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Opinion

Southern Pride

AT ISSUE: Texas General Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson accepted a $250 donation from the Descendants of Confederate Veterans for the Save Texas History Program, which aims to preserve historical documents and maps. The members wore Confederate uniforms while presenting the endowment and are male descendants of Confederate soldiers, sailors and government officials. Was it appropriate for the Land Office to accept this donation?

Ignoring unpleasant history could have severe consequences

ZACH LEE: Though the Confederate history of the Southern states is often an emotionally charged issue, it is history, and it needs to be preserved.

On its face, the idea that a nation on its way to social enlightenment may try to forget certain examples of its less-than-socially-enlightened past may not seem so evil, but allowing pieces of yesterday to fade because of today's values and assumptions has terrifying implications.

Germany seems to understand.

Even though its laws against Holocaust denial are obvious infringements on free speech, they are also obvious protections of German history, with all its warts. The laws all but ensure that Germany is not doomed to repeat the past by letting another Hitler come to power because it forces Germans to remember the mistakes that led to 6 million senseless murders in the first place.

Obviously, slavery and all the race-related atrocities that accompanied the "peculiar institution" are things we want to avoid repeating in Texas and the United States, and they are also things we can learn about by accepting and preserving our Confederate history.

But the Confederacy also taught us many things about the structure of government of the United States, specifically the limit on what states can do to protest actions by the federal government and the willingness of many people to die to establish those limits.

We would do well not to forget them.

Lee is an English/Spanish senior.

Accepting the donation is not inappropriate -- making race an issue is

SANTIAGO LOPEZ: There is nothing at all wrong with the donation. It was not given in order to ensure that the Confederacy was forever linked to Texas, but so the documents of the past are forever available for all those who wish to peruse them.

What was inappropriate were the comments made by Jerry Patterson in his defense of the acceptance of the monetary gift from the organization. Patterson called comments made by Robert E. Lee "enlightened" and said a statement given by President Abraham Lincoln might be deemed as coming from a "white supremacist."

Such remarks from the head of the office intent on preserving the state's history are completely unwarranted, and Patterson's immediate jump to bring a racial divide to the matter is counterproductive.

Much can be gleaned from the maps and other documents the Land Office is trying to preserve, yet Patterson making the issue about race does little to promote the fact that an organization with deep-rooted historical ties simply wants these annals preserved so that future generations can come to their own conclusions while studying these records.

Other historical groups should be solicited for donations to the Save Texas History Program so that it cannot be said there is only one agenda in the fight to preserve Texas history. After all, there is more to this great state of ours than a five-year span in the 1860s. 

Lopez is an creative writing senior.

Taking the money is fine; the organization excluding women is not

MONICA GRANGER: The Descendants of Confederate Veterans' mission is explicitly non-violent and benevolent, providing genealogical record keeping, saving historic documents and promoting understanding of history.

That's all fine and well ? even part and parcel with the Save Texas History Program's aims. But the DCV's understanding of history is a little different from what you learned in elementary school. 

The group says the infamous war was not civil at all, but a war between the states begun by a predatory increase in protectionist tariffs on industrial products delivered by Northern industry to Southern agricultural states. Southerners depended on this industrial equipment and were justifiably irate at the national cannibalism. 

Southerners attempted to secede, and when President Lincoln tyrannically tried to prevent them, several Indian nations joined the Confederacy, seeing in Lincoln's war a threat to their own national sovereignty. 

The program the money benefits, however, has more to do with the direct preservation of documents. Patterson is right to take the money for the program. 

DCV, however, deserves strong criticism for limiting its organization to male descendants. Women were also an integral part of the Civil War and endured as much hardship as the men.

Granger is an economics/political science senior.
 
 

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