Posted on 11/22/2021 9:46:42 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The New York City Council Chamber voted to remove a historic statue of former President Thomas Jefferson, citing his history as a slave owner.
The statue, commissioned by a U.S. Navy commodore in 1833, spent 187 years in the City Council’s chambers before being removed from its pedestal Monday, according to the New York Post.
Approximately a dozen Marshall Fine Arts workers surrounded the structure with wooden and foam boards before using a pulley system to lower it into the downstairs rotunda and carrying it out the back door, the Post reported
“Removing a monument without a public conversation about why it’s happening is useless. New Yorkers all need to talk about who we want to honor and why,” Erin Thompson, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said of the removal, according to the outlet.
“Moving this statue doesn’t mean New Yorkers will forget who Thomas Jefferson was — but some of them might learn from the controversy that the man who wrote ‘all men are created equal’ owned over 600 of his fellow humans,” she added.
The vote to remove the structure was split among councilmembers, with some, such as Staten Island Republican Councilman Joe Borelli objecting.
“This is more progressive war on history,” Borelli said, according to New York Daily News.
“Why wasn’t this put on the consent calendar? I thought we were having this big public discussion about monuments. Apparently not,” he continued.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
That's funny, because nobody deserves more credit for advancing the abolition movement than Jefferson.
healy61 wrote:
Next up will be Jefferson’s writings. Just watch.
Well, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence has been under attack my entire 50+ year lifetime.
what he preached and what he practiced were two entirely different things
Jefferson planted the seed within the Declaration of Independence that would grow and destroy slavery.
Hmmmm ... and this is you — the guy who was denying that “all men are created equal” applied to slaves — saying that ... interesting ...
This is true and I have pointed it out numerous times, however you cannot deny his statement in the Declaration of Independence led directly to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.
He almost singlehandedly greatly accelerated the abolition movement in the US.
Franklin also owned slaves, but he was very instrumental in abolition movement too.
Oh, I fully believe that "all men are created equal" I just recognize that at the time it was written, they had no comprehension of it as applying to slaves.
That came later.
I understand that "the past is a foreign country", and I recognize that people of long ago held different views than are what is common nowadays.
Grow up New Yorkers.
Kim or an ayatollah could do America a great service by nuking New York city.
New York has deteriorated into an abomination and is a plague on the Republic.
Also Jefferson County, Indiana.
If they had just changed the statue’s first name to “George”, it would still be there...
A rose is still a rose by any other name.
When I stayed in the area for a summer three decades ago there were urine stains all over the base of the statue. It’s probably refurbished now. And protected.
You do have a lot in common with the older Jefferson. He abandoned his opposition to slavery because he didn't want to "unfair" to the slaveowners (and of course his own financial problems played a role in changing his mind).
Ah, the Chrysler Cordoba, with rich Corinthian leather.
Yes, I can deny that. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 declares “all men are born free and equal”. This is not the words Jefferson used in the Declaration of Independence. The Massachusetts Supreme Court declared slavery was incompatible with this statement in article 1 of the State’s Constitution and therefore slavery was unconstitutional in the Commonwealth.
It is fair to say Jefferson intended it to apply to slaves too, but the people signing the declaration and the states they represented did not see it that way at the time the Declaration was signed.
As people had time to ponder it, many subsequently decided that it ought to apply to slaves, and this greatly boosted the anti-slavery sentiment in the nation.
Let us try to understand accurately the social dynamics at work at the time.
He abandoned his opposition to slavery because he didn't want to "unfair" to the slaveowners (and of course his own financial problems played a role in changing his mind).
It is not uncommon for upper class elites to want to see principles enforced on everyone but themselves. In modern times, the very same wealthy class complaining about being "carbon neutral" are the same people most like to burn massive amounts of carbon to fuel their lifestyle.
When it comes to real money, principles often take a back seat as they did with Jefferson.
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