By Alex Sanders

A controversy rages in Charleston about whether to erect a statue of Denmark Vesey. Many people think his plan to execute every man, woman and child in the city went a bit too far. They wish he had protested slavery by writing a strong letter, like the one Dr. King wrote from the Birmingham jail.

Supporters of a statue of Denmark Vesey, on the other hand, point to the distinct absence of monuments in Charleston to anyone who evidenced even the least sympathy for the plight of slaves. I propose a statue of an individual we should all feel comfortable in honoring: John Charles Fremont, explorer, statesman, soldier and the first emancipator of slaves in America.

Fremont was born in 1813, the underprivileged child of parents who were never married. He first established his reputation by leading important early explorations of the American West. He reached the Pacific Coast on the eve of the Mexican War and played a pivotal role in the conquest of California. He served thereafter as a U.S. senator from California, as well as governor of both California and the Arizona Territory. He became a national hero, and in 1856, he was the first Republican nominated for president of the United States.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln appointed him a major general in the Army and assigned him a daunting task; organizing an army in Missouri, a slave state where most people were disloyal to the Union. He persevered against the odds and, on Aug. 30, 1861, issued his own Emancipation Proclamation, confiscating the property of all Missouri residents in rebellion against the Union and summarily freeing their slaves.

The fact that he was an early Republican should endear Fremont to the majority of the people in Charleston. His courageous act of freeing the slaves in Missouri should endear him to almost everybody else. Of course, many thoughtful people will admire him for both reasons. Statues of Civil War generals have always been popular in South Carolina. Surely at this late date, we can overlook the fact that he was on their side, not ours.

What has this got to do with Charleston? A great deal. John Charles Fremont, the first Republican nominated for president and the first emancipator of slaves in America, was an alumnus of South Carolina's first institution of higher learning, the College of Charleston. Surely, we can all support erecting a statue of him in Charleston.

Sanders is the 19th president of the College of Charleston.

But perhaps none is required: for from sea to shining sea, amid the plains and valleys now largely empty of the vanquished Indians and buffalo, amid the ceaseless, nervous, odometer-stripping miles of iron-railed and asphalt Buenaventuras that now bind the republic, John Frémont's continental legacy lies too deeply inscribed on the landscape to ever be summed up with statues, or removed with jackhammers and bulldozers. For, in the end, the American empire he envisioned had been realized on a scale--and in forms--beyond his wildest dreams. Tom Chaffin

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