Burnt Orange Report

The Texas state government should not be memorializing the Confederay in its buildings where the public's business is conducted, and thus providing de facto endorsement to the greatest mass act of treason and defection in the history of America. If anywhere, the Confederacy belongs in museums and, thanks to the First Amendment, private theme parks, but not in government buildings where the presence of the power of the Republic is tacitly endorsing evildoers who attempted to overthrow the Constitution of the United States.

I have always appreciated the irony of "Die hard Southerners" (i.e. the ones with the stars and bars on the back of their pick up tuck) refering to themselves as "Patriotic." In fact, to embrace the legacy of the Confederacy is the condone the single greatest act of treason this nation has ever known. (Which of course does not even to address the slavery issue).

Speaking of the slavery issue, other nations with similar histories of gross human rights violations have looked upon their history in a different light. I can assure you that when you go to Hamburg, Berlin, and Frankfurt, they are not fighting to put memorials to National Socialism in their courthouses and statehouses.

I am on the other side of this view. Slavery was only one of many issues and in many ways was a proxy issue for the biggest concerns of that time- the North was economically and politically dominant over the South and b/c of their repeated disrespect and mistreatment of the South the South felt the need to revolt. Do I condone this act? No. But there were brave, courageous, heroic men on both sides that fought for all the right reasons. I wish that the symbols of the Confederacy hadn't been coopted by those of small minds and closed hearts because I would like to show my pride as a "Southern Man of Southern Principles" as Jefferson Davis would say. But I cannot without identifying myself as a racist.

Also, being wrong 150 years ago doesn't mean that one should be condemned and erased from our memory today. Should we take down the Washington Monument because Washington owned slaves? Should we ignore the legacy of Martin Luther King because he was an adulterer? Should we remove monuments to the Confederacy because, in retrospect, they were wrong? No. These men put the cause of Texas and the cause of their homeland over their own lives and well-being. They deserve to be remembered, even if today we know better than they did at that time.

Seems to me that having a plaque to commemorate the Confederacy within the walls of our current government is an implicit endorsement of the Confederacy, and the right to secede. They should be commemorating the end of the Civil War, not the start of it.

What do you know, for once I agree with WhoMe?. Who would have thought the day would come? However, you are wrong on one point:

"other nations with similar histories of gross human rights violations have looked upon their history in a different light."

Not quite. Look at the USSR. Slavery in the USA was an abomination, but nothing in history, save perhaps Hilter's Germany, compares to the horror of Soviet Socialism and the Gulag achapelago, and nothing lasted so long. Nazi Germany only lasted 12 years before being defeated, but the killing in Russia contined for 74 years. Yet, today, some Russians, notably those in Putin's government, look back at that nightmare of death and privation with nostalgia. Sickening.

Sherk

I believe that the reason the plaques were originally installed was because the Texas Supreme Court building was funded by the Texas Confederate Pension Fund as enacted by legislation passed in 1955. As part of the law that was passed authorizing the use of the funds, it was stipulated that the building would either contain a memorial or the building itself act as a memorial for the Texas veterans of the Confederacy. It was their money that paid for that public building, let 'em have their plaque.

I think it's a shame that people solely link the idea of the Confederacy with slavery. To me, it makes about as much sense as saying that the Germans were all Nazis or that the Russians were all Communists. You might as well now say that all Americans are Imperialists looking to conquer anyone who doesn't see things the same way that we do.

That is, the legislation allowing for the transfer of funds was passed in 1955... not the creation of the pension fund.

Sherk,

What do you know? - we find some common ground. You are correct that Russia and other former Soviet Republics have not undergone the types of soul searching that other nations with a history of human rights violations. (I have been to the former USSR and it was amazing - people were so dehumanized you could see it on their face. They had completely faceless expressions 24-7. They were robbed of their humanity).

I did not mean to suggest that ALL countries with human rights violations have undergone such introspection, only that some have (and I did not say all). Germany really does stand out. As a Jew with ancestors killed by the Nazis, I have no reason to "play up" the Germans. But the truth is that, while some neo-Nazi influence is there, it is minimal, and Germany as a whole has gone to great lengths to atone for its role in the greatest human rights atrocity ever.

As a Southerner, I wish that our region of the country would undergo a similar anagnoreisis.

D Funderburke's statement that "I think it's a shame that people solely link the idea of the Confederacy with slavery." is curious because it is slavery itself, and the subsequent debt peonage that replaced it during Reconstruction, that is truly shameful.

Apologists for the rebels and traitors have stumbled since the end of the Civil War in searching for a way to legitimize the Secession and Rebellion in a moral light, e.g. they were really Southern patriots (Hitler, by the bye, was also a German patriot), the Bible doesn't condemn slavery (but it strongly endorses freedom), that men of such character as R.E. Lee would never have done anything shameful (a dubious proposition at best), etc.)

The inescapable fact is that the overriding reason the Confederacy was created was to preserve the the immoral plantation agricultural system and the institution of human slavery against the Abolitionists. Regardless of the specious arguments about sacred states' rights and tradition and God's Will in enslaving some races and not others, the bottom line was that money trumps morality. The exploitive economics of the plantation economy relied on human slavery as a dandy cost-cutter. The rebels of the South abandoned the American Union and overthrew the Constitution because they refused to adapt an economic system that depended on the enslavement of millions of human beings for its survival. The sharecropper-tenant/debt peonage system that evolved in the 1880's was at its worst no better than slavery but it laid the groundwork for a more just agricultural labor system in the long run.

The Confederate Pension Fund was set up to provide pre-Social Security pensions to Confederate veterans and their widows. By 1955, there were, I would guess, few, if any, beneficiaries left and the monies appropriated by the State Legislature reverted to the State to be used for other purposes and this building was constructed with those funds. The monies did not "belong" to the Confederate veterans, but to the State of Texas, and it was a political manoeuvre on the part of the Legislature at the time in a racist reaction to school desegregation to require such a commemoration.

The significance today of "honoring" treason and defection, at its face value in today's society, can only be seen as condoning these acts in order to promote notions of racial hatred.

The confederates took up arms against the United States of America, and one of them assasinated its leader. I am shocked that anyone would want the symbol of this treason in a government building. There is no excuse. Should the confederacy be forgotten? No--the same way that Nazi Germany should never be forgotten--to make sure it never happens again. The confederate flag should be in a museum, not a state building. Even more sad is the fact that some can't get over the fact that we are still a United States, rather than a USA and a CSA. The South lost. Get over it. Stars and Stripes over stars and bars!

I agree Byron; they belong in a museum, if only because they represent a historical debate over our state's identity and culture.

Consider for a moment that the state supreme court building is a place of business. I think our state judiciary ought to be concerned with screwing the poor and fighting for injustice (as they do so well!)-- and not fostering a public discussion over the historical legacy of the War Between the States. That's why we have museums.

And that's the rub. I don't think Patterson wants a "discussion". I think he wants memorialization and glorification. And that's just plain wrong in my book.

Is Patterson going to implement mock lynchings at the Courthouse as well so that he can feel all "warm & fuzzy" about his confederate heritage?

(FYI, on other another post, I mentioned that Democrats have largely "gotten over the race issue" at least much more than the Republicans. I think this example further proves my point. I do not see any Democratic office holders clamoring for more symbols to glorify a bunch of treasonous rebels whose economic livelihood depended on owning black people. Also, while I do not have statistics, I seriously doubt we can count many Democrats among the ranks of these "Confederacy Historical Society" groups, or whatever they call themselves.)

This 4th generation Southerner, who loves the South, is not proud of our Confederate heritage, he is ashamed of it.

WhoMe?,

This 4th generation Southerner, who loves the South, is not proud of our Confederate heritage, he is ashamed of it.

Well, seeing as you are only 4th generation, doesn't that mean that the Civil War has absolutely nothing to do with your southern heritage?

I don't mean to be insulting, but you have a nasty habit of invoking your status as a 'southerner' to add credibility to your leftist stances. It's a commonly employed rhetorical trick, but is still illogical, self-serving, and does a disservice to any legitimate arguments you may have. If I were you, I'd avoid it.

Maybe some of you don't know but that particular building was built with Confederate funds. I realize that some would want to wipe out the history of the Confederacy altogether but to most Texans it's a part of our history. Are we going to burn library books next? I suggest that since we can't hang a plaque in a building that was built with Confederate money that we take the building back.

The Confederate flag/plaque debate and reviews of old heroes like Lee, Hood and Jackson hinges on how one views the causes of the Civil War. If the South fought solely for the cause of slavery, then it dishonors their struggle. But.. if it were for independence from a union that had become against the Souths own economic interests, and the war fought over whether the South would have to remain economically subservient to the North, then it is a noble struggle against oppression.

The causes that led up to the American Civil War are complex. Slavery was an important issue to only a very few Southerners.

In nearly all areas of the South, outside those flat water rich lands near rivers that were suitable to cotton plantations, the southern economy was mostly agriculture. These were dirt poor farmers who had no fantasies of ever owning a slave, so the mythical ‘hope of becoming a slave owner' was
insignificant to the typical Southern farmer, which was the majority of the white population. What the slavery issue meant to this group was the specter of mass slaughter and pillage by freed blacks as happened in the Nat Turner rebellion and in Haiti. But even this was a low motivator when compared to the specter of war. Maps of the South showing a breakdown by county show that those counties voting for secession were not aligned purely along lines of
what areas were predominately slave plantation economy. So it was more than slavery that drove the typical white farmer to vote to secede.

What did hurt these farmers was paying more than was necessary for the manufactured goods that they occasionally had to buy. ‘Store bought' goods were still something worth showing off among many in the South up till the late 1950's. I still recall the phrase being used among relatives as a child, and wondering what it meant. But these farmers could not afford such things as manufactured clothing, lanterns, steel knives, hammers, etc thanks to the Northern tariffs that drove the price of such things sky high! Northern tariffs and Northern greed incited more anger among Southerners toward the North than any other single cause.

The economic burden to the South of these tariffs were no small matter. The North's tariffs on manufactured goods applied to Southern cotton trade with Europe; driving down the value of cotton exchanged for European
manufactures. In 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. This reduced the South to defacto tributary status to the North, and it was deeply resented for reasons of pride as well as the economic regression it caused in the South.

When the Constitution was first being debated, George Mason of Virginia introduced a bill to prevent the passage of any tariff that did not receive a two-thirds majority. He warned, "The effect of a provision to pass commercial laws by a simple majority would be to deliver the south bound hand and foot to the eastern states". His words proved so true as early as the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, and even more so after the events of 1860.

What a lot of people do not realize is that the Republican platform not only called for stopping the introduction of slavery to new territories, it also called for the introduction of new, higher tariffs! In March of 1861, Congress passed and Buchanan signed into law the Morill tariff. This tariff imposed the highest tariffs in US history, with over a 50% duty on iron products and 25% on clothing; rates averaged 47%.
This threatened the bankruptcy of the entire South. The deep southern states of South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, florida, and Georgia had already rebelled and formed the Confederacy at this time, in anticipation of the Republican tariffs.
As one Texas delegate to Congress stated, "You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue law, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this;
but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions."

The London Times concurred, "The contest is really for empire on the side of the North and for independence on that of the South."

So the Confederacy passed laws creating a free trade zone in the South, with no tariffs at all. This was an economic threat to the North of no small magnitude. Without the tariff imposed on all north American ports that accessed the hinterland, trade would flow around the Northern ports through Southern ports instead, leaving the North ports vacant, and its industrial centers stagnant, and Northerners had no doubts about it. As stated by the Philadelphia Press on 18 March 1861 demanded a blockade of Southern
ports, because, if not, "a series of customs houses will be required on the vast
inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no
protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries and make British mills prosper. Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers, will be subject to Southern tolls."

This free trade zone also reversed Lincoln's willingness to take time and allow the division to heal with the rebellious states. The threat of this free trade zone had to be quelled, and so he sent an armed force to reinforce the Ft Sumter garrison and to collect any tariffs entering Charleston harbor. This is critical to understanding why Lincoln suddenly took a hard tone with the South, because the free trade zone meant the ruin of the North's economy, and it had to be prevented at all costs.

It was after the Morill tariff and the counter by the Confederacy of creating itself as a free trade zone that the secession reached a second crescendo that caused Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee amd Texas to follow in secession.

So to summarize the situation in the words of another neutral observer of the time, Karl Marx, "The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is, further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty."

To summarize, what caused the Civil War? To answer that you have to break the question down to its elements:

What led the deep south to rebel?

Lincoln's election to the Presidency without carrying even one Southern state.
They did not wait to see what he would do on the slavery issue, but immediately rebelled simply on the basis of him being elected in the fashion that he was. This points to the Southern belief that the North with its huge population was no longer an equal partner for the South under the Constitution as it was understood at that time. So they rebelled against the way he was elected, and slavery played no direct role in that rebellion at that point.

What led the remaining states to rebel?

It was not a single action on the Republicans part regarding slavery. The Republicans repeatedly assured Southerners that slavery as an institution in the South would not be touched. What instigated Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tenessee to rebel was the introduction into congress and the passage of the Morill tariff.

What hardened the Northern states into violently ending the Confederacy?

It wasn't the slavery that they said themselves that they would tolerate before. It was not some halo-wrapped notions of a Divinely Ordained Holy Yankee Union. It was the fact that the Confederacy declared economic war on the North by voting to become a free trade zone with no tariffs at all. It was then that the North in almost a single voice called for the blockade, invasion and forced submission of the South.

I agree slavery became an issue and was a catalyst for the war, and the racial division that has plagued us since.

But when most Southerners went to fight, they went:
1) to repel an invading army that brought devastation, death and ruin in its wake,
2) to defend their state's interests and freedom as they understood it,
3) to keep oaths of loyalty to their states, and
4) entirely personal reasons that will remain mysterious, and then lastly
5) some fought over their own view of slavery and whether it should be kept or abolished.

But slavery was among the least of reasons to fight for most Southern soldiers, especially the dirt-poor farmer's sons who did almost all of the sweating, marching, shooting, bleeding and dieing on the battlefields of that war.

These men on both sides and both races made a heroic sacrifice for their communities and the lies being told about many of them, and the symbols they carried...like the Confederate Battle Flag, are simply intolerable, mean and vulgar.

History is written by the victors. Don't be so gullible and believe everything you read in a school book! It just wasn't that simple.

"Their ragged clothes make no difference...the enemy never see their backs."
General Robert E. Lee (describing Hood's Texas Brigade)