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The monuments on the National Mall feel timeless. Inevitable. As if they rose from the earth fully formed.. of course the Washington Monument is there, of course it looks like that, of course the Lincoln Memorial anchors the western end of the Mall with the Reflecting Pool stretching out before it.
None of it was inevitable. All of it was a fight.
This week’s Sidequests traces the 200-year argument over how America builds its monuments, and what those arguments reveal about a country that has always been uncomfortable with its own desire for grandeur. Republics aren’t supposed to build like empires. But they also want to be taken seriously. That tension has been present since L’Enfant unrolled his plans in 1791, and it hasn’t been resolved since.
Every monument on the Mall tells two stories. The first is the story it commemorates. The second is the story of how America chose to build it and that second story has always been messy, slow, contentious, and democratic.
Maybe that process is part of what makes them American.
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