re: University of Texas Removes Jefferson Davis Statue

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restores morale among black students.

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Sounds like a personal problem to me. What else do "they" want?

I'm sure 98% of UT students didn't even know it existed, and probably didn't give a frick either way.

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You don't keep statues of people who committed treason on public grounds. Its as simple as that.

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And yet the President of the US at the time when Davis was alive, who BTW was closer to situation than today's experts, granted him amnesty for such a crime.

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When Davis was indicted on a charge of treason in the federal court system, he stood before US Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase, who was acting as a circuit judge at the time. Chase preferred to dismiss the treason charges, but another judge, John Underwood, wouldn’t agree to it. Davis’s defense team argued that he had already been punished by the 14th Amendment, which stopped him from serving in public office in the future.

As a former US House and Senate member before the war, Davis had taken an oath of allegiance to support the Constitution of the United States. Under the 14th Amendment, anyone who has taken such an oath and engaged in insurrection against the US cannot hold public office. According to Davis’s lawyers, that inability to hold public office under the 14th Amendment constituted punishment for his rebellious actions. To prosecute him for treason for the same rebellious actions would constitute double jeopardy under the 5th Amendment. Therefore, his lawyers argued, he could not be legally tried for treason.

However, the Chief Justice gave the Davis team another interesting argument for dropping the treason charge. Chase asked if a person could be prosecuted for treason against the US if he were not a US citizen. Clearly, no. Then Chase asked if there was a reference to the concept of a US citizen in the Constitution. Again, there was not. A person could only be a citizen of his state. Therefore, by proving that the US had no citizens, Davis couldn’t be tried for treason against the US. It was a clever argument that has never been used again as far as we know.

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Sounds like the University actually listened and responded to its public constituency. Isn't that what it should do?

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Of course, none of what actually happened matters to the emotional arguments being made today.

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I honestly don't know why you care so much. Chances are it doesn't affect you in any way. The statue is being moved to a museum where it can still be seen. It's not like anyone is winning or losing in this situation.

We'll, your side cared enough to get it moved. Why?

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Officials of the US government were afraid that Davis would prove that the South’s secession had been legal.

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I understand your point, which is rhetorical, but there is a dramatic difference in scale. One is a statue nobody really cares about on a campus that won't miss it, the other is the state's most beloved symbol. These things are not the same and you are exaggerating the point.

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His point is no more exaggerated than yours.

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by Smalls
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They are intelligent, organized, and angry.


Angry about what, exactly?

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I'll tell you what. They're angry at the pervasive, structural racism that prevents black people from achieving prominent positions such as president, Supreme Court Justice, UT football coach, or Rangers manager.
They're angry that racist white people expect them to have a state ID to vote--a vestige of Jim Crow that will exclude millions of helpless blacks from voting.
They're angry at the complete lack of government programs to help poor blacks better themselves.
They're angry that they were born slaves. Well, not they themselves, and not their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents. But their great great grandparents were born slaves, maybe. And that's intolerable.
They're angry that these malicious statues have been allowed to exist all this time, amd white people continuing to pretend that a statue can't hold a person down.
And most of all, they're angry at the genocide of young black men, all innocent unarmed young men with bright futures, at the hands of cops who drive around doing nothing but shooting them. The statistics are clear: through the first half of 2015, an appalling 500 people were killed by police in the U.S., and a whopping 28% of those were innocent black men. It's genocide.