Who is to Blame -- the Jefferson Statue

We're angry!

Jefferson owned slaves!

Tear his statue down!

The statue of Thomas Jefferson, commissioned to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase centennial, and sculpted in bronze by Karl Bitter, was paid for by the students of Thomas Jefferson High School in Portland in 1916.

The statue was recently toppled and vandalized by protesters.

But who do we blame for this statue?

Do we blame the Cuyahoga County Courthouse in Cleveland, Ohio for commissioning the original in 1909?

Do we blame Karl Bitter who sculpted the statue out of marble and replicas in bronze.

Or perhaps the Roman Bronze Works of New York who cast it?

Do we blame the Exposition Executive Committee of the St. Louis World’s Fair which commissioned a replica?

Do we blame the Jefferson High School students and alumni who raised the money to put up their statue in 1916?

My question is this:

Did anyone ask any of these people if it was OK to tear down their statue?  This was private property, probably owned by the school district or the City of Portland, and those who desecrated the statue violated their property rights, to say the least.

Another question for those who vandalized it is this:

Are they so incensed at the existence of this statue that they will now destroy all copies of it, which are currently displayed in Cleveland, Brooklyn, Charlottesville, and St. Louis?  What about all the other statues and memorials currently honoring this 3^rd U.S. President?  And all references to him in books, paintings, student textbooks and the like?

I doubt it.  Their act was symbolic.  It was aimed to create a reaction, and it certainly has.  Destruction of a country’s symbols inflames the patriotic. 

The vandalism may not have been anti-American, but, as the graffiti states, a protest against slavery by the BLM.

But if it was a Black Lives Matter group that aimed to topple Jefferson as a symbol of the oppression of Black Americans, they missed their mark.  For one thing, they failed to notice the inscription on one side of this statue which shows that Thomas Jefferson, whatever his faults, agreed with them.

“BEAR IN MIND THIS SACRED PRINCIPAL, 

THAT THOUGH THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY IS IN ALL CASES TO PREVAIL, 

THAT WILL, TO BE RIGHTFUL, MUST BE REASONABLE; 

THAT THE MINORITY POSSESS THEIR EQUAL RIGHTS, 

WHICH EQUAL LAWS MUST PROTECT, 

AND TO VIOLATE WOULD BE OPPRESSION."  

-- THOMAS JEFFERSON.