Abraham Lincoln statues

[Rob Wick]

Quote:While the statue of Lincoln in Boston was completely removed.

When I was a young boy, I can remember the very first time I walked into the Hall of Representatives in the Old State Capitol in Springfield. It was in the early 1970s, and even though I was only around 9 or 10 years old, I knew exactly what had happened in that room. Not only was it a room where Abraham Lincoln served the state as a representative, but it was also the place where Lincoln delivered one of the most notable and stirring speeches in the history of the country. I stood in awe as I strained to hear Lincoln tell those in the overstuffed hall on June 16, 1858 that a house divided against itself could not stand. I kept telling myself that I was in the same room as Lincoln, touching the same floor as Lincoln as I looked at the same walls that Lincoln gazed on.

Except I wasn’t.

At the time I had no idea that just a few years before, the state of Illinois had completely dismantled the building, completely gutting the interior and rebuilding it. While the state determined to make the building look like a building that Lincoln would recognize, there were many things in the building that Lincoln would have wondered over. There was no electricity or electrical lights in the building at any time when Lincoln was there. Air conditioning would have been a Godsend on that hot summer’s day in June when 1,000 people crowded into the hall to hear Lincoln speak. The sound system installed in order to hold naturalization ceremonies would have been foreign to Lincoln and the others who often had to struggle to make themselves heard.

In a more tactile vein, the floors were not the same floors that Lincoln trod upon. Neither was the walls the same walls he saw. They actually disappeared for all practical purposes in 1899 to 1901 when Sangamon County, who had been using the building as their courthouse since 1876 when the Illinois capitol moved, did their own renovations.

But it didn’t take away then, nor does it now, the significance of what happened on that site. I relate this story in an attempt to try to provide some context into the debate over Lincoln statues and the removal of the statue in Boston. First, and foremost, statues are nothing more than a representation of someone. They do not make up the bulk of who the man was.

The statue in Boston was not destroyed. It is in storage and will be placed in another location once the city determines where that will be. Second, while we may look at the statue as nothing more than a representation of an African-American man rising up to accept his freedom, others do not. So whose interpretation should prevail? Why, of course, we believe ours should, because if the other viewpoint holds, then it says that Lincoln is not worthy of public commemoration or that there will be a wave of destruction where Lincoln is concerned (and someone needs to tell David that the crime of vandalism will be prosecuted if the perpetrators are captured).

But is that what it really says? Cannot a case be made that the attacks on the statue do not represent an attack on Lincoln as much as an imagined perception of him? To be honest, I haven’t followed the debate over the emancipation statue, but what I have read seems to say that many people don’t like what the statue represents. I’ve not read anything that says Lincoln should not be honored, and only the shrillest voice would argue that’s what this debate is about. Does that mean there are not people out there who think Lincoln should be denigrated and his memory forgotten? Of course not. But in a nation of 330,000,000 people, one can always find a few lone voices to say whatever one wishes to hear.

What it seems to me is that people want the statues to be placed into context. That is exactly what historians do. Whether the statue sits in a public square or in a museum, or is melted down and made into car parts does not for one moment take away the right of people to seek out and honor Lincoln (or anyone else, for that matter) in whatever way they choose. Nor does the removal of something that Lincoln would have never known about in any way erase his memory. What we are seeing right now is the raising of voices that have not been listened to for centuries, if ever. That some of those voices may say things we don’t agree with is the price we pay for living in a free and open society.

Best
Rob