Monumental History
Published in Cæsura, Issue 0, 2020.
Confederate statues were erected across the South in the early twentieth century, when Southern politicians were revising the history of the Civil War. They aimed to transform this chapter of American history from an emancipatory struggle into a Confederate defense of “states’ rights” led by a valiant race. Unfortunately, this Southern propaganda has survived the twentieth century. On the American citizenship test there remain two “correct” answers to the question, “What caused the Civil War?”: “slavery” and “states’ rights”. Despite this propaganda, every Confederate statue today remains a testament of the slaveholders’ defeat. Each one is a reminder that the Confederacy lost the war. What good we make of the victory of free labor over slavery is yet to be seen. But one thing is certain: nothing good will come out of forgetting the Civil War.
The defeat of the Confederacy in the fateful year of 1865 marked the definitive rejection of the principle of property in man. The historic confrontation with the slaveholding Confederacy inspired the founding of the first independent, working-class political organization on the world stage, the International Working Men’s Association – or “First International.” The Civil War inspired movements for emancipation as far away as India, where the first significant work written against the caste system by Jyotirao Phule, Gulamgiri [“Slavery”], was dedicated to the American people for their guiding role in the global struggle for emancipation. Congratulating the Americans for Abraham Lincoln’s reelection, Karl Marx wrote on behalf of the International Workingmen’s Association that the war had awakened “the men of labor,” who “with their hopes for the future, [knew that] even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic.” These conquests included the right of self-government over the divine right of kings, the indispensable foundation of a free laboring society, without which most of us would be enslaved today—regardless of our skin color.
An indiscriminate iconoclasm threatens to turn the history of the United States into an undifferentiated pile of bronze. When statues of General Ulysses S. Grant are toppled alongside Confederate statues, political confusion reveals itself among the forces of social discontent. As President during the chaotic years of Reconstruction, Grant was one of the strongest defenders of a free Union and sent troops into the South to protect the rights of freedmen against the ex-Confederate rebels. To add insult to injury, statues of Lincoln are targeted on both sides of the Atlantic. What for?…
Nietzsche wrote that a healthy contempt for the past was welcome. But, alone, this iconoclastic sensibility was insufficient to give oneself a future. He argued that we also require a sense of monumental history, that is, a sense that seismic shifts in the very nature of society can be provoked through courageous acts by those daring enough to lead. Recent journalistic accounts of the protests in the United States have drawn parallels between the toppling of monuments today and the destruction of New York’s King George III statue in 1776, during the War of Independence. In the eighteenth century, a motley crew of Americans with the help of Washington’s soldiers wrested the monument from its pedestal and melted it down into ammunition. But General George Washington reprimanded the soldiers for encouraging the unwieldy mob, warning that such acts would encourage rioting. The distinction is worth noting these days: a revolution, unlike a riot, requires a collective discipline, bold leadership and a concerted organization of a diverse people working as one towards a clearly defined common end. This was 1776, not 2020.
Lincoln and the Emancipated-Slave Statue, Washington DC
The scene depicted actually happened. Admiral David Dixon Porter accompanied President Lincoln to Richmond to accept the surrender of the Confederacy, and recounted the story in his 1885 memoir. Lincoln was recognized by hundreds of newly freed slaves who crowded him, crying “glory hallelujah!” When one fell to the ground to kiss Lincoln’s feet, Lincoln was embarrassed. Lincoln said: “Don’t kneel to me. That is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy. . . . Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as he gave it to others, and it is a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years.”
