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Understanding 9/11tv South Carolina State House CSPAN August 28, 2017 1:52pm-2:07pm EDT
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and he represents prosperity. and he's ushering youth into prosperity. because it was william mckinley that was president during the industrial revolution. and this country became very prosperous. on the other side is an adult woman with a young girl. she represents peace and she's ushering youth into peace. so we're very proud of that monument. it's in a grand location for all ohioans. it was built as a monument to our ideas, our beliefs in democracy but the idea that this is a place where we will house our heritage as ohioans, so the public can come and participate in the process and learn about the history of the state as well as the future of the state.
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>> we're standing in the lobby of the south carolina state house in columbia. the lobby of course is a pivot point or the center of the flow plan or the layout of the rooms in this state house and many other state houses. the lobby symbolizes accessibility of government to all the people. the house and senate chambers are on either side of the lobby. reflecting perhaps the bilateral nature, some would say the tension, built into the american governmental system. they are bicameral, meaning two rooms, that's what we have here in the building. one of the interesting things about the inside of the building is it was planned before the inventions of plumbing and electricity and before our government headed far to be so
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complex with many standing committees and agencies. so this state house was planned with very few committee rooms, very little office space. it's really a large ceremonial share home for the legislative purpose. the major rooms are the lobby we're in, the library behind us and the house -- the house of representatives and the senate chambers. originally there was almost nothing else. behind me is john c. calhoun, many would say the philosophical father of the movement, the most prominent spokesperson for southern political persona in the 1850s. the symbolism of this building really begins with the laying of
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the cornerstone. if you were building a state house, what would you put on the cornerstone, the constitution, the bible, newspapers of the day? that didn't happen in south carolina in 1850. the only thing put under the cornerstone in this building was john c. calhoun's last speech in the u.s. senate in 1850 recommendi recommending secession. notification by the states. they were the philosophical founders and promotors of the states rights movement, which ultimately led to secession. under their portraits there are warlike eagles surrounded by 15 stars representing the 15 potential states of the
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confederacy. none of that of course came to pass. the people who planned this building in the 1850s were very, very ambitious. they intended a building that rivall rivaled or bettered the u.s. capitol. carved in marble those images i was just mentioning. an even more symbolism of the political economy of the state. in the pediment of this building over the columns on the front, which of course faces north, henry planned images of slaves working in the rice and cotton. i find tremendously moving because it represented the will
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of the political elite on the one hand and the horrific servitude of black enslaved agricultural labor on the other hand. the figures were produced but were destroyed just as the political and economic system was destroyed when columbia was burned in the civil war. when the sculpture was destroyed, it was never replaced. and today the pediment is blank. and has always been so. the state house itself was a stone and brick building. it had no roof. had no floors. when the city burned. and so the building itself did not burn. but all the materials that were stored on the grounds in wooden sheds were destroyed. beginning in the 1820s, people responsible for public buildings
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in america decided to build fireproof and permanent, reflecting the permanence of the government they hoped to create. so this building was planned to be absolutely fireproof with no structural wood. in the 1850s that meant masonry, stone and brick. so the building was planned with 10 to 12 foot thick granite and brick walls. and it was built that way in the 1850s. construction was interrupted by the civil war. and when it began again in the 1870s, fireproof systems had changed. and cast iron was in use. and the interior of this building is built on this later fireproof building method. and the library is the best example of that.
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the library is perhaps the most ornate room in the building with wonderful german renaissance high end scroll work. beginning in paris in the 1850s, cast iron began to be used in a visible way for the first time in public buildings. and the reason for that was that it can stand terrific loads. libraries of course have very concentrated weights. in the new governmental american buildings libraries were functionally very important because we are supposed to be a government of laws. and the books we might say are the intellectual foundation of our government. so libraries took a central place in a way they never had before perhaps. and this library represents that. both in structure and its
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placement within the building. it's very, very prominent and very elaborately built. it was meant to celebrate as well as function as a government building. one of the fascinating things about this state house is it was the first major granite building in south carolina. there were no stone cutters here, so the governor of the state at the time, john lawrence manning, hired a man from baltimore who was working on the smithsonian building in washington at the time. he came down and brought with him from baltimore trained stone cutters. they then hired a team of slaves. ultimately they had just over 600 men working on this building for a period of about five years. they opened granite quarries
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down by the river, created a railway or a tramway to bring stone to the site. the stone was all slave cut and then fine hammered or finished by skilled craftsmen from baltimore. they moved more than 24 monolithic or single piece granite columns weighing over 30 tons a piece. the architect thought these were the largest single pieces of stone that had ever been cut or moved in the united states. this granite work is very, very impressive. and you'll see a whole room of granite columns like a forest of trees downstairs. the building was designed to be symmetrical. and instead of a dome, the original architect intended a square tower rising above the
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roof line. but you'll remember that the construction was stopped during the civil war and the state after the war was not able to afford to build the foundations for that massive stone tower. so what we see now on the outside of the building is a pressed metal dome. on the inside of the building from the lobby we look up into what we think is that dome, but in fact it's architectural illusion that two domes inside the original dome. because the exterior of the building and the interior floor plan are not symmetrical. on the outside, the dome looks like perhaps the u.s. capitol dome. on the inside it's quite a bit smaller and different in form. what we've really got are three domes like teacups, one inside the other.
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the movement for american public monuments was energized by the sense of history of america as a -- on the world stage, fred ri omstead, who created central park created something called the city beautiful movement, a coordinated planning of spaces and buildings and monuments that was meant to be inspiring, socially inspiring. and columbia, south carolina, was one of the cities that became very involved in this. and there was a burst of monument construction after the world's fair in 1890. and we have several monuments on the ground that directly reflect this. the monument to the partisan revolutionary generals is one. the equestrian monument to wade hampton is another. the monument to the women of the
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confederacy is a third. all of these were created by a sculptor named frederick wellington rux tell from new york who represented sophisticated european training, the same level of competence and ambition that had been represented in the original construction of the state house itself. it's interesting that one of the more recent monuments created was the monument to the african-american experience, which takes us right back, doesn't it, to the pedimental sculpture which was destroyed and not built. the african-american monument here we might say is the equivalent of the new martin luther king monument on the mile in washington. in both cases a sculptural representation of significant
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experience from the american citizens. monuments because they are serious often illicit controversy. on our state house grounds, perhaps, the monument to the confederate soldier and confederate flag behind it represent controversy, deeply felt historical experience. and there are a group of people who cherish what they represent. and there are others who feel it's something dark that should be suppressed. my own feeling is it's part of our history. and there it is. and we accept it for what it is. despite the long drawn out construction and the changes in technology and social values
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that have taken place over that time, it seems to me that the real lesson is that our government is resilient, that our society is resilient, that we are able to incorporate and embody change and tension and find a resolution. and for me the state house and its grounds represents the stability of the american experience here in south carolina. welcome to the old capitol museum. we are standing on the first floor on this landmark built in 1839, which makes this 175 years old this year. this is the oldest surviving building in
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