Thomas Jefferson statue removed from NY City Hall after 187 years

[Landon Caeli]

Do you think he knew it was wrong?

Good question.

 

[durangodawood]

Then Americans should remove Martin Luther King Jr bust from the White House. You wouldn't want to impose those working there to the image of an anti-feminist. He expected his wife to be a housewife and mother. The indignity to modern women where they can choose what they want with their own lives. Not to mention about his extramarital affairs.

Like a lot of things, its a spectrum with gray areas. And maybe Jefferson belongs on the "good" side of the gray area when its all said and done.

My point to you though was: its nothing like exhuming corpses, who can just as well lie in the dirt forgotten where no one has to see them. Its about places of honor in the public spaces we share and how to decide who belongs in them.

 

[Thatgirloncfforums]

The irony of voting to remove a signatory on the Declaration of Independence and supporter of the French Republic.

View attachment 308754

Thomas Jefferson is no longer in the room where it happens.

Art handlers packed up an 884-pound statue of Jefferson in a wooden crate Monday after a mayoral commission voted to banish the likeness of the nation’s third president from City Hall, where it’s resided for nearly two centuries — because he owned slaves.

Thomas Jefferson statue leaves City Hall after 187 years

 

[Thatgirloncfforums]

I may be totally off, but I would rather be 'owned' by someone who took care of me and mine, was a good Christian lord, ect. , than be 'independent' in a world where I don't get enough to eat, proper shelter, education and medical care.

What about serfdom? Are we going to take down icons of royalty, including bishops of the Church, because they owned land worked by others without pay, but were taken care of besides?

This idea of 'independence' and 'self determination' in the modern sense is not how any one in the past, lived regardless of skin color.

Btw, the Irish used to be considered 'black' up until modern times.

History is not so black and white. No pun intended.

 

[Bradskii]

The irony of voting to remove a signatory on the Declaration of Independence...

There was a line is some declaration back in Jefferson's time. Something about all men being created equal. Is that the one you are thinking of?

 

[Tanj]

I thought of that too... Our third president, a founding father, being shackled, and lowered into a wooden crate.

What a different country this is now to what it was then.

Indeed it is. Back then, Americans didn't deify their leaders.

 

[Thatgirloncfforums]

There was a line is some declaration back in Jefferson's time. Something about all men being created equal. Is that the one you are thinking of?

Yes. All men are created equal but I've never understood how that meant that all men should be self determined. Do prisoners lose their humanity because they are not pursuing 'life, liberty and happiness'?

I would have returned to England or have gone to Canada if I were alive at the time. As a Christian, I really struggle with the idea of revolting against a king God put in place.

 

[Hans Blaster]

(American) "football" is a misnomer anyway.

Why? It isn't played on horseback.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I would have returned to England or have gone to Canada if I were alive at the time. As a Christian, I really struggle with the idea of revolting against a king God put in place.

As an American I just find kings revolting.

 

[public hermit]

I may be totally off, but I would rather be 'owned' by someone who took care of me and mine, was a good Christian lord, ect. , than be 'independent' in a world where I don't get enough to eat, proper shelter, education and medical care.

What about serfdom? Are we going to take down icons of royalty, including bishops of the Church, because they owned land worked by others without pay, but were taken care of besides?

This idea of 'independence' and 'self determination' in the modern sense is not how any one in the past, lived regardless of skin color.

Btw, the Irish used to be considered 'black' up until modern times.

History is not so black and white. No pun intended.

Keep in mind, this is not about worship. This is about images in the public forum that, presumably, represent the public good. These are images meant to represent "pillars" of democratic ideas and ideals.

These are not icons, thank God. At best, in a secular society, they are art.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Indeed it is. Back then, Americans didn't deify their leaders.

Well, to be fair, the name "founding father", has a specific meaning that has little to do with deification.

Founding Father. - a person who starts or helps to start a movement or institution.

 

[Tanj]

Well, to be fair, the name "founding father", has a specific meaning that has little to do with deification.

Founding Father. - a person who starts or helps to start a movement or institution.

Its dictionary denotation is entirely different from its current US connotation, which is to act as the opening or closing end of an argument that carries the same weight as "God said so". I never claimed the phrase "founding father" has anything to do with deification, I claimed deification is what Amercians have done to their founding fathers.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Im sure the term "founding father" is out of favor now-a-days anyway. Not inclusive enough I suppose.

 

[Thatgirloncfforums]

As an American I just find kings revolting.

I understand. I don't though. It was the system Israel and most nations had in place (there were exceptions). I am also a female, one who believes strongly in Patriarchy (not the Dugger/Quiver full kind). All my life, my independence has been visa vie another person, ie, my father (and mother) and my pastor as well. Dad's dead now (about 14 yrs ago), and I can honestly say that independence and self determination is not for me. So I seek out those whom I can serve in my life. God above all, is my Patriarch and King. By serving others I am serving him and by being in a servant's position, I am better able personally, to live out the Gospel.

 

[public hermit]

Im sure the term "founding father" is out of favor now-a-days anyway. Not inclusive enough I suppose.

How about "founding folks"? Dolly Todd Madison wasn't no punk.

Edit: Just in case

Dolley Madison - Wikipedia

 

[Thatgirloncfforums]

Keep in mind, this is not about worship. This is about images in the public forum that, presumably, represent the public good. These are images meant to represent "pillars" of democratic ideas and ideals.

These are not icons, thank God. At best, in a secular society, they are art.

Yes, but bishops were secular lords as well as religious fathers. When Rome fell, the people left behind still needed to be taken care of. The Church and her leaders filled the vacuum

 

[Landon Caeli]

How about "founding folks"? Dolly Todd Madison wasn't no punk.

Edit: Just in case

Dolley Madison - Wikipedia

True though. She wasn't no punk at all.

 

[public hermit]

Deleted

 

[Bradskii]

He actually inherited slaves, and was not able to legally free them because that would actually have been against the law at the time.

He lived in the same state as Washington. Who left instructions in his will that all his slaves were to be freed. His wife did so in 1800 by signing a manumission and they were emancipated in 1801. Jefferson died in 1826. When his slaves were not freed but sold.

And in 1817:

'...Jefferson’s old friend, the Revolutionary War hero Thaddeus Kosciuszko, died in Switzerland. The Polish nobleman, who had arrived from Europe in 1776 to aid the Americans, left a substantial fortune to Jefferson. Kosciuszko bequeathed funds to free Jefferson’s slaves and purchase land and farming equipment for them to begin a life on their own. In the spring of 1819, Jefferson pondered what to do with the legacy. Kosciuszko had made him executor of the will, so Jefferson had a legal duty, as well as a personal obligation to his deceased friend, to carry out the terms of the document.' The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson | History | Smithsonian Magazine

Accepting the money meant he'd have to free his slaves. He turned it down. They were obviously worth more to him as property. From the same link, Jefferson wrote to his plantation manager :

“A child raised every 2. years is of more profit then the crop of the best laboring man. in this, as in all other cases, providence has made our duties and our interests coincide perfectly.... [W]ith respect therefore to our women & their children I must pray you to inculcate upon the overseers that it is not their labor, but their increase which is the first consideration with us.”

Guess he thought he had good breeding stock.

The question still stands: Do you think he knew it was wrong? I'd suggest he did. There's enough evidence for it. Which actually makes his actions a lot worse.

 

[Bradskii]

Yes. All men are created equal but I've never understood how that meant that all men should be self determined. Do prisoners lose their humanity because they are not pursuing 'life, liberty and happiness'?

I would have returned to England or have gone to Canada if I were alive at the time. As a Christian, I really struggle with the idea of revolting against a king God put in place.

We're not talking prisoners. We're talking of men, women and children as property. In some cases, skilled men and women who could have lived their own lives given the chance. As they could have been by Jefferson (see the details of his friend's will in the earlier post). So no, there was no humanity if you're treated as collateral. And consider that if you had been Jefferson's slave, you would have been encouraged to 'increase your numbers' to swell his bank balance. Do you see much humanity there?