Current Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson's Editorial

 

CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS OUGHT TO STAY IN PLACE
Houston Chronicle, 14 June 2000
By JERRY PATTERSON

 

Patterson, a former state senator from this area, is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a student of Texas history.

 

The removal of two plaques bearing symbols of the Confederacy from the lobby of the Texas Supreme Court building in Austin over the weekend could head Texans down a slippery slope of historical revisionism.

Let’s not go there. While I have confidence in the assurances from Gov. George W. Bush’s office that they have no further interest in removing Confederate icons from government building, I’m not so sure about the intentions of others across Texas.

 

Many today believe that the War Between the States was solely about slavery and that any symbol of the Confederacy is, therefore, synonymous with racism. That conclusion is faulty, because the premise is inaccurate. If slavery were the sole or even the predominant issue in the Civil War, why then did President Abraham Lincoln state: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it.”? If preserving slavery was the South’s sole motive for waging war, why then did Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee voluntarily free his slaves before the war began and state in 1856 that slavery was “…a moral and political evil in any country…”? How do we explain that Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was a slave owner before and during the Civil War? Why did the Confederate Constitution prohibit the importation of slaves? Why was Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation issued in 1863, rather than when the war started in 1861, and why did it free only the slaves in the Confederacy and not in Northern or border states? If slavery was the only reason for the Civil War, how do you explain Texas Gov. Sam Houston’s support for the Union and support for the institution of slavery? In light of the fact that 90 percent of Confederate soldiers owned no slaves, is it logical to assume that they would have put their lives at risk so that slave-owning Southern aristocrats could continue their privileged status?

 

There are few simple and concise answers to those questions. One answer, however, is that most Southerners’ allegiance was to their sovereign state first and the Union second. They believed that states freely join the Union without coercion and, therefore, were free to leave the Union at will. You could say that they really believed in the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the “powers not delegated…” clause. They believed the federal government should be responsible for the common defense, a postal service and little else. They viewed the Union Army as an invader, not an emancipator.

 

I am not attempting to trivialize slavery. It is a dark chapter in our history, North and South alike. However, I am still a proud Southerner and a proud descendant of the Confederate soldiers. I honor the Confederate flag because, to me, it represents the sacrifices of life and livelihood that Southerners made for a cause more important to them than their personal security and self-interest. Today, we are blessed with security and prosperity and we have difficulty imagining the level of sacrifice, despair and destruction that our nation suffered – and survived. It is the courage and perseverance of the North and the South, the Blue and the Gray, that I salute.

Even though I am not proud of slavery, I can continue to honor symbols of the Confederacy as I honor the American flag. I am as proud an American as they come. I am, however, not proud of what my country did to the American Indian. I have pride in my service as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, but I am embarrassed at the atrocities that occurred at My Lai. I still wear a small Vietnam service pin on my lapel, knowing that not everything done in Vietnam is worthy of pride. However, I know that most who served there were good men and women who truly wanted to do the right thing.

If the Confederate flag represented slavery, then the U.S. flag must represent slavery even more so. Slavery existed for four years under the Stars and Bars and for almost 100 years under the Stars and Stripes. If the few hundred members of racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan want to adopt the Confederate flag as their symbol, over the objection of million of Southerners, should we allow them to corrupt it in this way? Since the KKK has adopted the cross for use in its burnings, should churches across the country remove this symbol of Christianity from all places of worship? Should we not begin to tear down monuments to the Buffalo Soldiers (Black U.S. cavalry troopers of the late 1800s), since those soldiers were an integral part of a war that subjugated and enslaved a whole race of people, the American Plains Indians?

 

No, we should not surrender the Confederate flag or the cross to racists, and we should not tear down monuments. Whether or not their motives were 100 percent pure or their action completely beyond reproach by modern standards, the fact that sentiment existed among a people to raise a flag or to erect a monument is, itself, a statement worthy of historical note. Retroactive cleansing of history is doomed to failure because it is, at heart, a lie. We should memorialize and commemorate all of our soldiers who served honorably – those who wore blue or gray or served as Buffalo Soldiers – whether or not we completely support their actions in today’s enlightened world.

 

We should not be offended by our history. Instead we should recognize it accurately and completely, as only an accurate memory will prevent us from repeating the mistakes of our past. The six historical flag of Texas, of which the Confederate flag is one, and the monuments to Confederate soldiers on the Capitol grounds in Austin are part of our shared heritage and should remain.