There is an interesting phenomenon that is gaining prominence in the 21st Century, in which our American history repeatedly receives a social bill of attainder.
We’ve all heard the term — the memory resides in some obscure corner of our brain along with “letters of marque and reprisal,” or “chuse.” It’s rarely used in a formal sense, today. But to attaint someone in this sense is to stain, or (at)taint, their reputation by public proclamation of their guilt without a trial. The whole intent behind this tactic is to ensure that the reputation is forever damaged. This attainture would also serve legally to establish “corruption of blood,” meaning even the children must pay for the guilt of the father.
We are also all familiar with the term “Whitewashed History,” in which historical figures are elevated to perfection, with their sins deliberately covered up. The term has its roots in Christ’s admonition of the Pharisees who were, “like whitewashed sepulchers” – outwardly perfect, but inwardly rotten. Historians and society rightly recognize this type of historiography as fallacious and inappropriate.
But there is a complementary historiographical fallacy that is just as bad – annihilating historic figures’ positive contributions and condemning them as utterly depraved. This condemnation is usually based on the discovery of a historical incident or disposition that is abhorrent to modern sensibilities. This fallacy is in historiography called “blackwashing”.[1]
Princeton University students are demanding that the memorials of their 13th president – and the 28th President of the United States – be removed from their campus because he was a racist. Of course, the accused is Woodrow Wilson, who became the first southern US President since 1848. His well-known progressive policies are coupled with an equally well-known mindset of the era that segregation was a benefit and the most practical means to avoid cultural tension.
Was he a racist? By our standards today, yes, and probably even by the standards of his time – especially if one were to survey only the northern attitude of the 1910s.
But the moral priority on abolishing racism is also much higher in today’s era – perhaps elevated equally with the moral priority of abolishing tyranny in the 1770s, or abolishing polygamy in the 1850s. And as such, even if one were a racist in the 1910s, it might be on the spectrum of moral priorities equivalent to a modern individual’s propensity to be for or against capital punishment or drug use.
But the point of this post is not to defend Mr. Wilson. To be honest, I’m not a fan – never have been. But he was indisputably brilliant, a technically proficient scholar, and politically savvy. He became an inheritor to the eminent office at Princeton once held by Jonathan Edwards (perhaps America’s greatest philosopher and theologian) and the Apostle of Virginia himself, Samuel Davies. He was elected to the highest executive office in the United States. Twice. The first time with over 4/5 of the sovereign states preferring him to any other opponent.
There is much to disagree with Mr. Wilson on, including his stance on segregation. But it is dangerous to annihilate the memorials to the past because of our modern moral priorities. It puts us all at risk of annihilation in the future, and we travel our destiny blindly, subject to the whims of a future people whom we can never know.
This is an increasingly popular expression of moral certitude – to demonstrate superiority at retail by silencing wholesale the dispositions and contributions of the past.
We’ve seen this in the defacing of monuments and demands for their removal; petitions for personalities to be fired from their jobs; the total erasure of any symbol, plaque, memorial, or banner that reminds an individual they are offended.
They therefore are content to eradicate the positive contributions – no matter how significant they are – in order to ensure that there can be no indication of support for what they find morally reprehensible. As this phenomenon becomes more acceptable, we will in fact eventually destroy every historical figure’s reputation and leave the business of legacy only for the living – all to satisfy an existential and fickle craving to despise. And that’s just it – this movement to annihilate the positive memory of our predecessors is not based on their transcendent or essential qualities, but rather it is based on our own existential objections.
One could make the argument that Lincoln was a racist, even for his time – especially if they surveyed a specific demographic. Washington, of course, was a slave owner as much as Lee was; Jefferson one as much as Stonewall Jackson; and Wilson was less a racist than Margaret Sanger.
Again, it is bad history to ignore the sins of our predecessors, but it is equally bad history to annihilate their merits. Furthermore, those who demand the removal of a monument or memorial are not only condemning the subject of the memorial, but they are also condemning the motives, intelligence, and morals of those who erected it.
This is not to say that things should never change; but we should not be so cavalier about eliminating the records of our past. There are serious implications in doing so, and we should take seriously the impact historical blackwashing can have upon a society.
There is a reason why the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing Bills of Attainder — the process had become rife with abuse, and citizens’ reputations, lives, and families were literally at perpetual risk if they opposed the moral priorities of those in power. The social bills of attainder we are witnessing today are just as capricious, just as dangerous, and do not offer — nor are they intended to offer — the attainted a chance to defend.
I believe that when we memorialize historical figures like Woodrow Wilson, George Washington, or Martin Luther King, Jr., we memorialize what was best about them. For we know, either consciously or subconsciously, that they are sinners and have fallen short of the Glory of God. We know they are not perfect, but the best about them is worthy of emulation. We all want to be remembered for the good we’ve done.
Let he then that is without sin cast the first stone.
[1] Ella Shohat and Robert Stam detail accounts of “blackwashing” in their critical Flagging Patriotism: Crises of Narcissism and Anti-Americanism, and define it in context as a purposeful denigration of the opponent while ignoring positive contributions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “An attempt to blacken or damage the reputation of a person, institution, etc., by emphasizing faults or mistakes.”
