"Albert Pike Statue to Be Restored" Topic

…"The National Park Service announced today that it will restore and reinstall the bronze statue of Albert Pike, which was toppled and vandalized during riots in June 2020," the Monday announcement from the National Park Service read. ..

Fox News: link

Wikipedia: link

I checked, and he is my 6th cousin four times removed.

He sounds like a terrific fellow, good for him.

👍

Amazing…

Problematic person.
Good for him and his Freemason work.
However, even after the end of the Civil War he was vehemently opposed to the Black franchise. He was a Klan officer in Arkansas. He was "neutral" regarding the Prince Hall Masonry while begrudgingly admitting they were "regular".

I've always shrugged my shoulders at statues and monuments to Confederate generals. I just thought they "represented history", period. I'm opposed to tearing them down. Haven't those people anything better to do? Something more constructive rather than destructive?
But I also find it not surprising that the "Current Administration" >>COUGH COUGH<< is restoring his statue. It's as pointless and unnecessary as tearing it down. It's thumbing the nose. "We're in charge now!"
And, as will inevitably happen in our cyclical politics, a future progressive administration will likely remove those statues again for equally invalid reasons.

The Fox article referred to setting the statue on fire. How do you burn bronze???🤷

I always thought that pigeons were the real critics of outdoor statues.

He wasn't much of a Civil War general, just commanded some 'auxiliary' units for a brief period of time.

It's disputed whether he was in the Klan. (Well, hard to prove when it's a secret society…)

He reportedly gave up his racism near the end of his life. Oddly enough, he was from Massachusetts, not born a Southerner.

How do you burn bronze???

Possibly the rioters threw a flammable liquid on it and set it ablaze? Burned till the liquid was gone? Rioters are not the smartest of people….

That reminds me: Does anybody know if there is a monument for Zebulon Pike in Toronto, where he was killed?

Are you related to Zebulon, too?

Grelber
In the shadow of Pikes Peak

Zebulon Pike: 9th cousin four times removed

Interestingly they seem to be related to each other – Albert and Zebulon

@ Grelber. Yes. link

I always wondered how he was identified as a great racist, worthy of having his memory erased from our collective consciousness. His Civil War service does not appear to be so beneficial to the South so as to mark him as a great leader. I'm sorry, however, if simple membership in the Klan or being a racist or a segregationist is the litmus test for being erased, there are a lot of famous people who should be removed from our collective memory, including those who voted against the 13th and 14th Amendments as well as hundreds (thousands) of politicians, judges and military men. (Not to mention a large proportion of the population of "Northern" states such as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. where the Klan of the 1920's was very popular.) What do we do with Justice Hugo Black, a member of the Klan and particular anti-Catholic, who became one of the most noteworthy Supreme Court Justices of the 20th Century (or FDR for appointing a Klan member as a S.C. justice)? Just about any post-reconstruction politician from a southern or border state is likely to have a set of white sheets hanging in his closet.

Once we go down the rabbit hole of measuring historical figures by contemporary standards, just about anyone can be "erased" for any number of "morally imperative" reasons. Maybe I have mellowed in my old age, however, with the exception of Benedict Arnold, I'm not sure that there are that many historically prominent Americans who are worthy of erasure. I'm even fine with his leg monument at Saratoga.

There were valid reasons to "honor" former Confederate military officers in the post-Civil War period. A divided country had to reestablish its former attachments. Congress pasted and the President signed legislation allowing for high Confederate officials (military and civil) to seek and be granted pardons. Naming military establishments situated in the South after pardoned Confederate commanders helped to foster those reestablished attachments, as did allowing Confederate monuments on Civil War battlefield parks.

I do not think that I am unique, growing up in the 60's, Union or Confederate, they were just two sides of the same American coin. Having traveled with my Family through the South by car, I do not recall seeing that many more Confederate flags flying in the South than in our area of Western NY. I never saw it as "racist." It was not out of place to see Confederate flags flying in the very heavily African areas of Buffalo. It wasn't until it fit a particular political narrative that people became "offended" by our shared history.

I am "guilty" of having a Confederate flag hung in every dorm room from rural Ohio to New Orleans. My roommate during my first year at law school in Pittsburgh was a liberal (we would call "woke" today) from Seattle who asked why I thought it was proper to hang a Confederate flag in our room (next to a U.S. flag and a NY flag). As he was a nightmare, I gave him a dismissive answer and waited for him to ask me to remove the offending banner. He never went that far, however, he did query anyone who entered our room, including every African American on the floor, if they were offended. Nobody ever expressed the least concern. As my roommate was suspected in an incident where someone used a marker to paint swastikas on the door of the only Jewish student on our floor, I question the veracity of his "concerns" about my pro-slavery flag.

If someone in the government believes that it is proper to refurbish and replace a monument that was taken down and vandalized during a riot, who cares. Frankly, I think it is imperative to replace such a monument so as to show that we will not tolerate lawlessness and mob rule. Where monuments were removed as a result of legislative action, I lament the lost history, however, demographics change. I do not recall any groundswell of support for removing said monuments before the advent of the BLM movement, however.

Confederate generals came from Pennsylvania. Union generals came from Virginia. 🤷

Longstreet was a great general, and he worked for reconciliation and reconstruction.
Forrest was a great general and he founded the Klan.

I'm unsure about the racial inclinations of General Jubilation T Cornpone, bless his heart.
But everyone who was a slave is now dead. Everyone who owned slaves is dead too.
I've always said, here on TMP and elsewhere, "Cursed is the nation that remembers too well its history, and how they were oppressed."
I'm Irish, and have always said that the smart ones emigrated. That left behind Papes and Prods who held grudges.
Tell me the difference between a Croat and a Serb, without asking them to Cross themselves.
What's the difference between a Hutu and a Tutsi.
Ethnic Chinese and Uighurs.

More traitors, lovely.

Well said John

And while Pike was a racist, he was also a champion for Native Americans. One wonders how he reconciled that…

Bill reminds me of the line from "Blazing Saddles" (edited just like TV) 😉

"Alright, we'll give some land to the ni##ers and the ch#nks, but we don't want the Irish!".

"This line emphasizes the absurdity and deep-seated racism of the characters and the time period depicted in the film, where prejudice influenced their choices even when faced with a shared adversary."

Were either of them related to Sweet Betsy von Pike?

No one has the right to decide what our history should or should not include. Certainly not rioters and looters.

Traitors? How childish.

"I always thought that pigeons were the real critics of outdoor statues."

You can electrify the metal statues. Zaps the little flying s right off of'em… ;-)

If this guy was so blah, why did he even get a statue?

Red jacket, IMO, the statue problems and the changes in perspective began when the veil of Lost Cause narratives began to be lifted. Probably the most influential history rewrite ever, still in evidence.

But various scholars began to look at the evidence and we began to read better histories of what happened. Grant finally got his due, no longer vilified as a drunk and a butcher, and Lee no longer was a saint and a genius.They were talented and influential human beings, none perfect. The role of black slavery in America and its relationship to secession (read the various states' Articles) became evident. Jim Crow became a study topic.

Looking at the statues, these new perspectives took hold for me. The statues themselves don't bother me. The works of David Blight in particular are a scholarly but readable solution to the issues of suppressed points of view that gave us the Lost Cause cancel culture.

If this guy was so blah, why did he even get a statue?

It seems he was a terrible subordinate (Mexican War, Civil War), but when put in charge of something himself, he got things done. With the Masons, he was the one in charge of that organization, and apparently did a masterful job at that.

Soooo… he was. A "Master Mason"? 😉

Pikes work for native Americans is probably why he got a statue in the first place. He was an incredibly important Mason, which could be the reason, but that dont mean much to me. I am fairly sure that his confederate service had nothing to do with the statue, the press is looking at the wrong fact so that the public can talk about something that matters not.

There was some irony during the BLM demonstrations here in Madison -- a statue on the Capitol grounds was torn down and mutilated by an angry mob. The statue was of a UNION officer who died in combat. I suppose any figure in a kepi was automatically assumed to be a racist? link

So there's the thanks you get. Anyway, the statue has happily been restored since. But not restored is the former memorial marker in Forest Hill Cemetery on the graves of Confederate prisoners who died in Madison captivity. That plot is sadly forlorn, next to a plot of Union soldier graves. What's poignant is that the CSA marker was originally paid for and installed by Union veterans as a mark of respect. But it was hauled off in 2020 despite come protest.

Red Jacket, as a side note, the County and town in Alabama that Justice Black was from has refused to allow any historical marker or any street naming to recognize that he came from that location. Sorta shameful if you ask me and I am from that couNty.