by Patrick J. Buchanan
LewRockwell.com
On Gen. George Washington’s orders, the Declaration of Independence, signed in Philadelphia, was read aloud to his army. On hearing it, the troops marched to Bowling Green, decapitated and pulled down the statue of George III, and sent the remnants to be melted down into musket balls.
It was a revolutionary act, a symbolic statement. These once-loyal American subjects were now rebels and no longer owed allegiance to the king. They would fight to end his rule in America.
During the recent demonstrations and disorders here, similar acts had about them an aspect of societal rebellion and a repudiation of a heritage.
In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus, who generations of American children were raised to revere as the intrepid Italian explorer who discovered the New World, was pulled down and thrown into a lake.
In Boston, the Columbus statue was beheaded.