after the War of Northern Aggression anyway. But the promises that it wouldn’t slide down the slope were quickly forgotten.

A statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims, considered a founder of modern gynecology, was removed in 2018 from Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street because he perfected his procedures on unanesthetized enslaved women. After a tense competition, the city selected Vinnie Bagwell, a Black sculptor, to replace the statue with “Victory Beyond Sims,” a bronze angel holding a flame.

The Public Design Commission voted to remove the Theodore Roosevelt statue at the entrance of the American Museum of Natural History earlier this year and approved a long-term loan to an unnamed cultural institution, but no further plans have been announced.

The proposal is to move Jefferson’s statue to the New York Historical Society, the approval of which was delayed yesterday, which can well be argued is a more appropriate location for the statue, allowing greater context about the wrongs of Jefferson as well as the rights. But should it be moved? Some argue that it’s just a statue, so what’s the big deal, a disingenuous argument since it’s a sufficiently big deal to demand it be removed.

Is there any formerly “great” historical figure that would be sufficiently pure to withstand the scrutiny of today’s self-righteous reviewers? There is the irony that the people demanding these statues be gone fall a bit shy of contributing anything close to what Jefferson, Washington or Lincoln did for a nation, but their puniness aside, they are extremely good at tearing down others.

Is it worth it? Are the failings of great historical figures of such a magnitude that we should remove their statues? And if we remove the statues as “embodying” hate, will their words, ideas and the country they created and served be on the chopping block?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.