It’s happening again. Someone has decided to play God and rewrite history to their own specifications. In spite of the fantasies of Star Trek and other such escapes from reality, we cannot go back and correct the past, right historical wrongs or erase shameful mistakes.
I’m referring, of course, to the movement afoot to change the name of the Francis Scott Key Bridge to something somebody considers more “politically correct” in view of today’s standards rather than those of the time at which Key lived. It has been no secret that the poem, “The Defense of Fort McHenry” written by Key during that definitive battle near the end of the War of 1812, was declared, over a century later, in 1931, to be our National Anthem.
It has been less well known that Key and his ancestors were plantation owners, and consequently slave owners. It would have been impossible to profitably maintain a plantation without low-cost labor. Key himself was an attorney for the District of Columbia. As an attorney, he represented his clients according to their problems and the existing laws. He not only defended run-away slaves and achieved freedom for many of them; seemingly contradictory, he also defended their owners’ rights in retrieving their errant “property.”
We must remember the economics of the era and realize that, until the development of efficient, affordable machinery, the main factor that made agriculture profitable was manpower, and given the similar history of the tenant farmer in the old world and the many voluntarily indentured servants of colonial days, slavery seemed to be an acceptable substitute. Slaves, besides the cost of acquiring strong, able laborers, had to be housed, fed and provided with clothing, medicines and other basics. It is apparent that most of the slaves that Key succeeded in freeing were elderly and the cost of their maintenance was greater than the profits to be had from their labors. In short, it is as unfair and unrealistic to judge yesterday’s actions by today’s standards any more than it is to judge today’s actions by yesterday’s standards.
It seems only yesterday that southerners and their sympathizers were tearing down Civil War monuments and banning books and certain historic facts from being taught in schools. Such frenzies have persisted throughout history and will, no doubt, continue for centuries to come, but in the end, they are futile. It is possible to tear down statues and monuments, and to rename parks and bridges, but that is only superficial. We can change the words in the history books, refocus festivals and holidays and dismiss facts as being mere myths, but that doesn’t make them less true. We can change the song lyrics and relegate paintings to basements and closets, but that doesn’t change the depicted events. History is always there, it always remains the same, and while perhaps shrouded or ignored, it still happened. That will always be true no matter how embarrassing, shameful or frivolous the truth may be. It happened. This truth seems to be recognized in recent examples of a few southern schools having their once-banned Confederate names restored.
Today we celebrate Independence Day, or The Fourth, as it’s more familiarly thought of, with flags, parades, picnics, boat rides, family reunions, backyard barbecues and shooting off thousands of dollars’ worth of fireworks that send the dog to hide under the bed. Our youngsters run about in the evening dusk waving lit sparklers and inflicting tiny burns on siblings and tolerant grandparents. Women make red, white and blue gelatin salads and frosted cupcakes. Men drink chilled cans of beer while taking daring risks with explosive devices capable of blowing off thumbs and putting out eyes. I’ve never thought all this mayhem had much to do with freedom, but I suppose it must be inspired by the rockets being lofted over Fort McHenry in that battle that inspired our National Anthem. Let’s just try to remember that this is “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Okay?