U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) this week took to the floor of the Senate to plead with people to “not try to erase our history,” especially as it pertains to former U.S. President Andrew Jackson’s statue in Lafayette Square.
During his lifetime, Jackson resided in Tennessee.
Jackson’s statue stands adjacent to the White House.
According to a press release, Alexander said this in response to other people’s efforts to tear the statue down.
“Presidential historians almost without exception put Andrew Jackson in the top 10 of America’s presidents. They see him as a sophisticated, often subtle political actor who without his devotion to the union, against his own local political interests, the union might well have fallen apart in 1832 or 1833. Jackson wasn’t born rich. He wasn’t born to privilege. He fought for everything he had, and he rose to our government’s highest office through the sheer force of personality and political courage. That is the case for Andrew Jackson,” Alexander said.
“Now, let us also recognize that Andrew Jackson was not perfect. In fact, he was at the center of the two original sins of this country – slavery and the treatment of Native Americans. But if we’re looking for perfection, we’re not likely to find it in American history or the history of almost any country or in human nature.”
Alexander then asked what do we do about Thomas Jefferson “who only freed those slaves that he fathered with his slave mistress?”
“What we do about George Washington and Mount Vernon, and the slaves that he owned? What do we do about Abraham Lincoln, who some people say was slow to act on emancipation? What about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his internment of Japanese-Americans in camps during World War Two?” Alexander asked.
In additional to the executive branch, Alexander went on to question whether we should judge other members of other branches of government.
“What are we going to do about Congress — the senators and the members of the House? They approved the Trail of Tears – Andrew Jackson’s removal of the Cherokees to Oklahoma,” Alexander said.
“And they approved the laws requiring segregation. And what about the people who elected them to Congress? What are we going to do about us, the people of the United States?”
Alexander suggested that we recognize that it’s always appropriate to review the places that we have named or the monuments that we’ve put up in the context of today’s times.
“With a history that includes mistakes we today abhor, we should try to learn from those mistakes and build a better future,” Alexander said.
WUSA-TV in Washington reported that police used pepper spray to move protesters out of Lafayette Square. Videos posted on social media showed that the protesters had climbed on the statue and tied ropes around it, then tried to pull it off its pedestal.
The statue shows Jackson in a military uniform, riding a horse that is rearing on its hind legs.
The Jackson statue remained on its pedestal Monday night.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected]. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Photo “Andrew Jackson” by Cliff. CC BY 2.0.
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Lamar Alexander is a RINO in my opinion and I do not agree with him on much. However I do agree the all existing monuments and statues be protected and anyone damaging them be prosecuted and punished harshly.
Well, with our $26 trillion in National debt, it seems that everything Andrew Jackson stood for has gone to the wayside. Jackson and no bank! We need to audit and do away with the federal reserve system. It is the curse upon the republic. It is the destruction of the public in front of our very eyes. Until we return to sound money, the future does not look bright. We will no longer be a free and independent republic. Most likely we will fall into a Third World communist dictatorship. Everything Dr. Ron Paul tried to tell the American people is 100% true.