State Rep. Donna Howard (D. Austin) has filed a bill that would change Confederate Heroes Day into a more general holiday honoring those who fought on both sides in the Civil War.  The Texas holiday celebrated on January 19 (R.E. Lee’s Birthday) occasionally coincides with the National Martin Luther King Jr. federal Monday holiday.  The incongruous pairing of holidays – one celebrating those who fought to preserve slavery and the Southern way life based on that institution – and another celebrating the Civil Rights champion – has caused some controversy over the years.  Howard’s bill would create some distance between the two holidays.  The Houston Chronicle reports:

Howard said she decided to write the bill after being approached by a constituent who thought Confederate Heroes Day insufficient because it does not recognize Union soldiers.

“I think the way that (my constituent) approached this is that there was a Civil War involving all of our United States of America,” Howard said. “We should be recognizing all of those who were involved with that period of our history.”

The state holiday, officially born in 1973 after the Texas Legislature combined celebrations of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis’ birthdays, falls on Jan. 19, Lee’s birthday.  Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated on the third Monday in January, which places it around King’s Jan. 15 birthday.

[Reta] Brand, [director of the Texas Society Order of Confederate Rose], said she was not concerned with the coinciding holidays, but said if one has to change it should be the King holiday.

“We had Confederate Heroes Day before there was a Martin Luther King Jr. Day, why can’t they change theirs?” she asked. “I have no problem with them both being celebrated on the same day because most of the people who celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day don’t celebrate Confederate Heroes Day.”

This peculiar brand of Confederate worship has always puzzled Red.  What other nation gets to celebrate and honor persons who were technically traitors fighting for the enslavement of their fellow citizens?  I understand that the vast majority of Confederate soldiers were not slave owners and that they may have believed that they were fighting for something else, but the reality is that they were on the wrong side of history and were sacrificed for an ignoble cause.  That they were allowed to return home in peace and live out their lives was a tribute to the magnanimous policy of Lincoln and Grant in seeking an end to the horrible conflict that saved the USA and put us on the path to global greatness.