by Donald Smith
Governor Northam’s November speech to the VMI cadet corps has been widely panned for many reasons. Here I offer a new reason: The speech violated a cardinal principle of American leadership: you must be able to articulate compelling reasons for your decisions and actions.
When Northam spoke to the assembled Corps of Cadets, his previous treatment of VMI hung over his head like a dark cloud. Among the many animosities he had inspired was the banishment of Stonewall Jackson’s statue from Main Post, followed by an assault on the general’s legacy at VMI. Statues are symbols — of people, events or traditions we want to honor. They reflect upon the people who create and honor them — and also on those who tear them down.
With his speech, Northam had a chance to confidently and compellingly explain why Jackson’s statue had to go and why his legacy should be erased from the military academy.
“I believe VMI is the finest military school in the best country in the world,” the Governor said in the speech.
Well, American soldiers expect to know the reasons for their officers’ actions and decisions, especially controversial ones. It’s a tradition going back to the founding of our country. Literally.
“The genius of this nation is not to be compared … with that of the Prussians, Austrians or French. [In Europe, you] say to your soldier ‘Do this,’ and he does it, but [in America] I am obliged to say, ‘This is the reason why you ought to do that,’ and then [the American soldier] does it.”
Baron Friedrich von Steuben wrote those words after his first encounters with American soldiers in 1778. In “The Drillmaster of Valley Forge,” an account of von Steuben’s efforts to train the fledgling Continental Army, author Paul Lockhart explains that “Prussian soldiers, and European soldiers generally, were peasants, bred to deference.” The Continentals, though, did not see themselves as peasants. They were not simply “content to do what they had been told to do; they wanted to know why they should do it.” Why did it need to be done?
Two years earlier, these soldiers’ representatives in Philadelphia had set the standard for how American leaders should act. In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders spelled out the reasons why the colonies felt compelled to secede. “A decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” they wrote, “requires that [the Founders] should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
American leaders — good ones, that is — know we expect them to follow and enforce the standard set at Philadelphia and Valley Forge: they owe us compelling reasons, which they can explain and defend, for their decisions. Americans have never accepted “Because I said so” (or “Because, shut up!” or “Because I can get away with it”) as a good reason. That standard is a sign of a leader’s respect for those he/she leads. It’s also a check on bad or arbitrary decision-making. If the commander’s primary reasons are easily rebutted, they’re probably not strong.
The publicized justifications for the purge of Jackson’s legacy are shallow, not compelling, or easily rebutted. The Change.org petition created by VMI alumnus Kaleb Tucker, which started the Jackson statue controversy, doesn’t explain why Jackson himself was so uniquely awful that his legacy should be dismissed by VMI. Statements issued by the VMI superintendent and alumni organization immediately after the decision to remove Jackson’s statue don’t explain why Stonewall’s legacy was so toxic that his statue couldn’t even stay on Main Post or why a public university had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove it. I sent three separate requests to VMI’s Promaji Club, asking them to explain why Jackson’s legacy just had to be diminished at VMI. No response.
Governor Northam had a chance to answer those questions, to lay out compelling reasons why a great military institute had to cleanse itself of the legacy of its — and one of America’s — greatest battlefield generals. Reasons strong enough to convince not only progressives, emotionally brittle people, and Washington Post staff writers, but especially the Cadet Corps, VMI alumni, Virginians in general, and graduates of other great military academies such as West Point, Sandhurst, and St. Cyr. Strong enough to justify the turmoil Northam unleashed on VMI. Strong enough to convince Virginians that VMI did the right thing — and to dispel the widespread perception that an honorable institution was bullied by an opportunistic politician, eager to appease his critics, who took advantage of the national turmoil following the COVID and George Floyd tragedies.
In his speech, Northam gave no compelling reasons. He said it was good that Jackson’s statue was gone, because it made some cadets feel unwelcome and it “glorify[ied] rebellion against the United States.” No explanation for why Jackson’s battlefield greatness, or the courageous citizenship he showed by creating a Sunday School for slaves, should be dismissed, or viewed as insignificant. No acknowledgment that Jackson lived in a different time, with different beliefs than we have nowadays.
VMI cadets, who know the standard, surely recognized that the Governor didn’t meet it in his speech. I’m confident that many reasoned that, if Northam didn’t lay out compelling reasons at the time and place that called for him to lay them out… then it’s fair to conclude that he didn’t have compelling reasons in the first place. The governor couldn’t even say Jackson’s name.
Jackson’s statue may be gone from VMI Main Post for good, but there’s an important principle at issue here, one worth defending. Leaders set standards. A former Army Chief of Staff once said that, if a leader ignores a standard — or fails to live up to it — he’s just set a new, lower standard.
I suspect Ralph Northam and his “confederates” knew their justifications for attacking Jackson’s legacy were weak, falling far short of the standard set in Philadelphia and Valley Forge. That explains why they’re so evasive and vague when challenged. They deserve to be pilloried, so that their sorry example doesn’t become the standard for the future.
