Posted on 12/28/2006 11:31:38 AM PST by peggybac
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The new president of the University of Texas says he will appoint a panel to decide what to do with four bronze statues on the Austin campus that honor confederate leaders and have drawn complaints for several years. William Powers Jr., who took over as president this month, said the advisory committee would look into concerns about the statues, which include likenesses of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States, and Gen. Robert E. Lee. "A lot of students, and especially minority students, have raised concerns. And those are understandable and legitimate concerns. On the other hand, the statues have been here for a long time, and that's something we have to take into account as well," Powers said in Wednesday's Austin American-Statesman. The university's previous president, Larry Faulkner, wrote an open letter to the campus more than two years ago saying the statues convey "institutional nostalgia" for the Confederacy and its values. "Most who receive that message are repelled," Faulkner wrote. Statuary on the Austin campus has grown more diverse over the years, partly as a result of student-led efforts. A student fee raised funds to install a statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1999. Also in the works are statues of Hispanic labor leader Cesar Chavez and Barbara Jordan, the first black woman from the South elected to Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Doesn't pain me as much as it used to to say, "Amen!". My daughter's a HS senior, and I'm really talking up College Station as a better fit for her. Thanksgiving might be interesting...
If the confederates were really fighting for self-determination instead of slavery, they would have heeded the wishes of the Greeneville Convention and allowed East Tennessee to separate from the confederacy and remain in the Union.
I'd say the man has a death wish.
You don't understand at all. Folks have every right to be as proud of their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy as their relatives who are fighting in Iraq. You have no idea how this is a spit in the face of all true Southerners.
All those opposed can kiss my Rebel ass.
...You! Are! An! Idiot! It's called history you moron! That should be a part of the curriculum. Or are you too busy taking "The Art of Dic$ Sucki$$" and other "progressive" classes?
See I knew you were insecure with losing a war so many years ago. I feel sorry for you. You probably framed all your F's you received in school and honor them. Makes about the same amount of sense as praising a war that the South could not get right. Your a pity and loser!!!!!!!!!
That is a very "spoiled child" view of the world, symbolic of liberalism.
Perhaps, but truthfully I could care less about this.
Hell, they don't have to remove them. Just change all the name plates to Fidel Castro. After a couple of years no one would remember who they really were.
So then do we agree that the American Revolution was unjust?
Nope. Lincoln's point was about whether any self-governing community could long endure if any sub-group could drop out whenever it felt like it. The British Empire was not a self-governing community, as the British Crown and Parliament reserved the right to make laws for their colonies whenever they felt like it. Not to mention the fact that even in Britain the political system was really an oligarchy quite unrepresentative of the people as a whole.
IOW, the colonial legislatures could be abolished or over-ridden whenever the British government felt like it.
A very different kettle of fish from pre Civil War America, where even Lincoln, the evil avatar of abolitionism (according to many in the South) agreed that slavery in a state could not be touched without amending the Constitution except by that state. And of course the requirements for amending the Constitution are such that no such amendment could have passed without southern agreement.
Interestingly, perhaps the biggest irritant to southerners that led them to secede was the ineffective federal enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, which was largely invalidated by northern state enactments.
In a classic example of federalism and states rights, northern states passed laws making enforcement of the federal laws difficult to impossible. Numerous southern states cited these laws in their Declarations of Secession as a reason why they wanted out of the Union.
IOW, prior to the Civil War southern states were demanding expansion of federal power, while northern states were resisting it.
Ya know...I always thought part of getting an education was learning to deal with that which made you uncomfortable....and in fact that uncomfortable feeling usually meant I was pushing out the envelope a bit more....silly me!!
So? There's no written document that says the official reason for U.S. participation in the Second World War was to save the Jews and the other victims of the Holocaust.
The great Sam Houston was an Unionist til the end.
WHAT????????????
Official document?
The U.S.went to war to save the JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSS?
Verrrrrry interesting.
Quickly now. I am a single malt fan. If you are on to some new and POWERFUL stuff, share it with the rest of us.
I don't know what that has to do with what I posted. Both houses of Congress specifically stated in their July 1861 resolutions that the war was not being waged to interfere with established institutions in the seceded states (i.e., slavery). Were there similar resolutions by Congress in WWII saying the war was not being fought to save Holocaust victims? If so, please post them.
And then there is this from the New York Times of April 6, 1861, in an article entitled "The Issue at the North." Bold type and the second paragraph break below are mine.
… There is no disposition, on the part of the great body of the Northern people to wage war upon Slavery, or to countenance any aggressions upon Southern rights.
But the question assumes a very different shape. Slavery has nothing whatever to do with the tremendous issues now awaiting decision. It has disappeared almost entirely from the political discussions of the day. No one mentions it in connection with our present complications.
No man, anywhere in the North, proposes for a moment to interfere with Slavery in any Southern State. No man proposes to exclude Slavery by Congressional action from any Territory. No man proposes to interfere in any way with the execution of the Fugitive Slave law, or in any way to interfere with the equality of the States, or the rights, privileges and immunities of the citizens of all the States, in regard to the institution of Slavery.
The Times back then lived in a fairy land, I think. They still do, of course.
Not quite so ardent a Unionist as you might suppose. Here are his congratualtions to Confederate General McGruder concerning McGruder's victory in expelling Federal invaders from Galveston:
General: It gives me great pleasure to mingle my congratulations with the many thousands that you have received. You, sir, have introduced a new era in Texas by driving from our soil a ruthless enemy. ... Your advent was scarcely known in Texas when we were awakened from our reverie to the realities of your splendid victory. Its planning and execution reflect additional glory on your former fame, as well as on the arms of Texas. Sam Houston, January 7, 1863.
War changes things and people.
In early December of 1941 Americans, both as individuals and as a government, still considered aerial bombings of cities to constitute war crimes, and among the greatest examples of the evil nature of the German and Japanese tyrannies.
A couple of years later we were cheerfully and intentionally killing millions of German and Japanese civilians. Similar attitude changes happened very rapidly with regard to unrestricted submarine warfare.
In 1861 it it true that most northerners had no desire to destroy the institution of slavery. The number who did steadily increased throughout the war, till by 1865 this opinion was very nearly universal.
Of course, even then it was for many, perhaps most, based more on a desire to punish the slaveocrats who started the war and caused so much suffering than on a feeling of brotherhood for the black man.
I do not see how you can quote a prewar newspaper article as representative of Union opinion throughout a four year war.
Emphasis bump. It might also be noted that the federal courts were also sympathetic to slave owners in the years leading up to the southern rebellion.
Guess they should just fire the entire history department then too? Who was it that said "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it?"
Right or wrong - however the looking glass of history portrays them - these men were leaders and I believe statues and remembrances of such people serve remind us of that. Not who was right/wrong, but that many men and women have toiled, sacrificed, led and bled to get us to where we are now. We can not and should not pretend it didn't happen, we should not forget it, minimize it, or attempt to recast it into something else. In a lot of ways we, as in "we the people" lost that war. It was not just about slavery (some say that was a side issue or a symptom of a bigger issue), but was also about states rights, and limiting the power of the federal government. I for one, a firm believer in smaller government, believe we lost on that issue.
"I don't see us shoving it in your faces ever."
Um, we southerners are Americans too. Don't you consider yourselves Americans up north anymore?
Point being, shoving it in MY face is shoving it in YOUR face, assuming you are an American.
It's your history too, and you'll just have to live with the fact that the south is home to Americans, in many ways better Americans on a per-capita basis, when you look at the prevalence of things like military service, than you folks up North.
Oh, and about praising people....Robert E. Lee was a better American than most, before, during, and after the Civil War. You'd do well to emulate him in your own life.
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