By Eileen Moon | emoon@tworivertimes.com
A controversy is brewing, stemming from a proposal to replace a sculpture of Civil War Maj. Gen. Philip Kearny with one of suffragette Alice Paul at National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C., a chamber in the United States Capitol.
But if these two fighters could step forward in time to watch the arguments unfold, they might well enjoy the battle more than anyone else on earth.
The stipulation that has pitted Kearny against Paul is that each state in the Union is permitted to place only two statues in the Washington gallery representing its outstanding citizens. The statue of Kearny has been there since 1888.
“He was a real hell-raiser,” said Fair Haven resident Beverly Lawrence, great-great-granddaughter of the outspoken anti-slavery advocate and Civil War hero for whom the town of Kearny, New Jersey is named.
Kearny died on the battlefield in Chantilly, Virginia in 1862, while commanding the 1st New Jersey Regiment as it defended Washington from an assault by Confederate forces led by Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
On the other side of the debate stand advocates for Alice Paul.
“She was passionate. She spent her life advocating for equal rights, for women’s rights, for women’s right to vote,” said New Jersey Assemblywoman Carol A. Murphy (D-7) of the warrior for women’s suffrage who authored the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and fought for its adoption until her death in 1977. “She was jailed. She went on hunger strikes. She protested outside the White House.”
Murphy sponsored New Jersey Senate Bill 1369 seeking the statue change in order to honor Paul on the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
Murphy’s bill passed the Senate by a vote of 28-5. It will be sent to the Assembly for a hearing and, if approved, on to the governor’s desk for his signature.
But the bill has definitely sparked some bipartisan blowback.
“I’m really on the warpath about this for a lot of reasons,” said New Jersey Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger (R-13). “There should be room to memorialize all these figures, not replace one with another. It sets a very dangerous precedent.”
Kearny’s great-great- granddaughters, Lawrence and her sister Diana Bullitt, who lives in Rumson, reached out to Scharfenberger for help when they heard about the proposal. “That really iced it for me,” Scharfenberger said.
Kearny’s importance to Lawrence’s family has traveled down the generations. When her sons were married, they used Kearny’s ceremonial sword to cut their wedding cakes. One of her daughters still has his china service.
Lawrence’s granddaughter took a school trip to Washington, D.C. and saw the Kearny statue in Statuary Hall. In 2016, family members were proud to see their great-great-great-grandfather inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
“It definitely affects the descendants,” Scharfenberger said. “It hurts personally.”
The assemblyman issued a release opposing the bill last week. While he’s received a lot of calls, “If there are people who support it, I haven’t heard from them,” he said.
The Democratic mayor of Kearny, Albert Santos, has also expressed opposition to removing Kearny’s statue.
“It’s a pretty far-reaching collection of people speaking out against it,” Scharfenberger continued. “My gut feeling is that they will rethink this. Not one person I’ve spoken with has been in favor of this.”
In sponsoring the bill, Murphy stressed, she meant no disrespect to Kearny.
“He was a hero,” she acknowledged.
But she believes it’s time for a change of statues. It’s time that a woman takes her place in Statuary Hall beside Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, “hand in hand,” Murphy said. She believes that the statues that represent the state should be changed as history unfolds and that even if the Alice Paul statue were placed there, eventually, it – or Stockton’s – might be replaced by a likeness of someone else whose importance has more relevance to the present day.
But author William Styple, who is writing a biography of Kearny, believes Kearny deserves his place of honor in Statuary Hall and that if more New Jerseyans were familiar with him, they would opt for his statue to remain.
“I’ve been studying his life for my entire life,” said the Kearny native. He wasn’t simply a military hero, he said.
The son of one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange, Kearny became a millionaire by inheritance at the age of 21.
“He gave up a millionaire’s life to save his country. He thought slavery was a ‘stain on the American flag.’ That’s his quote, not mine,” said Styple. “He became a martyr for Emancipation. He is more than just a war hero. He is the only figure in Statuary Hall who gave his life on the battlefield.”
The article originally appeared in the February 27- March 4, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
