To the Editor:
The Alexandria Gazette-Packet coverage of the Appomattox Statue controversy, Sept. 22, 2016, quotes an eloquent statement by Councilman Chapman that the statue where it stands is a "terrific teaching point that we are not all equal yet." This monument, like others, has stories to tell that change over time.
Perhaps a lesson no less important in our polarized society, when our tendencies to demonize those with whom we disagree are so pronounced, is the reminder the memorial affords that good people can get caught up with bad ideas, make decisions that are tragically wrong, and die for terrible reasons.
The volunteers whose casualties are memorialized by "Appomattox" were for the most part not slaveholders at all, but were instead skilled workmen in local factories, Companies E and H of the Seventeenth Virginia Infantry, or were common laborers in the seaport or on the railroad, Companies G and I. The volunteers in these companies hardly had any economic interest in preservation of slavery, but they supported a cause that is now overwhelmingly acknowledged as morally wrong.
As Councilman Chapman observes, there is no doubt that many in the South, including Thomas Jefferson and George Mason, regarded slavery as an evil, a founding dilemma. It is true as well that there were other well-read southerners who reluctantly considered slavery part of the natural order of things. Those of that view found support in Aristotle's Politics, which many could read in the original Greek, and in the Bible. In an ironic way, the lyrics added by Mahalia Jackson to Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday" serve to document southern slaveholders' observance of Sunday as a Sabbath for their slaves, in accord with Biblical teaching.
With the greater opportunity for detachment that historical perspective can afford, we have means to transcend the passions of that era and to see their error more clearly. Hopefully, we may also reflect more humbly on the fervor that animates so many controversies in our own time and may consider as well that even the authorities which we think the best support for our particular viewpoints may be mistakenly understood. We may perhaps become more able to listen to each other more carefully and with more respect.
"Appomattox" in its present location, at the site that it memorializes, can convey these teachings more effectively than it could anywhere else. As Councilman Chapman has advocated, the statue should not be moved.
Tal Day
Alexandria