An article appearing in the British Telegraph, 9th June 2017
"It is 18 foot tall, made of copper and sandstone and it is tearing the town of Richmond apart.
A statue of Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln is causing fresh controversy in the American South and bringing to light the scars from some very old wounds. The statue, on the grounds of the University of Richmond, shows the two American presidents joint signing the 13th amendment which was, at the time, an unprecedented show of unity and was credited for preventing a southern succession.
Black protestors want it taken down, white protestors demand that it stays up and clashes are now common, with worries that the fragile peace established in 2003 is in peril of ending. From an outsider's view, it may seem odd that such passions are aroused by a symbol like this but it represents a deeply controversial part of American history.
Local historian Richard Scott explained to me the importance of the 13th Amendment. "You have to understand that through out the 1850s there was a sense of disunity, a sense that the various states could not trust each other or the federal government to act as a fair dealer. The South thought the North were not fulfilling their obligations to return fugitive slaves and that the federal government were allowing them to do so. The North though the South in demanding the extension of slavery into new territories were committing them to eternal war against Latin American entities in order to support an institution they viewed as morally evil. The 13th amendment was the final result of the attempt to rebuild that trust."
The text read "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State" and it attempted to assure that the northern states would have the power to keep fugitive slaves while the southern slaves had no need to fear forced abolition. It was a clumsy compromise but there was enough trust remaining that both sides could accept it.
Lincoln and Buchanan were proclaimed as heroes. Men who'd managed to overcome divisions to bring peace and prevent the union falling apart. Lincoln, a passionate free soiler, moreover had won guarantees that the new territories would be free rather than slave slates. In Republican circles, it was seen as a great victory, the impression was that, confronted by a strong President, the slaveocrat south had blinked.
But time is a prism of it's own and over 150 years later, it is Lincoln who looks weak.
"Lincoln bought peace for the white man," a local protestor told me, 'but he bought it with appeasement. Thanks to him there were another 70 years of the death, rape and brutalisation of my people. Why should there be a statue of a moment which ensured my granddad would be born a slave? Why should we celebrate that? Why should I walk past a monument celebrating my family's debasement? Tear that statue down."
Indeed, it is something of an embarrassment that the freedom of the last slaves in the American South was captured on TV broadcast. Perhaps if Lincoln had been less competent and more belligerent, if he'd simply let the South go, slavery would have ended sooner.
"Certainly," Scott admitted, "British Liberals like William Gladstone were for a southern succession on the basis that the South, without the protections of Washington, would be weaker and so could be bullied into banning slavery the way Brazil was."
There was a sense then that Lincoln, both a patriot and an abolitionist, chose the former over the latter when it came down to it. And for the descendants of slaves, it is a choice that can't easily be forgiven.
"The problem isn't about a single statue," a teacher at the university told me, "the problem is that the peace process is still fragile and too many people on both sides refuse to give an inch."
For those who are veterans of the 'Bleeding South', the name for the undeclared war fought between the Black Panthers and other black militias against the Ku Klux Klan and other white militias, the idea that Lincoln and Buchanan bought peace is a bad joke. At best they merely delayed the problems, so that the lynchings, riots and bombing campaigns that so horrified the world were recorded by camera rather than notepad.
"The statue represents our history and heritage, why should we tear it down just because some terrorists and secessionists resent anything that shows we have pride in the union?" I was asked by a counter protestor. And indeed there is an irony, that these days 'southern succession' almost always means 'the Liberia solution' proposed by the Black separatists of a black homeland in the south rather than the withdrawal of the white southerners that Lincoln so feared.
Perhaps there is a glimpse of hope there, that in 150 years the descendants of the Black Panthers will be as proud of the Union as the descendants of the Southern Democrats are today. But this week's controversy shows just how far the USA has to go, before both sides feel comfortable sharing the same towns."
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