REMOVE the Confederate statue in front of the Gregg County Courthouse

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Kaley Sullenger
Sep 9, 2020
The Confederacy was a short lived traitorous movement by southern figures more than a hundred years ago for their beliefs that they should be able to own other humans. If we're Americans now why would we honor people who blatantly didn't want to be and were ethically blind or corrupt as to believe that it was ok or even right to own other people. Why are we trying to cling to something so wrong? Remove it, put the figure in a museum if you need remember the wrongs, not to honor those who fought for what we ethically recognize as terrible.
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Christine Silva
Aug 20, 2020
Its wrong
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Lisa Jenkins
Aug 19, 2020
A memorial to people who fought against our country and its ideals of freedom for all must not be positioned in a place of honor. Let's put it in a cemetery where deceased people of all types are remembered.
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Cassie Speer
Aug 18, 2020
I care
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Lloyd Coyle
Aug 17, 2020
Our ancestors contributed more in slave labor to this country, state, county, & city than all the confederate generals
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Timothy Calderwood
Aug 16, 2020
Monuments do not remember history, they glorify it. The Confederate cause should not be glorified. It was wrong.

There were people who fought for the Confederacy for reasons unrelated to slavery, but the reason the Confederacy was established was to keep slavery going. If you believe the Civil War was about something other than slavery, I encourage you to read the declarations made by the Confederates. This is a direct quote from the Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession (the full text of which can be found at texas.gov): "In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

With these words Texas joined the Confederacy, calling equality for all a "debasing doctrine" and declaring the intention to keep the system of slavery. This must not be honored. Just as Germany admitted that what Germany did was wrong and tore down monuments to the Nazis, we in Texas must admit that what Texas did was wrong and tear down monuments to the Confederates.

Here is the link to the above cited Declaration of Causes:
https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html?fbclid=IwAR3W0KruVeERaGktmdmWhOLbskvfq1AJ0zVMGyrmX4wG22Co1tE2DtO9c_4#:~:text=1845%2C%20proposed%20to%20the%20Republic,the%20co%2Dequal%20States%20thereof%2C&text=Her%20institutions%20and%20geographical%20position,holding%20States%20of%20the%20confederacy
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Rachel Pollard
Aug 16, 2020
The confederates fought to keep slaves. Don’t believe me? Look up the Texas Declaration of Causes from 1861. It’s free and available for anyone who wants to read it. It says it clear as day: “They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.” - Declaration of Causes: February 2, 1861.

So now that we’ve established that the Confederacy was racist and built upon the desire to keep slaves, how about remembering history?

Will removing the statue remove the Civil War from the history books? No. No one is forgetting history by removing a statue glorifying it. The Civil War will continue to be taught in history class. A statue’s purpose isn’t to remember history. It’s to glorify it. Should Germany keep statues of Hitler up? Of course not! They don’t want to glorify him! Do their young citizens still learn about World War II in their history class? You bet. Statues are not history books. The Confederacy is not something to be proud about.
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Stephanie Shelan
Aug 16, 2020
Because I grew up in Longview and no one should have to look at a monument to hate without context. Put this in a museum to describe the atrocities of the civil war and the dangers of putting racism on a pedestal. Or throw it in the dump! But never should this be outside a courthouse.
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Joy Parks Meador
Aug 15, 2020
It's history
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Rafael Najera
Aug 13, 2020
The confederate states of America were traitors to the United States of America
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