When you look at Mount Rushmore, the four American presidents staring back were selected by sculptor Gutzon Borglum to define the first 130 years of American history. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson shared an era, Abraham Lincoln defined his, and Theodore Roosevelt was a symbol of expansion and development of the nation that the others had built.
Lingering in the shadows of that mountain is context. The battle scars, the sins, the regretful parts of our history. That is represented in those craggy faces, too, although not observably. But look hard enough, and you see it: the good, the bad, the entirety of the story that defines that portion of American history.