Your reply that the confederate states withdrew SOLEY to maintain slavery is simply false. It is this misunderstanding of the causes of the civil war that creates the attachment of civil war memorials to hate.
You honestly thing poor southerners went to war simply so the rich O'Malleys in the next county to keep slaves for their plantation? It was about states rights. Yes, part of those rights were to keep slavery in place so as to support the current economic status of the south. Slavery was dying off as it was becoming less and less economic to own a slave. Abraham Lincoln himself stated he would allow slavery to continue if that meant the Union to stay intact.
The men honored on the South Mall fought for states rights. Several on the South Mall fought for Texas and its rights. For that, I am thankful.
Slavery, the thought a man can somehow own another man, is abhorrent. But to be fair, we have to judge people in the times in which they lived. Slavery was legal at the time. Jefferson Davis himself did not favor slavery.
The simple act of removing statues does nothing but remind us that ration thought can flee at any moment, and history as we know it, is subject to revisionism.
I for one, am embarrassed at being a UT alumni today as President Fenves decided to remove even more statues under the cover of secrecy and darkness. "Symbolism" over "substance" reigns supreme at UT and we are all the worse for it.