Vandals

Last night in Madison, "Protesters tear down statues, punch senator." One of the statues was of Col. Hans Christian Heg. "Heg was a Norwegian immigrant and journalist who died of his wounds at the Battle of Chickamauga fighting to preserve the United States and end slavery."

Jonah Goldberg today, on Heg:

Col. Hans Christian Heg

Hans Christian Heg was an immigrant from Norway. He was a fierce opponent of slavery and an early member of the anti-slavery Free Soil Party. He was a leader of the Wide Awakes, an anti-slavery militia dedicated to chasing down slave catchers (groups we’ve been told constantly were the progenitors of policing in America). When the Civil War started, Heg signed up to fight. He organized Wisconsin’s all-Scandinavian Fighting Fifteenth. “The officers of the regiment will be men who speak the Scandinavian languages. Thus an opportunity to enter the service is afforded those Scandinavians who do not yet speak English.”

Heg was revered by his troops for his willingness to lead the charge in many engagements rather than hang back like so many officers. He died at the battle of Chickamauga in Tennessee, along with half of the men he went into battle with.

And last night, a bunch of idiots in Wisconsin tore down his statue and decapitated it. ....

And now in D.C., a plan to destroy a statue of Lincoln:

.... Outraged Americans rioting over racial injustice are now promising to topple a monument to the man who issued the Emancipation Proclamation — and, not only that, but a monument funded by formerly enslaved people to honor Lincoln specifically for having issued the Emancipation Proclamation. ....

Gathering at the statue yesterday evening, a mob vowed to rip the statue down on Thursday night at 7 p.m., helpfully announcing to law enforcement precisely when to show up and prevent them from carrying out this reprehensible act of vandalism.

And it’s not just the mob on this one. The District of Columbia’s non-voting congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, has joined their ranks, announcing that she plans to introduce legislation to formally have the memorial removed from Lincoln Park in Capitol Hill, referring to it as “problematic.”

In a statement, Holmes Norton insisted that, while the recently freed men and women who paid for the statue were understandably “grateful for any recognition of their freedom,” the statue itself needs to go because it depicts Lincoln standing over a kneeling African man. It didn’t, she said, “take into account the views of African Americans.

That’s a patently false reading of the statue’s history, which, as she herself acknowledges, was actually underwritten by freed African Americans. Holmes Norton claims that Frederick Douglass “expressed his displeasure” with the statue, but this seems to be a rather aggressive misreading of Douglass, who, in a lengthy oration dedicating the memorial, had this to offer, among other glowing lines about it and the man it honors:

we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which the men of this generation may read, and those of after-coming generations may read, something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr President of the United States.