May, 2021
Lincoln and Washington — Nearly a year ago in these pages I suggested replacing, in the U.S. Senate Reception Room, the portrait of Senator John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, with a portrait of Senator George W. Norris, of Nebraska. (I know the room well, having worked as Senate staff for several years and as a federal agency liaison to Congress for several more.)
Calhoun (1782-1850) advocated for slavery in the 19th century and was noted for his political theories of nullification and secession. Norris (1861-1944) was a champion for rural America in the 20th. Norris was chosen by a Senate committee in the 1950s for representation in the ornate room, one of only five selected from among all senators who had ever served, but intra-party wounds in his home state were still fresh; Nebraska senators Carl Curtis and Roman Hruska blocked the choice.
A saying attributed to several individuals, in various forms over two centuries, is that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Left unanswered is who does the bending, which is where my personal interest in these portraits enters the equation.
When the ancestors of Senator John C. Calhoun moved from Pennsylvania to South Carolina in the early days of our country, they stopped for a generation in Virginia. Among those who remained longer, in Pendleton County, Virginia, was William Calhoun, who married my 3rd great-grandmother. They named their son, born in 1840, John C. Calhoun, after his father's famous South Carolina cousin. The Virginia namesake of the senator was my 2nd great-granduncle, half-brother of my 2nd great-grandfather, Sampson Zickafoose. He and Sampson enlisted in the Confederate army in 1861.
They both died in the summer of 1863: namesake John C. at the Battle of Williamsport, covering Lee's retreat from Gettysburg, and Sampson, most likely of disease.
When Sampson's son Clark Zicafoose married Susan Wimer in 1880, he married into the Strother family, which had abolitionists in its ranks. Susan's ancestors included Anthony and Frances Eastham Strother, who gave up their slaves when they became abolitionist Baptists many years before the Civil War. They are my 5th great-grandparents. (Not all in the Strother family were abolitionists, however; President Zachary Taylor, my 1st cousin five times removed, was a slave-owner.)
Clark Zicafoose and Susan Wimer Zicafoose migrated to Nebraska in the 1890s, first to Lancaster County and then to Red Willow County, where they lived outside McCook, home of George Norris. Clark died in 1927 but Susan lived until 1941, long enough to see rural America benefit from Norris's creation of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). Clark and Susan Zicafoose were probably supporters of George Norris, of their hometown. My father, born in 1912 in McCook to their daughter, Mae Zicafoose Oberg, was a great admirer of Norris.
Which brings us to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. One hopes that the insurrectionists were not inspired to invade the Senate chamber by the Calhoun portrait in the Reception Room. Nothing in the investigations so far suggests it, but it could have been a provocation. (The invaders did, however, damage a bust of Zachary Taylor in a Senate hallway during their rampage, probably without knowing who he was.)
I don't believe the moral arc bends itself. It is bent toward justice, or not, by choices, including the choice of which people to honor even within one's own family. Sampson Zicafoose and his half-brother John C. Calhoun, Confederate soldiers, have headstones in recognized cemeteries in Pendleton County, now West Virginia. Sarah Strother* Wimer, of the abolitionist Strothers and my 2nd great-grandmother, has none. Her gravesite is in a family plot somewhere nearby, the exact location of which is in doubt.
I would like to find it, perhaps put a headstone there, and bend the arc toward justice a little within my own family. A good occasion for the attempt would be a U.S. Senate decision to put the portrait of John C. Calhoun in a museum and install instead a portrait of George W. Norris. It's long overdue.
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* The spelling changed to Strawder at some point, likely a phonetic rendering. We don't know the sentiments of Sarah Strother Wimer (1830-1875), herself, about slavery or the Confederacy. Her husband Peter B. Wimer was a Confederate soldier from 1861-1863, like their neighbors near Dry Run, Sampson Zicafoose and John C. Calhoun. Her cousin, however, the estimable David Hunter Strother, well-known as "Porte Crayon," was a Union army brevet general.
