My Thoughts On the Confederate Monuments From the minutes of the Bastrop County Commissioners Court meeting, the 9th day of May, 1910, I quote, “Ordered by the Court that for the purposes of further beautifying the Courthouse Yard that the sum of one hundred and fifty (150.00) dollars be and the same is hereby appropriated for the purpose of constructing the foundation for the Confederate Monument to be erected in said Courthouse Yard by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Clerk is hereby authorized to issue warrant on the General Fund for said sum when said foundation is completed and accepted by the Committee appointed by said United Daughters of the Confederacy on Monument Construction.” (Vol. G, page 261) From the June 11, 1910, Bastrop Advertiser, titled “Laying of Foundation Of The Confederate Monument At Bastrop”. “On Friday, June 3, 1910 at 2 p.m., occurred an event which will forever be a memorial one in the annuals of old Bastrop. After two years of patient effort, the T. C. Cain Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy had the proud pleasure of assembling their friends from all the parts of our county and neighboring counties to witness the laying of the foundation for the beautiful monument which will soon be erected to tell to future generations the story and the glory of the men who wore the grey. The article goes on to say that Judge J. B. Price (County Judge) and Judge Paul D. Page each “made brief but eloquent talks, voicing their love of the South and her Institutions (capitalized, meaning slavery) and their reverence for the heroic men who followed Lee.” The article ends, “Here was a scene to be forever remembered. Around this block of granite, symbolic as it was of the love and gratitude and remembrance of our Southern heroes, knelt the grizzled veterans of the war- the most terrible, the most unequal the world has ever known. Here stand the wives, the widows, the mothers, the sons and daughters, of the men who fought and died, knowing the sorrows, the humiliations of defeat, and yet, oh friends, no word of bitterness, no word of reproach, or of anger, toward the erstwhile foe. Where else, where else, but in our noble white-souled Southland could such a scene be witnessed. Remember it, oh little children, who stood in their presence and cherish your heritage of Southern blood and Southern chivalry.’ I once said that we could not know what they were thinking when the Confederate obelisk was set here at the Courthouse 110 years ago. Having researched the records, I now believe that we can know. Subtle propaganda for the lost cause of the Confederacy We are not rewriting history by moving these confederate monuments from the Courthouse yard. We are righting a wrong of history. Looking back on the past 155 years in American, it is clear that enslaving a race of human beings was wrong in every sense of moral reason. The Civil War was fought over state’s right to continue and even expand the reach of this “peculiar institution”. Over 620,000 lives were sacrificed in the 4 year conflict. The South lost the war, the slaves were freed. But that was not the end of the battle. Soon after the Federal government’s reconstruction of the Southern States, state and local governments in the South began passing laws that made Black people’s lives as miserable as it had been before the War. These Jim Crow laws effected every aspect of their daily life. Segregation took hold throughout the South. Even the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separation of blacks and whites was legal and permissible in the United States. In the South two organizations began writing their own version of the history of the Southern States and the mighty conflict over slavery, which they called States Rights. The Ku Klux Klan and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, one through violence and the other through influence and education, changed the defeat of the South in the war into victory over those of the Negro race. They lobbied local governments all over the South to allow these memorials to promote their view of the past. The images, symbols and words of this monument clearly and overtly, but wrongly, attribute honor, nobility and rightness to the Confederate Cause. The obelisk monument goes beyond honoring those who died in a terrible war. It glorifies the cause for which they fought and died – dividing the United State of America over the issue of the Southern States’ right to enslave Black people. The memorial stone to Joseph Sayers touts his efforts to maintain and expand slavery. These monuments do not beautify the Courthouse yard. They are now recognized as harmful symbols of a shameful past. There is nothing right or noble about the way African Americas were treated after the Civil War. We know that now, we acknowledge that now. Now it is time, it is past time, for us to take appropriate actions to correct as best we can these errors - to remove this public representation of prejudice, segregation and enslavement. Perhaps they can be relocated to the cemetery where most of the honored soldiers are buried. Or a museam, or heritage park Removing these Confederate monuments from this public space is not undoing history. It would simply be a step in setting things right so that the future is brighter, better, and more peaceful for our county and nation. At the public hearing last week, a friend reminded me of President Lincoln’s immortal words ending his second inaugural address, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish this work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” These words are as true and needed today as they were 155 years ago. The time has come to remove these monuments to a failed past and to a defeated regime that promoted just inequality and prejudice. Now is the time to recommit ourselves to curing the racial strife and healing the subtle prejudice that divides us as Americans. Let’s finish this work. Let’s close this chapter of our history so that we can open a new age of unity, justice and equality for all.