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This image provided by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles shows the design of a proposed Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate.
JERRY PATTERSON The Dallas Morning News
Published: 17 July 2014 07:55 PM
Updated: 17 July 2014 08:05 PM
A request by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to honor their forefathers’ service with a Texas license plate is a simple fund-raising effort by a historical association with generations of civic involvement.
Race-baiting and politics, however, seem to play more of a role in the coverage of this issue than the actual facts. The 5th Circuit Court ruling supporting free speech and ending the state’s denial of their request is a win for common sense.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a nonprofit established in 1896, is requesting to pay for a license plate displaying its logo and name. The logo contains the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, commonly known as the Confederate battle flag. The SCV would pay Texas $8,000 for the right to have a plate and recoup its costs with each plate sold.
I am a member of the SCV. My great-grandfather James Monroe Cole served in the Louisiana Infantry during the war, died in the Texas Confederate Veterans Home and is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
As a statewide elected official, I sponsored the plate because of my commitment to Texas history — even the history others might find offensive. It’s the same reason I sponsored a license plate to honor the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, another nonprofit interested in marketing its heritage with a license plate.
The Buffalo Soldiers, black troops deployed to the western frontier after the Civil War, served with great distinction, and many were recipients of the national Medal of Honor. But an examination of the Buffalo Soldiers’ actions could also be deemed insensitive and politically incorrect.
The Buffalo Soldiers were sent to Texas to implement a national policy of subjugation and enslavement of the Native American population, which is exactly what they did. They put into practice the national policy forcing Indians onto reservations to live essentially as prisoners of war.
Is this a history of which we should be proud? Should these soldiers be commemorated on a license plate? Of course they should. The Buffalo Soldiers license plate, just like the Confederate plate, is intended to honor soldiers who served with pride and dignity in defense of Texas.
Viewed through our 21st-century lens of political correctness, both the Buffalo and Confederate soldiers could be considered by some as having fought for a cause that fell short of the high moral ground. In the end, offensive behavior can be found throughout history if you’re looking to be offended.
There is no statutory protection against being offended. Actually, it’s the privilege of every American to be offended. But that shouldn’t interfere with our willingness to understand the past in its own context, not from our present perspective.
And for those who believe every Confederate soldier was fighting solely to perpetuate slavery, I’ll end with the quote of one of the greatest Americans of all time:
“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age,” wrote Robert E. Lee while stationed in Texas before the Civil War in 1856, “who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil . . . we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers.”
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson may be contacted through jpatterson@GLO.texas.gov.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20140717-why-court-was-right-on-confederate-veterans-license-plate.ece
Race-baiting and politics, however, seem to play more of a role in the coverage of this issue than the actual facts. The 5th Circuit Court ruling supporting free speech and ending the state’s denial of their request is a win for common sense.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a nonprofit established in 1896, is requesting to pay for a license plate displaying its logo and name. The logo contains the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, commonly known as the Confederate battle flag. The SCV would pay Texas $8,000 for the right to have a plate and recoup its costs with each plate sold.
I am a member of the SCV. My great-grandfather James Monroe Cole served in the Louisiana Infantry during the war, died in the Texas Confederate Veterans Home and is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
As a statewide elected official, I sponsored the plate because of my commitment to Texas history — even the history others might find offensive. It’s the same reason I sponsored a license plate to honor the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, another nonprofit interested in marketing its heritage with a license plate.
The Buffalo Soldiers, black troops deployed to the western frontier after the Civil War, served with great distinction, and many were recipients of the national Medal of Honor. But an examination of the Buffalo Soldiers’ actions could also be deemed insensitive and politically incorrect.
The Buffalo Soldiers were sent to Texas to implement a national policy of subjugation and enslavement of the Native American population, which is exactly what they did. They put into practice the national policy forcing Indians onto reservations to live essentially as prisoners of war.
Is this a history of which we should be proud? Should these soldiers be commemorated on a license plate? Of course they should. The Buffalo Soldiers license plate, just like the Confederate plate, is intended to honor soldiers who served with pride and dignity in defense of Texas.
Viewed through our 21st-century lens of political correctness, both the Buffalo and Confederate soldiers could be considered by some as having fought for a cause that fell short of the high moral ground. In the end, offensive behavior can be found throughout history if you’re looking to be offended.
There is no statutory protection against being offended. Actually, it’s the privilege of every American to be offended. But that shouldn’t interfere with our willingness to understand the past in its own context, not from our present perspective.
And for those who believe every Confederate soldier was fighting solely to perpetuate slavery, I’ll end with the quote of one of the greatest Americans of all time:
“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age,” wrote Robert E. Lee while stationed in Texas before the Civil War in 1856, “who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil . . . we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers.”
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson may be contacted through jpatterson@GLO.texas.gov.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20140717-why-court-was-right-on-confederate-veterans-license-plate.ece
