Confederate plaque to be removed from Texas Capitol. (San Antonio, Tyler: high schools, living in)

[KathrynAragon]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Two different issues entirely, and I'm not thinking about Texas exclusively. I'm thinking about history, and the accuracy of it, and how people later (a LONG time later, when everyone living then is dead and can't correct them) come in and modify it to make themselves comfortable.

Like claiming that the Civil War was fought basically over states' rights, rather than slavery.

EVERY SINGLE SOUTHERN STATE, INCLUDING TEXAS, brings up the issue of the right to retain SLAVES, front and center, in each state declaration of secession. I mean, like it's the central point, not a side issue.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by Hopelesscause

Good. May they rot in Hell!

I'll be brutally blunt. I have no respect for Confederates, period. When students were forbidden from wearing Confederate flag t-shirts at my old high school (back in 2001 in Georgia), I cheered. I was so happy. I remember one girl getting in-school suspension for wearing a shirt with a very large Confederate flag on it. My first thought was "no sympathy from me. Maybe next time you won't wear that disgusting thing to school". Eventually the Principal gave up enforcing that rule. Either the sheer number of students defying that rule made discipline complicated(despite the ban, many students kept wearing Dixie Outfitter shirts to school), or there might have been outraged parents. To the say the least, Confederates don't deserve to be honored. Flying a Confederate flag is something I find abhorrent. Most of the time I keep quiet in public. I have learned that some individuals get touchy about that issue, specifically in the part of Georgia I live in

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

Like claiming that the Civil War was fought basically over states' rights, rather than slavery.

EVERY SINGLE SOUTHERN STATE, INCLUDING TEXAS, brings up the issue of the right to retain SLAVES, front and center, in each state declaration of secession. I mean, like it's the central point, not a side issue.

It is in the Articles of Secession. I've read it. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/p...eceding-states

I look at the issue like this. When you learn and know better, you do better.

[KathrynAragon]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

It is in the Articles of Secession. I've read it. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/p...eceding-states

I look at the issue like this. When you learn and know better, you do better.

Right. I am southern to the core, and make no apologies about it. In fact, I consider myself to be blessed with my southern ancestry and heritage. That being said, I have never felt that the Confederacy was something sacred or to be proud of. I have always believed that slavery was an abhorrent institution and that it was untenable for our nation in the long run, so thank goodness it was overthrown - I just wish so many good people didn't have to die in order for it to be overthrown. And those who fought to uphold the institution of slavery were very, very misguided in my opinion - often tragically so.

Whenever anyone says, "But...but...these people inherited those slaves, that system...they didn't start it...but ...but...they treated their slaves really well...but...but..." I just say "Do unto others what you want done to you. Do you want to be a slave? Do you want your children to be slaves? Do you want to have no property rights, to have no right to vote, to be considered worth only 3/5s the worth of other people with different skin tones? No? Then don't own slaves. Don't support slavery. Don't fight a war to allow other people to do so. It's not rocket science."

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

Right. I am southern to the core, and make no apologies about it. In fact, I consider myself to be blessed with my southern ancestry and heritage. That being said, I have never felt that the Confederacy was something sacred or to be proud of. I have always believed that slavery was an abhorrent institution and that it was untenable for our nation in the long run, so thank goodness it was overthrown - I just wish so many good people didn't have to die in order for it to be overthrown. And those who fought to uphold the institution of slavery were very, very misguided in my opinion - often tragically so.

There are many things from the South to be proud of. Girl Scouts started in Savannah (as one of the most interesting city layouts in America). Blues, jazz, gospel music, country, that comes from the South. There is much in the South to be a source of pride. It is one reason I find it a sad irony that some will call the Confederate flag "southern heritage". Some things are not worth looking at as a source of pride.

There were some very misguided people fighting for the Confederate cause. Alot of those who fought didn't own slaves. Some saw it as fighting for their land. Some supported keeping slavery because they hoped to become slave owners. The fact that it took war and so many dying to end slavery showed how fractured the nation was during that time.

Whenever anyone says, "But...but...these people inherited those slaves, that system...they didn't start it...but ...but...they treated their slaves really well...but...but..." I just say "Do unto others what you want done to you. Do you want to be a slave? Do you want your children to be slaves? Do you want to have no property rights, to have no right to vote, to be considered worth only 3/5s the worth of other people with different skin tones? No? Then don't own slaves. Don't support slavery. Don't fight a war to allow other people to do so. It's not rocket science."

I don't think most of those persons would want to be slaves either, nor would they want their children to be slaves. Some persons lack empathy and cannot see the situation from the perspective of those who were enslaved. Some persons are in denial because they don't want to admit what the cause was really about. There are those who support the Confederate cause and what it was really about, but won't ever admit it.

The Golden Rule, we have it for a reason. I'll even admit that I have fallen short on it many times. However, if we all lived on that concept, that would solve alot of problems.

In general, some things are not worth giving accolades to. When it comes to the Confederate cause, we should not forget it. At the same time, it should be viewed as something that nearly brought the USA to a collapse, a cause that is the antithesis of what it means to be American.

[MarshaBrady1968]

I thank TexasHorseLady, for though I do not agree, explaining that side of the argument very well. I completely understand how at least some of those on that side think about it, and I can actually live with that if that were everyone's thoughts and intentions. I do believe, though, that many are "in it for the wrong reasons".
I would like to now explain my thoughts: I can use the metaphor of disease as salvery. Let's say cancer (slavery) is killing someone (the Union) and must be destroyed in order to save lives (Union). Cancer (slavery) is destroyed because it is the emergency and person/people move on, but do not, say, stop smoking, get exercise, eat right - all the items that either caused, or exacerbated the predisposition for the cancer in the first place. I feel the habits of smoking/poor diet/exercise are akin to the habitual thinking of persons of a certain skin color, origin, even socio-economic level, to be beneath others. Holding up a reflection of that belief is what the statues of slave-holders is to me; the confederate flag; the discrepancy in wages (can include women in that, but different subject)
Does that make sense?

[green_mariner]

I would say this. The war might have stopped 154 years ago. However, the dream of the Confederacy never really died out. The mentality of "Blacks are inferior" was very dominant. Blacks could no longer be enslaved. This didn't mean the mentality changed. There were individuals who looked at Blacks as an inferior people, who needed to be "kept in their place". The Confederate monuments were a product of that. Such monuments were a way of saying "The Confederacy might be dead, but the dream of it isn't" and "Slavery might be over but the subjugation of Blacks will continue".

The war ended, but old attitudes would take over a century to die off. Slavery is over. Jim Crow ended about 50 years ago. However, the monuments are a throwback to when those things really were the reality of the day.

[Kthnry]

The Civil War ended in 1865, but 90% of Confederate monuments were built after 1900, with two major spikes in activity:

• Early 1900's, when Jim Crow laws were being enacted.
• Mid 1900's, during the Civil Rights era.

Lots of interesting reading out there.

Why would a city in a state that sat out the Civil War erect a monument to Confederate generals in 1948?

The vast majority of Confederate monuments were erected after the turn of the twentieth century. In addition to proclaiming the heroism of Confederates and their cause, these bronze and marble statuary announced white victory in a 40-year struggle to define and control the postwar Southern economy and to deny African American political influence. Key to this process was the disenfranchisement of nearly all African Americans and a significant number of white southerners, too.

The timing of Baltimore’s Jackson-Lee statue is very odd. Why should a city in a state that sat out the Civil War erect a Confederate monument in 1948? Who erects a statue of former Confederate generals on the very heels of fighting and winning a war for democracy? People who want to send a message to black veterans, the Supreme Court, and the president of the United States, that’s who. ...

This is the context in which Baltimore, a city with a large black working class and a prosperous African American elite, a top black newspaper, the Baltimore Afro-American, and a powerful NAACP chapter that included native-son Thurgood Marshall, chose to erect a monument to Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. This seemingly “historical” move had nothing whatsoever to do with “heritage.” Three times as many Marylanders fought for the Union as for the Confederacy. This move was designed to intimidate African Americans and to reassure white Americans in a moment of rising black power. The 1948 Baltimore statue reveals the true intent of Confederate monuments and their makers ― and the intentions of those who march under their colors today. Perhaps it is time for another Freedom Train. Its first stop should be the White House.

[Kthnry]

Similarly, the Confederate flag had pretty much disappeared until it was resurrected as a symbol of opposition to the Civil Rights movement in the 1940s. It's hard to buy the argument that people flying the flag are honoring their Civil War heritage.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/...t-war-history/

Following the shooting at a predominately black church in Charleston, South Carolina, the state is considering removing the Confederate flag from its capitol. But how did it get there in the first place?

South Carolina's confederate flag hasn't been flying since the Civil War. The flag wasn’t prominently displayed in the South until southern politicians began using it in their campaigns; and South Carolina didn’t start flying the flag at its state capitol until 1962, a century after the war began.

We spoke with historian David Goldfield, author of Still Fighting the Civil War, about the flag’s revival.

Why did the the Confederate flag reappear so long after the war?

The Confederate battle flag made its reappearance following the end of World War II. A group of southern states seceded from the Democratic party and ran their own ticket, the Dixiecrats, and the Confederate battle flag was very prominent with the Dixiecrat campaign in the 1948 presidential election. Before ‘48, it had appeared occasionally at football games at southern universities, and usually at soldiers’ reunions or commemorations of Civil War battles; but other than that, it really was not a prominent feature of the South.

Once the Dixiecrats got a hold of it as a matter of defiance against their Democratic colleagues in the north and the African Americans in their midst, then the Confederate battle flag took on a new life, or a second life. In the 1950s, as the Civil Rights Movement built up steam, you began to see more and more public displays of the Confederate battle flag, to the point where the state of Georgia in 1956 redesigned their state flag to include the Confederate battle flag.

[Desert kid]

Originally Posted by Kthnry

The Civil War ended in 1865, but 90% of Confederate monuments were built after 1900, with two major spikes in activity:

• Early 1900's, when Jim Crow laws were being enacted.
• Mid 1900's, during the Civil Rights era.

Lots of interesting reading out there.

Early 1900s: 50 years after the war and many of the last veterans were dying off.

1950s-1965: Coincides with the Centennial of the war.