This story talks about how the U. of Texas is reconsidering a couple statues that depict important leaders of the Confederate States - Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis to be exact. I understand that the distaste for these statues is that they represent the "slave states" before and during the war between the states, but I think that it is a grave mistake to eliminate the Confederate States from our conscious.
It is unfortunate that in school, more often than not, we learn that the civil war was over slavery. In our later years we discover it was over a vast array of things of which slavery is one. In fact if you look real close at the civil war you quickly find out it was more about states rights than about slavery. Don't take me wrong, I don't support slavery and I think that it was right to make it federally illegal, I also don't think it was right for the confederate states to separate. But I do think it was right for the Confederate States to fight for their rights - because after all we do live in a republic and not a democracy and the federal government isn't supposed to have that much control over the states.
With that said I believe it is important to remember the Confederate States and their leaders - who were men of steadfast resolve to their beliefs. By eliminating these statues UT would be undermining both their and our collective history. They would be depriving the students of seeing two men that made hard decisions and, though they ended up on the losing side, lived honorably with those decisions. To eliminate the losers of history is to force ourselves to make the same mistakes as well as some new ones. But in all reality this goes beyond UT to the hundreds of fights that have been fought over Confederate symbolism in the south. You can't simply erase history - and important history at that. Without a memory of the missteps of both sides in the debate leading up to the war between the states we are bound to repeat them.
It is unfortunate that in school, more often than not, we learn that the civil war was over slavery. In our later years we discover it was over a vast array of things of which slavery is one. In fact if you look real close at the civil war you quickly find out it was more about states rights than about slavery. Don't take me wrong, I don't support slavery and I think that it was right to make it federally illegal, I also don't think it was right for the confederate states to separate. But I do think it was right for the Confederate States to fight for their rights - because after all we do live in a republic and not a democracy and the federal government isn't supposed to have that much control over the states.
With that said I believe it is important to remember the Confederate States and their leaders - who were men of steadfast resolve to their beliefs. By eliminating these statues UT would be undermining both their and our collective history. They would be depriving the students of seeing two men that made hard decisions and, though they ended up on the losing side, lived honorably with those decisions. To eliminate the losers of history is to force ourselves to make the same mistakes as well as some new ones. But in all reality this goes beyond UT to the hundreds of fights that have been fought over Confederate symbolism in the south. You can't simply erase history - and important history at that. Without a memory of the missteps of both sides in the debate leading up to the war between the states we are bound to repeat them.
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