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The President of the University of Texas at Austin released a letter regarding the removal of statues on the campus.
[...] The University of Texas at Austin is a public educational and research institution, first and foremost. The historical and cultural significance of the Confederate statues on our campus — and the connections that individuals have with them — are severely compromised by what they symbolize. Erected during the period of Jim Crow laws and segregation, the statues represent the subjugation of African Americans. That remains true today for white supremacists who use them to symbolize hatred and bigotry.
The University of Texas at Austin has a duty to preserve and study history. But our duty also compels us to acknowledge that those parts of our history that run counter to the university's core values, the values of our state and the enduring values of our nation do not belong on pedestals in the heart of the Forty Acres.
The issue isn't a new one, they first looked into the issue in 2015, and had a wide range of options including effectively turning the mall into an open air museum, which they eventually decided against. Should the statues be relocated from their historical context just because of the attitudes and behaviour of noisy minorities? (Your humble editor cannot forget the local riots when a historical but hostile-themed statue was relocated.)
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Entropy on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:13PM (44 children)
They are a piece of history. The civil war was never about slavery: The north tried to entice the south back into the union with the assurance slavery would continue. When that failed, and fearing France would ally with the South because of their superior textile industries the north took a stance against slavery to prevent French aide to the south.
It's nice to think it was all about slavery, but it really wasn't. Also, there were black slave owners.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:20PM (4 children)
Mmmhmmm, would you like some pills with that crazy?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:22PM (3 children)
http://www.snopes.com/facts-about-slavery/ [snopes.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:48PM (2 children)
ZOMG SLAVERY WASN'T ONLY A WHITE PEOPLE THING ZOMGZOMGZOMG!
Yeah, that 100% invalidates taking down the statues, or that slave owners were overwhelmingly white. This is like the historical version of "one of my good friends is black". Go try and pawn your shit on some other gullible lawn ornaments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:11PM (1 child)
I just offered some facts and said nothing about statues. You sound triggered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:25PM
Ah yes, I see I did not include enough information. The "crazy pills" are for anyone who tries to downplay slavery and pretend like it wasn't the foremost reason for the Civil War. Perhaps you were only being informative, but in the context it comes off as apologetic bullshit by claiming it couldn't be all about slavery since some black people owned slaves.
So, were you just trying to share some historically accurate information? Or was that info supposed to validate the claim that the statues should be kept up?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Virindi on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:24PM (8 children)
This isn't completely accurate, comon. While there were multiple issues involved, and different demographics were motivated by different reasons, one motivation was definitely slavery.
The north was crawling with hardcore abolitionists and the south's economic base was built on plantations. The platform of the Republican party was all about abolition, and if you look at what was said in debates over secession a fear that Lincoln would force abolition at a federal level was front and center.
But in addition, it was a matter of honor to both sides. Plenty of southerners with no personal stake in the institution of slavery fought on the side of the Confederacy. Some slaves even continued to help out the Confederate cause when given the chance to escape.
So yes, it was way more complex than just slavery. But slavery was a big part of it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:28PM (7 children)
Yes, the motivations were complex--I agree. But we're trying to revise history here by making it into this:
North: No slaves.
South: Slaves.
And based on that absurdity remove a bunch of monuments for no legitimate reason, pissing off a whole lot of people for no legitimate reason. There's really a lot better things to be doing with our time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @05:54PM (6 children)
Few things in life are so clear cut. Every major event in human history has a ton of aspects, but they almost always get boiled down to the most important bits. Slavery was THE most important aspect of the Civil War, and yes there are nuances to be learned for anyone interested in such specifics. The Venn diagram of confederate defenders has a massive overlap with racists / white supremacists. Ignore if you want, no one else is going to join you in your stupidity.
Yes I will use insults, this apologist shit is getting old. Move the fuck on and stop trying to defend obviously racist bullshit. Perhaps if these statues weren't erected during the heights of segregation... but they were, so fuck off with your personal agenda.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:16PM (1 child)
And fuck off with yours too.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:32PM
Need a hug? Is it rough being a despised minority? I'll try and maintain some compassion, just enough to stop any violence against you. But enjoy the social effects of being/defending bigotry.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 22 2017, @08:10PM (1 child)
No. Federal authority vs states rights was the most important issue, and everyone lost.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:22AM
Yep, better them darkies were still slaves than that the federal government step in to enforce the ideals of the country. Let me guess, we all lost again when Ike sent federal troops to Little Rock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:30PM (1 child)
another yankee fuck telling people to move on while you go around bringing up old shit to use brainwashed idiots for political gain. the statues represent the men that fought for their homeland and it's sovereignty. racism and slavery were part of the culture then. just like racism and working people to death in the factories were part of the north's "evil" culture. no one is denying it. that's the way things were then. now southerners' heritage is outlawed because the way things were then hurts someone's feelings? fuck you, you stupid bitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @03:06AM
So we should leave the statues up so that your precious widdle feewings don't get hurt? Irony is a bitch and it's riding you hard.
(Score: 5, Informative) by https on Tuesday August 22 2017, @06:20PM (6 children)
You're as wrong as it's possible to be.
https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states [civilwar.org]
Georgia: First paragraph, immediately following the statement of secession: slavery.
Mississippi: Second paragraph, immediately following the statement of secession: slavery.
South Carolina: This one seems to have been written by someone paid per word. After extensive explanation as to why they believe they have the authroity to secede, complain about slaves trying to escape "justice" by crossing borders and how the northern states should stick to the original deal of returning them. And so on. And on. And on.
Texas: "[Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time."
Virginia: Open paragraph compliant leading up to declaration of secession: "...not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States." [ emphasis added by ~https]
So, kindly shut up until you're ready to act like you have the reading comprehension of a teenager. The civil war was all about slavery.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:21PM (2 children)
Yes, you are. Saying the Civil War was about slavery is roughly the same as saying the American Revolution was about tea. It was the straw that broke the camel's back in regards to the illegal power grabbing of the federal government but that's all it was. Unless... Are you really foolish enough to believe that slavery was ended with the Emancipation Proclamation legally or that the Thirteenth Amendment was passed in a legal manner?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:36PM (1 child)
I don't remember reading anything about tea in the Declaration of Independence. It's been a while since I read it in full, however.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday August 24 2017, @09:35AM
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Libertea and the pursuit of Happiness."
Check and Mate.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Tuesday August 22 2017, @11:46PM (2 children)
And of course, back then, like now, the affluent had the time to become the politicians because, well, ofc, the working man had to work for a living.
So the people writing these statements were the wealthy plantation owners that loved slavery because it was hugely profitable.
As with most wars, the enlisted men during the civil war were not the wealthy... yet they fought anyway. Do you think the average soldier did so to protect slavery? I doubt it, they weren't making any money off of it. Many of them did so to protect their state's sovereign rights. (or because they had little choice; i.e. go and fight for us or die now)
I am not saying that the civil war had nothing to do with slavery, but to act as it was the only thing is ignorant as hell.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:02PM (1 child)
So Johnny Reb didn't have the free time to philosophize about the moral implications of slavery, but did have time to contemplate the nature of states' rights vs. fed government. I think I understand why your user name is stretch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:39PM
fair point, but i think you can imagine what the common thought process was like. it's just like now. the newspaper told them stories about northern aggression (substitute iraq, north korea, whatever other BS) and control and they wanted to fight for their independence/defend their homeland. It would have been pretty easy to sell the protection of slavery to someone who might have job/social competition otherwise. that's what happened once they were freed and what fueled the social unrest like jim crow and the kkk. fighting amoungst the poor over the scraps from the fat cats who had pitted them against each other. now we're supposed to demonize one side and chant together like assimilated drones or fight over it like hyenas? false choice, man!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:17PM (8 children)
"Never" is a pretty strong word. There is a case to be made that it was a bigger issue, sure, but "never about slavery" is pure historical revisionism. Revisionism by reconstruction racists who couldn't accept that they had lost, abetted by northern racists who were tired of fighting. But the reason behind the war is actually irrelevant.
Actually relevant:
Every actor of the Confederacy committed treason against the United States of America. Let that sink in. Confederate monuments are most definitely not a symbol of individual liberty. They are a symbol of treason and the right of slave-owners to commit treason to perpetuate their immoral economy.
As a symbol of the ongoing right to commit treason against the United States of America, confederate monuments glorify the slave economy and justify Jim Crow laws aimed at recreating it. They exist with the goal of revising history to act as though the South "won" and has the continued right to act against the interests of the larger United States of America. As long as they are kept as public monuments rather than objects of history, they will continue in their original purpose: to inspire the next generation to keep up the fight to maintain the trappings of the slave economy.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Entropy on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:21PM (4 children)
Well, we committed treason against the British empire right? So there's a long standing history of treason being possibly a good thing. How about Chelsea Manning's Treason?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rcamera on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:44PM (3 children)
manning was found guilty and served time in a military prison until her sentence was commuted. are you suggesting his actions weren't treason? i might agree, but i'm not a member of that particular military tribunal, so my opinion is worth nothing - the same as yours.
/* no comment */
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:36AM
Actually it was established in the middle ages that as long as you believed you were following the legitimate monarch (government), it wasn't treason. That's why you had things like Henry Tudor back dating his crowning so he could attain the followers of Richard the 3rd with treason.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:29PM (1 child)
Except in this case, where for some reason the defeated were allowed to rewrite history as if they had won anyway. Probably because - and this is a dirty secret - the northerners were and are just as racist.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @09:50PM
Wow. Projection much?
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:32AM (2 children)
It's not treason as long as a person is following what he considers to be the legitimate government. The Confederates (at least the common man) did believe they had a right to secede from the Union and establish their own government.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:35PM (1 child)
They're still a defeated and occupied enemy foreign power. Do we erect statues to Hitler or Hussein? No -- we don't build them, we don't preserve them, we tear them the fuck down.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday August 24 2017, @01:38AM
'Twas only the terminology of calling them traitors that I objected to. Too many times traitor has been used for bullshit reasons.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:45PM
The claim is that the American Civil war was about States' Rights.
That is true in a weird sort of way.
The South got all pissed off when northern states claimed States' Rights in refusing to obey the federal law which said that folks in those states had to help return escaped slaves to anyone who claimed a black person present in one of those states as his property.
Note here that a black person wasn't allowed to give testimony in a court, even in his own defense, refuting the white guy's claim.
Up in the (meta)thread, I linked to an excellent KPFA presentation on this.
...and it's interesting how The Confederate Conscription Act exempted from serving in the army anyone who owned at least 20 slaves. [google.com]
...and for each additional 20 slaves owned, 1 more white guy residing at/working on that estate could be exempted.
"Never about slavery"?? Don't be ridiculous.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(A Southerner who left The South.)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @07:55PM
Not about slavery? Hmmm, better tell that to the four states that had formal declarations as to why they left. Starting with Mississippi:
And to South Carolina:
And Georgia:
And Texas:
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Tuesday August 22 2017, @08:23PM (9 children)
I somewhat disagree. I see a huge difference between removing a statue of Lee (A person of significance to the Republic before and after the Civil War) and a statue of Jefferson Davis. Davis was an embodiment of the rebellion where as Lee was a man caught up in it. As the war inched nearer Lincoln went to Lee (instead of Lee being requested to go to Lincoln) to ask whether or not he would be willing to lead the Union army, Lee said that his fate was entirely dependent on whether or not Virginia chose to secede.
I would suggest visiting the wiki on Lee quotes https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee, [wikiquote.org] some examples. Pretty interesting read.
I do like the idea that in the instance of offending statues in public areas that they be moved to a museum, but destruction is a dangerous prescient. Of course if this is the case I expect the statues of Lenin to be moved as well.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:13PM
It's a very bad president, I agree it's a dangerous one. First they came for President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee. And I asked what's next. Are President Thomas Jefferson and General George Washington next, I asked. A question, but also a warning. And just like I said, they're coming after the Jefferson Memorial. To make it politically correct. Read it on Milo News: https://milo.yiannopoulos.net/2017/08/jefferson-memorial-to-be-altered-to-appease-leftists/ [yiannopoulos.net] 🇺🇸
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:19PM (6 children)
Your ignorance of Jefferson Davis is showing.
He was a US Congressman, US Secretary of War, and US Senator.
Both he and Lee were traitors and -that- is what should go at the top of every bio about them/plaque mentioning them.
...and, yes, where someone is considered significant enough to have a statue of him/her erected, there should be a historical marker beside that saying WHY that person was significant.
...and stop putting up statues to folks on the losing side of a war.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:56PM (5 children)
I mean, by that reasoning George Washington and the rest of the Founding Fathers were traitors, too. Difference is, they won.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday August 22 2017, @10:26PM (1 child)
They were traitors, they won, and it was a wonderful, wonderful thing. Which the alt-left wants us to erase. They want us to forget that a traitor can win hugely and do great things for a country. 🇺🇸
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:24AM
That is so true [google.com], mein Fuhrer! [google.com]
Sieg Heil! [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @11:10PM (2 children)
George Washington, et al., were about less Authoritarianism[1] in government.
Slavery is all about Authoritarianism/oppression.
By the 1860s, it was way past time for civilized countries to dump that anachronism, as they had dumped monarchy.[2]
...and the Founding Fathers knew full well what the consequences of failure would be. [google.com]
[1] OK, so we wound up with a bunch of rich guys in charge and well over half the population disenfranchised.
Hey, everything is relative.
...and a lot of that stuff has seen major improvements in the ensuing years.
[2] In the nutty-as-a-fruitcake department, The Orange Clown is giving King George III a run for his money for the top spot.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:45AM
George Washington was a land developer who was all about stealing land from savages and getting rich. In 1763, the tyrant said that all his subjects were equal and to stop stealing land. (Not to mention letting those awful Papists hold office), which upset many colonists who thought that they had a God given right to that land that was occupied by heathen savages.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:02PM
I mean, Italy was still a monarchy until slightly after the end of WWII (Victor Emmanuel III eventually dismissed Mussolini). And Britain is still debatably one. Several European countries like Belgium, Norway, and Montenegro had kings during WWII (or at least did until Germany invaded them).
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:21PM
http://www.google.com/search?q=precedent [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:29PM
Yes it was:
- The Confederate states and leaders were quite clear that they were fighting to preserve slavery, right up until the day after they lost. Just read the original documents provided by each of the seceding states explaining why they were seceding, or the speeches by Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stevens if you have any doubts about that. Robert E Lee, a not-at-all-kindly slaveowner, was clear about why he fought until the day he died.
- The Union position was a bit more complicated. Lincoln's two aims at the beginning of the war were reuniting the United States, and ending the expansion of slavery. He was willing at the start of the war to allow slavery to continue where it already existed for the short term at least. It was in the middle of the war, when Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and West Virginia were firmly in Union military control and in the aftermath of the Union victory at Antietam, that it became a war to end slavery.
Historians are in wide agreement about this. The reason that the popular imagination has a different view of it has a lot more to do with what happened in the south decades after the Civil War was over.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 22 2017, @09:40PM
"Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech [wikipedia.org]