With the recent, horrific, events that have taken place across our country, calls to remove the Statue of Thomas Jefferson from the University of Missouri's campus have reemerged.

The Statue of Thomas Jefferson sits on the Francis Quadrangle ("The Quad") on Mizzou's campus. Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States. In 1803, Jefferson acquired the territory of Louisiana with the historical Louisiana Purchase. In 1839, MU was founded as part of the Geyer Act. The University, being the first land grant to be built west of the Mississippi River, was partially designed based on Thomas Jefferson's original plans for the University of Virginia. You can see the similarities between the University of Missouri's Francis Quadrangle and the University of Virginia's The Lawn. Seeing that The Quad is based on Jefferson's own designs, it is fitting that The Statue of Thomas Jefferson should sit on The Quad. Likewise, it is fitting that his original tombstone should also rest on The Quad.

President Jefferson did own slaves, owning around 600 over the course of his lifetime. Although he owned slaves, Jefferson called slavery a "moral depravity" and a "hideous blot", which is correct. Throughout his political career, he made many attempts to reduce the availability of slavery. Though Jefferson recognized the grave evils of slavery, he remained a slaveholder. However, is it truly fair to judge a man based on our 21st century understanding of morality, when the man we are judging lived in a time where slavery was the norm? Is it truly fair to defame a former president who wrote the Declaration of Independence, where he expressed that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? Jefferson did not live up to all of his values, nor should we expect him to have lived up to all of them. Who among us has lived up to all of the values we uphold? Who among us is perfect? This is not to excuse, nor to defend, the great evils of slavery, but it is to show that humans are not perfect, including Jefferson.

Before concluding, I would like to address a specific grievance that has been brought to my attention regarding the Statue of Thomas Jefferson. Another petition on change.org, titled "Removal of Thomas Jefferson from Mizzou's Campus", explains that many "Confederate monuments were built during the era of Jim Crow laws (1877-1964)." This statement is true. However, the bronze statue was unveiled in 2001, many years after the era of Jim Crow ended. The statue was donated by the Jefferson Club, a philanthropic group for Mizzou. It is not among the Confederate statues built to glorify the Civil War and the Confederacy. It was built to glorify the ideals that Jefferson stood for, even if he never fully practiced them. There is a grave difference between infamous Confederate statues and statues of Founding Fathers. Members of the former fought to destroy the United States, while members of the latter fought to create it and all of the ideals for which it stands.

In conclusion, without Thomas Jefferson, we would not have the Declaration of Independence, we would not have the territory gained from the Louisiana Purchase, we would not have The Quad, and we would not have the very school that we call home: The University of Missouri. We should never forget the evils of slavery, and we should actively work to rid of all racial discrimination. However, we should not judge, nor condemn, a man for not acting in accordance with our own morality. We must judge men based on the contents of their character, in the context of when they showed their character. The idea that "all men are created equal" was a very radical idea at the time of the Revolutionary War. The Founding Fathers believed in this idea and fought for this idea, even if not always living up to the idea. They believed it to be a "truth" that was "self-evident", as shown in the Declaration of Independence. We are all fortunate enough to have that very truth embedded in one of our founding documents: The Declaration of Independence. We are also fortunate enough to have had such ardent believers in that truth that constitutional amendments were added to the highest law of the land, the Constitution, to solidify this truth in another Founding Document. We should look up to Jefferson as one of the many men who fought for the freedoms that we have today, as a Founding Father of the United States of America. For these reasons, the Statue of Thomas Jefferson on the Francis Quadrangle at the University of Missouri should remain firmly seated where it is, in the Jefferson Garden.