Senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee joined Hallerine Hilton Hill on NewsTalk 98.7 this afternoon and offered his opinions on statues and monuments being torn down across the United States.
“I think we should be learning from history, not pretending it didn’t exist,” said Alexander. “I think it’s always appropriate to review the monuments and the places that we’ve named and see if they are appropriate in today’s context.”
Alexander supported his claim by using an example of states placing statues in the US Capital. The senator says that each state is granted two statues to be placed into the capital building and states are consistently choosing to change those statues to honor new people.
Alexander continued to weigh in specifically on confederate generals.
“We’ve had a lot of wars since the Civil War,” Alexander said. “We’ve had a lot of Generals and Medal of Honor winners, some from Tennessee. Maybe we should be honoring different people today than we did then. I think it’s always appropriate to have that discussion.”
Lamar Alexander also gave his opinion on attempts to tear down statues of President Andrew Jackson.
“To tear down Andrew Jackson’s statue is a terrible misunderstanding of US history,” Alexander argued. “He was one of our greatest presidents. He helped unify the country more than any president between its founding and the civil war.”
“He wasn’t perfect,” Alexander continued talking about Andrew Jackson. “He was central in our two original sins which was slavery and (treatment of) Native Americans… None of us are perfect.”
Alexander went on to use examples of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt to explain the difficulty in applying today’s standards to other periods in history. He also reminded that presidents do not act alone, but are elected by citizens and checked by congress and courts.
“We should always review whether the names and places are appropriate and change some of them if we want to,” concluded Senator Alexander. “But we should also remember the strengths of Andrew Jackson, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson along with their weaknesses and we should build a better future from that.”
