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Understanding 9/11tv South Carolina State House CSPAN August 28, 2017 5:38pm-5:53pm EDT
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and then he, of course, would come into the statehouse and go to work. oftentimes we don't look at the other components of the monument. there's an adult male with a young boy and he represents prosperity and he's ushering youth into prosperity because it was william mckinley during the industrial reverend lulolution country became very prosperous. on the other side is an adult woman with a young girl and she represents peace and she's ushering youth into peace. we're very proud of that monument. it's in a grand location for all ohioans and for all to enjoy. this is a tribute to ohio as it was built as a monument.
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and our beliefs in democracy and the idea that this is a place where we will house our heritage and 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. >> we're standing in the lobby of the statehouse in columbia. this is the center of the floor plan or layout of the rooms and this statehouse and many other statehouses. 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 by lateral nature and some would say the tension built into the
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governmental system. they are two rooms and that's what we have here in the building. one of the interesting things about the inside of the building is was planned before the inventions of plumbing and electricity and before our government had become so complex with agencies a very little office space. it's really a large, ceremonial shell for the legislative purchase. the major rooms were the library behind us and the house of representatives and the senate chambers. originally, there was almost nothing else. behind me is john c. calhoon, who many people would say is the
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philosophical father, the most prominent spokesman for southern political sentiment in the 1850s. the symbolism of this building begins with the laying of the cornerstone. the constitution, bibles, newspapers of the day, that didn't happen in south carolina in 1850. the only thing put under the cornerstone of this building was john c. calhoon's last speech in the u.s. senate in 1850 recommending secession from the union. on the front of this building, the two portraits and only two of robert and george mcduffy who were senators from south carolina who, in the 1830s, advocated nullification of federal laws by the states. they were the philosophical
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founders and promoters of the state's rights movement, which ultimately led to secession. under their portraits are war-like eagles representing the 15 potential states of the confederacy that they hoped for. none of that, of course, came to pass. the people who planned this building in the 1850s were very, very ambition shouus. they hide away henry kirk brown, the sculptor who was responsible and carved in marble those images that i just mentioned and planned an even more elaborate symbolism of the political economy of the state.
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and the i mpediment of this building is slaves working in the rice and cotton. henry kirk brown's sculptor composition i find tremendously moving because it represented the will of the political elite on the one hand and the horrific servitude of slavery 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 this sculpture was destroyed, it was never replaced. and today the pediment is blank and has always been so. the statehouse itself was a stone and brick building. it had no roof and no floors
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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 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 build 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
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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. the library has wonderful german renaissance and 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 roads. libraries are very krons traded and the new american governmental buildings, libraries were functionally very important because we are supposed to be a government of
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laws and the books we might say are the intellectual foundation of our government. so this library represents that both in structure and in its placement within the building. it's very, very prominent and very elaborately built. it was meant to celebrate as well as function as a governmental foundation. >> one of the fascinating things about this statehouse is that it was the first major granite building in south carolina. there were no trained stone cutters here. so the governor of the state at the time, john lawrence manning, hired a man from baltimore, rudolph, who was working on the smith zone yell building at the time. he brought with him from
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baltimore trained stone cutters. the state then hired a team of slaves, ultimately they had just had over 600 men working on this building for a period of about five years. they had a railway or a tramway to bring stone to the site. the stone was all slave cut and then fine hammered and finished by skill crafts men 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
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impressive. >> and you'll see a whole room of granite columns like a forest of#íñz trees. the building was designed to be symmetrical and instead of a dome, the original architect insended a square tower rising above the roof line but you'll stopped after the war and the state after the war was not able to build the foundations for that massive stone to youer wwe. what we see now is a pressed metal dome. on the inside 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 interior floor plan are not symmetrical. on the outside, the dome looks
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like perhaps the u.s. capitol dome. on the inside, it's quite a bit smaller and different inform. what we've really got are three domes like teacups, one inside the other. the movement for american public monuments was energized by the sense of history of america as on the world stage. he created central park and 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
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fair in 1890. we had several monuments on the grounds that directly reflect this. the monument to the partisan revolutionary generals is one. the equestriangenerals, the monument to wade hampton, the monument to the women of the confederacy. all created by frederick ruckstull from new york. who represented 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 sculpting. but the african-american
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monument here we might say is the equivalent of the new martin luther king monument on the mall in washington. in both the cases, a sculpting of the experience of american citizens. monuments because they're serious often elicit controversy. on our state grounds the monument to the the confederate solar, deeply felt historical experience. and they're 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
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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 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 the grounds represent the stability of the american experience here in south carolina.
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