It is Time
Humanistic and modernistic politically correct left wing policies are destroying the moral foundation of our nation. If we do not preserve our history, just as it happened– good and bad–we will be denying future generation the opportunity to learn from our mistakes what not to do and from our successes what works well.
It is time for the Texas Legislature to stop the irrational attempts to erase history and step up to protect and preserve our historical memorials, statues, and sacred grounds lest we lose the valuable perspective history provides.
The first monument a visitor sees entering the Capitol grounds from the south is the Confederate Soldiers Monument with the inscription:
Died for States’ Rights Guaranteed Under the Constitution. The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal government in 1861. The North resorted to coercion. The South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhaustion. During the war, there were twenty two hundred and fifty seven engagements. In eighteen hundred and eighty two of these, at least one regiment took part. Number of Men Enlisted: Confederate Armies, 600,000 : Federal Armies, 2,859,132. Losses From All Causes: Confederate, 437,000 : Federal, 485,216.
Most people walk past it without giving it a second thought. Some stop to reflect on the tragedy that was the Civil War and the impact that it and the effects leading up to it has had on our nation in its aftermath. Still others, apparently, are offended because of their personal perception of history.
To me that monument is a reminder to take heed and not repeat our mistakes. Slavery was, indeed a part of the issues leading up to the Civil War. But more to the point, a difference in politics was the real issue. The country was in a time of great economic changes. The interests of the agrarian south were being ignored by the industrial northern states. The threat of eliminating slavery was seen as an assault on the economy of the South. The entry of new, non-slave owning states was shifting the balance of power politically. And, there was a fundamental disagreement on the limits of the power of the federal government. The new political advantage had the northern states no longer feeling bound to the compromise reached in the forming of the Union that slavery was a state’s issue.
The southern states felt their very existence being threatened and believed that the Union no longer represented the best way to pursue their rights and, as their forefathers before them felt it their right to dissolve the bonds that bound them and to institute their own government. (For the full text of the Texas Declaration of causes to secede).
There is currently no question that the decision to enslave another human is wrong. Even during the Civil War the Proclamation for Emancipation covered only southern states, it did not emancipate any northern slaves. However, we do currently face a similar moral dilemma in the widely-accepted practice of abortion. When there is a public policy discussion on the issue is it about killing babies or is it about a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body? The answer depends on which side of the argument you fall on. The answer may be morally reprehensible to you, but the history of the issue cannot be understood by our posterity tomorrow unless they are exposed to the various arguments we are using today.
The real take away from that monument to Confederate soldiers is that there were 437,000 Confederate soldiers and 485,216 Federal soldiers who died over their difference of opinion on the issues of the day. That is more loss of life than in all other wars in which our soldiers have fought combined. And, in addition to slavery, it was over many issues that continue to paint our political landscape today–economic issues, agrarian vs urban, and state sovereignty.
Rather than take offense at the memorials and demand their removal, we should be preserving them and teaching our young people how things went so wrong. Our nation has paid a heavy price for its despicable views on slavery, just as it will for abortion. Fundamentally immoral decisions will always result in God’s judgment. But, we should not allow our current knowledge and understanding to cause us to try to wipe away either the good or the bad of the past.
I intend to file legislation at the next available opportunity to ensure protection and preservation of our historical memorials, statutes, and sacred grounds. I want my children and grandchildren to walk past monuments such as the Confederate Soldier Monument on the Capitol grounds and to contemplate how better to resolve their differences than to pick up arms against their brothers and neighbors. I want our future generations to be reminded that history forgotten is history repeated.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana