Perspective: White House barriers show we have forgotten the history behind Lafayette Square
. For those attuned to the ironies of history, these actions are particularly striking because they so starkly contradict the political values of liberty, equality and popular sovereignty embodied by the man from whom Lafayette Square takes its name.
As a thoroughgoing and philosophically consistent republican, Lafayette believed that every man, regardless of race, was entitled to the freedom the American Revolution had been fought to secure. In the 1780s he became internationally involved in the abolitionist movement, joining anti-slavery organizations and exchanging ideas with famous abolitionists in the United States, Britain and France.
A couple of weeks later the insurrection came, when around 7,000 Parisian market women, armed with brooms, pikes and even cannons obtained from a nearby armory, marched on the king’s palace at Versailles to demand bread. Lafayette and his troops calmly followed the marchers to maintain order. When the crowd swarmed the palace and brutally attacked the royal guardsmen, Lafayette … did not shoot.
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