Hate the Washington Monument? Might Want to Vote Democrat

Last Sunday, Democratic Senator (and top candidate for Joe Biden’s Vice Presidential pick) Tammy Duckworth said on CNN: “We should listen to the arguments for removing George Washington Statues.” 

This comment came amidst heated controversy of protestors defacing and destroying statues all across the country. At first, they were just destroying statues of Confederate soldiers and generals. Now they are destroying the monuments of founding fathers and — wait for it — abolitionists. 

Sound confusing?  It gets worse.

One target in the woke mob’s sights: George Washington, the selfless war hero and our first President. 

Why do these protestors want to tear down Washington’s memorials?

Though he criticized slavery his entire life, Washington was a slave owner for 56 years. Notably, he was the only Founding Father to free all of those he enslaved after his death. Although slavery is egregious in any circumstance, the statues are not claiming he was the prime example for racial equality. 

Washington was the President of the Constitutional Convention, where they drafted the documents still being used to free the oppressed. (You know, the Constitution is the old document that gives us the ability to protest?) But, the “cancel culture” crowd must’ve gotten bored sifting through celebrity tweets and now is targeting people who died in the 1800s. 

President Trump commented on the issue in his Fourth of July speech. “By tearing down Washington and Jefferson, these radicals would tear down the very heritage for which men gave their lives to win the Civil War, they would erase the memory that inspired those soldiers to go to their deaths. They would tear down the principles that propelled the abolition of slavery and ultimately around the world ending an evil institution that had plagued humanity for thousands and thousands of years.”

That’s right.

These statues are an acknowledgement that our Founding Fathers imbued America with our nation’s “first promise” — that all men were created equal.  No, we have not realized that promise, but it is our aspiration and a promise to which Americans can strive.  

In the final act of Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton addresses the new United States lovingly as “you great unfinished symphony”:

 MassHistory unpacks that a bit, as “something never seen before, but not yet complete, with competing and discordant lines of music clashing together. It speaks to the fact that despite the rich language of liberty and equality that was placed at the foundation of the United States, many people—people of African descent, women, and immigrants of all stripes—would continue to be oppressed. There was a long struggle yet to be fought, work yet undone.”

Exactly.  The Founders, in their wisdom, wrote a document better than they were.  Better than we are now.

Sen. Duckworth could possibly be the next Vice President of the United States, so we have to start thinking clearly about our history and how it informs our future. 

We can all fight racism without having to cancel those who gave us the ability to do so. 

Hat tip: mountvernon.org, National Review