This commentary is by George Longenecker of Middlesex, a writer and retired professor. 

It might seem like the proposed constitutional amendment on slavery in Vermont, a national historic site in Tennessee, and Confederate statues in Virginia have little in common. What draws them together is the shameful legacy of slavery and racism in the United States, and what separates them is how we should respond. 

While no one can undo death, rape, stolen wages, stolen property and children ripped from families, we can update our constitution, make use of teachable moments and remove statues that honor slavery.

• A proposed amendment to the Vermont Constitution would make it clear that any form of slavery or indentured servitude is prohibited. While Vermont prohibited slavery, the constitution still allows a child to be bound “…as a servant, slave or apprentice…” and to allow people to work as unpaid servants. The language in Article One would be simplified to read “…slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited.” It will become law after the November 2022 election, if approved by voters. 

One could argue that Vermont and federal law long ago prohibited such practices, and that nobody could be legally forced to work without wages today, like in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” One could argue that the Vermont Constitution is history, and we cannot erase the past. 

However, this state should abolish all vestiges of slavery and servitude. It is the right thing to do. We cannot rest on our state’s anti-slavery reputation at a time when blatant racism rocks the state and the nation. If the amendment passes, the original constitution, along with the amended, should be displayed in the Capitol. We should have constitutional teaching packets available to every school in Vermont. 

Indeed, this can be a teachable moment and an apology for the inhumanity and indignity of forced human labor.

• Andrew Johnson, president from 1865 to 1869, who once owned slaves, is ranked among the worst presidents, and barely survived conviction in an impeachment trial. Yet he’s honored with the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site in Greenville, Tennessee. 

Johnson became president upon Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, after being vice president only a month, a compromise candidate, on the 1864 ticket as a Southerner who supported the union. Yet he failed to heal or to govern, and did all he could as president to thwart Reconstruction reforms Congress passed to undo the human and economic damage of slavery. Johnson bought his last slave, Henry, a 13- year-old boy, for $1,015 a few years before becoming president.

It doesn’t seem such a president deserves a national historic site. Although the site has exhibits on Johnson’s slaves and impeachment trial, the National Park Service can do more to teach about the inhumanity of slavery, and the harm done by a president who could and should have done more to correct the enormous economic injustices of slavery. 

For instance, it could have an exhibit showing how slavery was big business. The Rokeby Museum in Vermont has such an exhibit. Four million slaves with a market value of over $3 billion lived in the U.S. just before the Civil War. That would be $91 billion in 2021 dollars. The South lost big at the end of the Civil War, and rather than moving on, some people tried to rewrite history, and create a myth of an idyllic plantation lifestyle — what they called “the lost cause.” 

• The statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson were erected on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, beginning in 1890. Lee’s was the first statue to glorify the Confederacy at a time when Jim Crow laws and lynchings forced African American citizens into a new form of bondage, and the progress of the Reconstruction reforms was being undone. 

These monuments glossed over the savagery of slavery and its aftermath. Former Confederates wanted back the wealth gained on the backs of Blacks. The Richmond statues have come down, as should other Confederate statues, which, like the Confederate flag, are symbols of resurgent racism. 

Replace them with statues of real heroes — Blanche Kelso Bruce, former slave, elected U.S. senator from Mississippi during Reconstruction; or Henry Freeman, the first Black U.S. college president, who now has a statue in Rutland. 

There is a time to amend, a time to teach and time to tear down. As a nation, we have to decide how to deal with symbols of slavery and a racist history, including statues, laws, flags and historic sites. 

In Vermont, we have a chance to amend. We can show the world that this state and this nation can acknowledge our history, and not forget the damage done by slavery and systemic racism. With this constitutional amendment, we can recognize that racism is not a thing of the past, and that we still have a long way to go.