It’s considered bad form to speak ill of the dead. But some corpses deserve less respect than others. The Confederate flag is one of those. It died exactly 150 years ago. But its corpse was exhumed in the 1960s all over the south and exhibited quite ghoulishly as part of that strange region’s contempt for civil rights at the time. The carcass is still flopping in places and creating a stench, like a running scene from “Night of the Living Dead.” It looks like the flag’s days may be numbered, again. But you never know with this thing. It can still surprise you, Gagnam-Ebola-style.
The Confederate flag has had its many shades of hate, from the Stars and Bars to the Stainless Banner, that one first used to cover the body of Stonewall Jackson at his funeral. But the Confederate Battle Flag is the top of the line in hateful symbolism. That’s the one that flies still on the grounds of the South Carolina legislature. That’s the one that, until Wednesday, flew on the grounds of the Alabama capitol, when Alabama’s governor decided he did not have to follow South Carolina’s impotence to do the right thing. He had it removed without ceremony. That’s the flag that still flies wherever the Mississippi state flag flies, because the Confederate symbol is embedded in that one. Mississippi had its chance to remove it from the state flag during a seven-year lawsuit from the NAACP in the 1990s, but Mississippi being what it is—a place where “the past isn’t dead,” to quote its native son William Faulkner, “it isn’t even past”–the flag still flies with its Nazified heritage.
And oh, what a heritage. It’s the heritage white soldiers waved in black soldiers’ faces as they burned crosses in Da Nang after Martin Luther King was assassinated, the heritage Virginia Senator Willis Robertson, father of Televangelist Pat, waved on the floor of the Senate as he filibustered the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the heritage Dylann Roof spoke for when he murdered nine black church-goers in Charleston, and of course the same heritage that flew from the back of a pick-up truck parked at our own Flagler Palm Coast High School a couple of weeks ago until an insurgent of intelligence informed the administration, and the administration immediately did the right thing.
Don’t mistake this for a First Amendment issue. It isn’t one. No one is keeping you from from flying the Confederate flag anywhere you please on your property, on your Facebook page, on your family Bible, on your pick-up’s rear or your girlfriend’s boobs. Fly it as proudly as all your other prejudices and bad taste. Just don’t do it on public property. That’s all this is about. There’s no slippery slope here, no where-does-it-end gripes. It’s a matter of basic decency on public grounds, what your selective antebellum memory might call good manners.
The NAACP was very successful in the 1990s in its campaign to have the old cadaver of hate removed from all sorts of public places, with some notable exceptions. That’s when Alabama and South Carolina thought they were doing us a favor when they removed the flag from atop their capitols and placed them next to monuments celebrating their Lost Racist Cause, and when then-Gov. Jeb Bush more appropriately had the hate flag from Florida’s capitol shipped off to a museum, though no sooner did he do so than Marco Rubio, himself a bit of an expert in fabricated heritages, sponsored a bill in defense of the hate flag. It failed.
The historian Shelby Foote—who’s always downplayed slavery’s place in Southern culture the way Catholics like to downplay the Crusades, the Inquisition and the massacre of protestants as a 500-year footnote—argued that the Confederate flag had merely been a battle flag and that in its original form “it stood for law, honor, love of country.” It was only during the civil rights era, when racists “misused” it as their standard and weren’t stopped from doing so by Southern elites that should have known better, that it became “a banner of shame and disgrace and hate.” That’s a nice way of introducing the sort of nuance that gives the flag a noble crease for its latter-day worshippers to wrap themselves in, and it’s not entirely false. But it still ignores 4 million blacks in the 1860 South (or three-fifth that if you go by white math). And this is the same Foote who said of blacks in a late 1990s interview, when he should’ve known better, that “They are acting as if the utter lie about blacks being somewhere between ape and man were true.” He was talking about black neighborhoods being unsafe for whites. The insertion of that “utter lie” in his white-gloved phrase doesn’t excuse him: this is a man who knows how to use nuance as shield and spear. Neo-Confederates have adopted his artful venom.
Right about then the Confederate flag backlash under the banner of “heritage” hit hard, with all your plantation-variety bigots claiming the flag has nothing to do with fighting a war to defend 300 years of human trafficking and the genocide that entailed (16 million blacks died in the Atlantic slave trade, though that was not an exclusively Southern specialty until late in the trade), and everything to do with a noble history of Southern culture and States’ rights.
I don’t disagree. Heritage is heritage. But that Southern history was soaked in the blood and sweat of blacks, whose culture human rights were systematically denied by whip, rape and the lynching tree to ensure that whites could have their balls and frilly little white gloves. That’s the heritage that flies when the Confederate flag flies. It’s an odd way to reflect on one’s version of “honor.” And it’s 150 years past time to quit playing a word game that insults people and history and be done with that born-again Swastika cross-dressing as heritage.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. Reach him by email here or follow him on Twitter @PierreTristam. A version of this piece aired on WNZF.
Anon says
The flag is not at fault for what it was used for. nazis used swastikas we don’t ban them. The english abused all americans for centuries we didnt ban english symbols. Hey what about the french they attacked american ships for 200 years because once english always english right. Check your facts blacks supported those flags aswell as whites, asians and any other race. Its not a racially segregated flag issue. Its a racism issue and a distraction from real issues that effect everyone like the new law that gives military journalists no feeling of relief or the extinction of yet another mammal this time in america. Have you reported on the fast tracking of the trans pacific trade contract. Real news is happening and you use your editorial to jump on the bandwagon of distraction. Good for you Pierre. Ill go find someone that has real news.
Cynthia says
Took the words right out of my mouth, I agree 100%
Knightwatch says
You don’t escape my ire, Cynthia. You, too, are quite wrong on so many levels. But, I expect you sit there in your home behind shutters, blinds and curtains, holding onto your .357, watching Fox and listening to Rush, while willfully avoiding all knowledge of history, culture, current events or, like Anon, good written English.
TCH says
The thing is, removing the flags from anywhere will not erase racism. Just like banning drugs hasn’t stopped addictions. I don’t believe removing the flags are going to help racism in America. People can and will form their own opintions whether or not a flag is flying high or buried in a landfill.
Historical Fact says
Good for you Mr. Tristam. Well put. Do not give me southern pride and heritage. Even if we want to disregard this flag as a symbol of racial hate we can’t ignore the FACT that this flag was flown by a collection of people that, if they had their way, would have left America. If that is no the most un-American act in US history then i do not know what is. Anyone who flys this flag is unpatriotic and anti-american. Its a shame that most are to ignorant to realize this.
Michael Randazzo says
Did you know there were Black Confederate Soldiers? There were Black slave owners? The Democrats were the “exhibited quite ghoulishly as part of that strange region’s contempt for civil rights at the time.” and the Republicans were the support LBJ needed to pass Civil Rights?
80% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights act of 1965 and 60% of Democrats voted against it, among them Al Gore Sr., Robert Byrd.
Just a little factual food for thought. The South was racist when Democrats ran it, when Republicans came in segregation was abolished. That was sometime ago when a guy named Ronald Regan was president.
Jon Hardison says
If the subject weren’t so disgusting, your comment would equate to comedy.
Assuming you’re as conservative as you’d have to be to put these ideas in print, you must know that the men of the Republican Party were in no way shape or form related to the misfits representing you today. You must also know that Democrats of the day were in no way related to the the party of today.
The fact that you’re willing to drop numbers and “facts” into a comment on this subject without having the slightest grasp of the shape of the world at the time is mind-blowing.
Did you think you were being smart when you posted this? Did you think you were sharing some little known tidbit that might make everyone think, “Wow! That’s incredible! That Michael really knows his stuff!”
This comment highlights a lack of knowledge or understanding of the history this country that’s so cavernous I’m impressed you managed your way out of it to post at all.
Instead of wasting all that effort climbing out of a hole to place your ignorance on public display, why not just read something? Why not learn U.S. history a little?
Now before you get all hot under the collar in defense of the ideas you believe these “facts” justify…
before you start spouting off about your degrees or knowledge on such things, do yourself a favor.
Stop. Anyone that could write what you did above is COMPLETELY out of their depth, and I haven’t the time nor patience to catch you up. You wouldn’t like the lesson. o.O
Or perhaps you’re deliberately omitting the facts because you think you’re the smartest guy in the room?
Nah. Only the worst kind of person would do that. I’m sure you just don’t know any better.
Amom says
What does any of that have to do with the fact that the flag is flown as a symbol of hate TODAY?
Knightwatch says
Are you freakin’ kidding me?? Reagan never supported the use of federal power to provide blacks with civil rights. He opposed the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Reagan said in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South.”
You are entitled to your twisted opinion, but not your own history or facts.
Allen says
Courtesy of Fred Reed, Getting facts straight:
I find Cornel West, a black professor, complaining of White Supremacy, which he believes our black President needs to remedy. Obama, he says, is “censored.”
“A “censored” black person is a black person who is afraid and scared and intimidated when it comes to putting a spotlight on white supremacy and fighting against white supremacy,” West said.
I would like to explain to Professor West a few things about this dread supremacy:
We have White Supremacy, Professor, because for 2500 years we, whites, have produced the best minds on the planet, the greatest flourishing of the arts and sciences ever seen, the most complex and organized societies. We have White Supremacy, whatever exactly it may be, because we have been the earth’s most successful race. No other has come close. DEAL WITH IT. .
We put probes on Mars and invented the thousands of technologies needed to do it. We developed the symphony orchestra, the highest form of musical expression. We invented the airplane, the computer, the internet, and tennis shoes. Putting it compactly, we invented the modern world. A degree of privilege, however you may conceive it, goes with the territory.
Blacks may not have the background to grasp the extent of our achievements. Still, permit me a brief and very incomplete list of things white people have done or invented:
Euclidean geometry. Parabolic geometry. Hyperbolic geometry. Projective geometry. Differential geometry. Calculus: Limits, continuity, differentiation, integration. Physical chemistry. Organic chemistry. Biochemistry. Classical mechanics. The indeterminacy principle. The wave equation. The Parthenon. The Anabasis. Air conditioning. Number theory. Romanesque architecture. Gothic architecture. Information theory. Entropy. Enthalpy. Every symphony ever written. Pierre Auguste Renoir. The twelve-tone scale. The mathematics behind it, twelfth root of two and all that. S-p hybrid bonding orbitals. The Bohr-Sommerfeld atom. The purine-pyrimidine structure of the DNA ladder. Single-sideband radio. All other radio. Dentistry. The internal-combustion engine. Turbojets. Turbofans. Doppler beam-sharpening. Penicillin. Airplanes. Surgery. The mammogram. The Pill. The condom. Polio vaccine. The integrated circuit. The computer. Football. Computational fluid dynamics. Tensors. The Constitution. Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus, Homer, Hesiod. Glass. Rubber. Nylon. Roads. Buildings. Elvis. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. (OK, that’s nerve gas, and maybe we didn’t really need it.) Silicone. The automobile. Really weird stuff, like clathrates, Buckyballs, and rotaxanes. The Bible. Bug spray. Diffie-Hellman, public-key cryptography, and RSA. Et cetera.
As a race, Cornel, we are happy for you, for anyone, to enjoy the benefits of our civilization, but that is exactly what it is—our civilization. It has become a global civilization because others among the competent—again, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Koreans—have found it to be in technical matters superior. It came from us. They, I note, do not complain of White Supremacy or White Privilege. They are too busy making computers and money.
Now, Cornel, I have often heard blacks demanding reparations for slavery. All right. I agree. It is only fair. I will pay a half-million dollars to each of my slaves, and free them immediately. I am not sure how many I have, but will try to give you an estimate in even dozens. Further, I believe that all blacks are entitled to a similar amount for every year in which they were slaves.
However, I think you owe us royalties for the use of our civilization, which can be regarded as a sort of software. There should be a licensing fee. After all, every time you use a computer, or a door knob, you are using something invented by us. Every time you sharpen a pencil, or use one, or read or write, you infringe our copyright, so to speak. We have spent millennia coming up with things–literacy, soap, counting–and it is only fair that we receive recompense.
The accounting burden would be excessive if we tried to distribute royalties in too fine a granularity, such as three cents per use of a boom box or a Glock, so we should probably use a bundled approach–so much per year for use of the wheel, refrigerator, and television. The amount could be deducted first from reparations payments and then automatically from EFT cards.
Now, Cornel, it isn’t that we whites want to be supreme. It is just that we haven’t been able to help it. It isn’t our fault that we produced Newton, Archimedes, Einstein, and all those mutants. They are just birth effects, things that happen to even the best families. You have to play the hand you are dealt. A little sympathy would be appropriate.
What I think, Cornel, is that if you want the advantages of success, you have to succeed. We have. It is chic to say that whites are now headed for the dust bin of history. Maybe. If so, historians of the future will say, “Damn! That was some really fine dust, wasn’t it?”
Jon Hardison says
This? I have to thank you for this. This is easily the funniest comment on the subject of white supremacy I’ve read in a long time. If this is your justification for sitting in your lazy boy and feeling better than everyone else, I hate to tell you, but you have nothing. Zero.
Would you like to know what portion of your comment is historically correct, based in reality or implies the slightest grasp of world history? One sentence. Just one.
“What I think, Cornel, is that if you want the advantages of success, you have to succeed.” <– That's it.
Everything else that oozed from your fingers is the false, flawed thinking of a man desperate to claim greatness based solely on the accomplishments of people he clearly knows little to nothing about.
But good for you. You, like so many others (from all backgrounds) have managed "the impossible".
You've managed to convince yourself that you're awesome.
You're almost there Allen. Now why don't you try to do it without belittling everyone else?
Good stuff. Thanx for making my morning.
Allen says
Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post appeared front and center on its op-ed page with this call to healing: “The Confederate battle flag is an American swastika, the relic of traitors and totalitarians, symbol of a brutal regime, not a republic. The Confederacy was treason in defense of a still deeper crime against humanity: slavery.”
But if Jenkins’ hate-filled screed is right, if the Confederacy was Nazi Germany on American soil, then not only the battle flag must go.
The Confederate War Memorial on the capitol grounds honors the scores of thousands of South Carolinians who died in the lost cause. And if that was a cause of traitors and totalitarians and about nothing but slavery, ought not that memorial be dynamited?
Even as ISIS is desecrating tombs in Palmyra, Syria, the cultural purge of the South has begun.
Rep. Steve Cohen wants the name of legendary cavalryman Nathan Bedford Forrest removed from Forrest Park in Memphis and his bust gone from the capitol; Sen. Mitch McConnell wants the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis removed from the Kentucky capitol.
Governors are rushing to remove replicas of the battle flag from license plates, with Virginia’s Terry McAuliffe the most vocal. Will McAuliffe also demand that the statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson be removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond?
“Take Down a Symbol of Hatred,” rails The New York Times.
But the battle flag is not so much a symbol of hatred as it is an object of hatred, a target of hatred. It evokes a hatred of the visceral sort that we see manifest in Jenkins’ equating of the South of Washington, Jefferson, John Calhoun, Andrew Jackson and Lee with Hitler’s Third Reich.
What the flag symbolizes for the millions who revere, cherish or love it, however, is the heroism of those who fought and died under it. That flag flew over battlefields, not over slave quarters.
Hence, who are the real haters here?
Point of Inquiry says
Hey there, can someone (preferably the author of this piece) give me the correct definition of a bigot? And then, can said person provide for me an unbiased example of a bigot? Or instead, give me two examples, one from each side of the argument…one being the wretched, confederate flag flyin’, racist nazis. And the other being the police hating, “everyone love everyone except racist rednecks and upper class selfish people”, dogmatists.
I, for one, am not a supporter of flying the Confederate flag. However, I am a supporter of the first amendment which you graciously noted above. So feel free to trash talk any “bigots” that undoubtedly make you upset by doing something you disagree with. I support you excercising that right.
I/M/O says
Robert E. Lee’s Opinion Regarding Slavery
This letter was written by Lee in response to a speech given by then President Pierce.
Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:
I was much pleased the with President’s message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war. There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Savior have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?
I/M/O says
There is an old saying that those who have nothing on the inside will adorn themselves on the outside to attempt to appear that they are important.
Some people dress outlandishly. Some wear tons of gold colored chains around their neck. Some tattoo their bodies. etc etc
Others put a Confederate Flag in the back of their pick up truck.
For the same reason. They have nothing on the inside especially upstairs on the inside so they wear their fractured egos on the outside. Most need some type of medication and to their mental illness.
Kathryn says
What is this thing with people tacking on “mental illness” to make others sound evil? It’s a rude and disgusting practice. Just call them prejudiced for using a Confederate Flag.
Also, do you seriously associate tattoos, chains and funky dressing with “mental illness”? You need to re-evaluate your definition of that word.
Sherry E says
Food for thought on Reagan. . . this from Salon.com:
Why did Ronald Reagan do so well among white voters? Certainly elements beyond race contributed, including the faltering economy, foreign events (especially in Iran), the nation’s mood, and the candidates’ temperaments. But one indisputable factor was the return of aggressive race-baiting. A year after Reagan’s victory, a key operative gave what was then an anonymous interview, and perhaps lulled by the anonymity, he offered an unusually candid response to a question about Reagan, the Southern strategy, and the drive to attract the “Wallace voter”:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “N—, n—, n—.” [Editor’s note: The actual word used by Atwater has been replaced with “N—” for the purposes of this article.] By 1968 you can’t say “n—” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut taxes and we want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N—, n—.” So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.
M&M says
Well there’s a new flag in town to hate and that’s the rainbow flag.
Kathryn says
Oh no, a flag that symbolizes love is somehow more dangerous than a flag that symbolizes years of oppression against a specific race!
THE VOICE OF REASON says
Political correctness is the scourge of our modern society.
It is destroying our history — both good and bad — as surely as the Tailiban Muslims did when they destroyed the buddhas in Afghanistan.
And somebody buy FPC high school a canister of Roundup for its parking lot.
Joe says
Wasn’t that parking lot just totally reconstructed a year ago? With all of the weeds growing through that it looks like the district got ripped off on that deal!
DwFerg says
Mr. Tristam, you may not be the best chronicler of American history…(and its symbols/traditions). Your opinion is noted but You should accept that there ARE other opinions and views…My Father said, “that’s why they make all those flavors of ice cream, not everyone likes Vanilla”…Racism is a problem that may take future generations to resolve to your(and my) satisfaction. Sure, you can take down every public display of the Confederate flag, ..do you really think this will solve anything ??? It may (and probably will) make things Worse in some ways…There are a number of passionate people who like the flag and what it Means to them(and it has meaning far beyond your narrow interpretations of Racism).. there are also a number of mentally impaired people who see this as a cause for terroristic actions(ala Charleston). This could become a threat of unintended consequences…Politics sours the solution..only loving people can solve racism, not flags !!!
Kathryn says
Most “mentally impaired” individuals are not mass murderers pushing a racist agenda, but thank you for your contribution to the stereotype that the mentally ill are somehow dangerous.
Just call him what he is: a racist murderer. No need to tack inaccurate scapegoat diagnoses on him for added effect.
DwFerg says
Pierre, articles such as this one from neighboring Jacksonville.com today’s edition
“Confederate flag’s legacy in Jacksonville at center of raging debate”
This is one of many articles / commentaries that will emerge which reinforce my comments above…there is a Lot more to that flag than its critics claim is a blatant symbolism of purportedly being solely anti-black
Ahkmed says
My GOD, the racism being “spewed” by the author is unbelievable. How would you know ANYTHING about Southern Heritage ? If you where a Champion for Civil Rights, you would be back in your own naturally born country Lebanon and saving them from Hezbollah and Islamic radicalism.
w.ryan says
Wow…you guys are batting a 1000! AhkWhoever you are…you prove the point. The pride, denial, racism and obvious idiocy is astonishing.
groot says
The Civil War was over in 1865, get over it. Take the stars and bars down from all government facilities. If some misguided later day reb wants to display it privately, I suppose it’s their business to advertise their ignorance. Flying the stars and bars over a government building here makes as much sense as flying the Nazi flag over a government building in Germany. They don’t allow it here, we should not allow it here. Both flags symbolize hate and bigotry.
Allen says
groot,
You don’t have a clue about what you are saying, First of all, there was NO civil war in the 1860’s. It was Lincoln’s war of norther aggression. As I pointed out several times in these threads, a civil war is when two or more political factions are trying to gain control of the same country. A civil war is an internal struggle to gain control of the same country. That term just doesn’t fit. The Confederate states had legally seceded from the US, they had no intention of trying to concur the US. Lincoln refused to met with negotiators from the South. The US invaded the CSA and the confederates defended their new country. That’s not a civil war anymore than the current dispute going on right now between Russia and the Ukraine.
Second, the Stars and Bars was the first national flag of the Confederacy and doesn’t now nor to my knowledge has ever been flown over government buildings or on government property since 1865. The Stars and Bars or First National has a blue field with 7 stars much like the US flag. The 7 stars represented the first seven states to secede (the lower south or the Gulf states). Then it has three large red and white stripes much like the US flag. What is at issue is not the Stars and Bars, but Robert E Lee’s flag of The Army of Norther Virginia. It was a military flag and never flew over any slave cabins. It is flown around the world in Australia, Asian and Europe to represent opposition to oppression and authority
Robert E Lee was offered command of the US Army, but refused as he did not want to take up arms against his country. Lee was a proud and honorable man who had severed the US Army for decades including the Mexican War of 1848. He served with valor and distinction.
Many historians debate that the South might very well have won if it hadn’t been for the terrible tragedy and loss of Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson who was shot by accident by one of his own men. Lee commented at the time that Stonewall lost his left arm and I have lost my right arm.
Almost no one other than blacks and left wing white liberal nuts object to the flag at all or at least they didn’t up until the nut case killed the blacks in Charleston, As a result,of the tragic incident, we have ethnic cleansing going on at a rapid pace, almost a holocaust against anything Southern.
Why is it that after 400+ years, the vast majority of blacks (maybe 90% to 95%) have not been able to assimilate and remain the victim class? The lucky 10% as they are sometimes referred to have assimilated and raised their standard of living and education level equal to or superior to that of whites.
The US has spent billions of dollars trying to assimilate the victim class to no avail. All money wasted. The bar has been lowered and lowered and they still just can’t make it. As a result of the bar being lowered and lowered, they have almost ruined American society.
Why is it that only the victim class of blacks riot, loot and burn? You never see whites doing this when as bad or worse hate crimes have been committed by blacks against whites. You never hear or read of these crimes in the national press, just maybe the local press back on page 32.
Why must we all continue to suffer because of the black victim class and bleeding heart left wing liberal nut cases? When will the country wake up and come to it’s senses?
If multiculturalism is supposed to be our great strength, why do we need a large bureaucracy at all levels of government to enforce it? Why must we spend billions of dollars to try and make it work?
Why doesn’t black rule work anywhere in the world? Look at the former Rhodesia, once the proud bread basket of Africa. Look at it today. Same with South Africa in fact almost all of Africa. Look at Haiti. Look at the US cities such as Detroit, Chicago and others, all basket cases under black rule. It took almost 220 years to elect the first black president. He has almost destroyed this country. Hopefully we won’t have another black president for at least another 220 years. Maybe that’s too soon.
Allen says
It is estimated that there are about 70 million descendants of Confederates living in the Yankee Empire. You have managed to insult them all with your hateful, vial, politically correct spew. I think it’s time for a second secession of the south. This time slavery won’t be an issue (it really wasn’t the first time – see the proposed 13th amendment known as the Corwin amendment which had Abe’s blessing and would have guaranteed slavery forever if the South would just not leave and pay their taxes)
All Yankees, carpetbaggers and others can move back up north. Blacks are free to leave Dixieland anytime they want.
Kathryn says
I really hope you’re joking.
Allen says
Kathryn,
No I’m not, multiculturalism has been a gigantic failure, don’t you think we’d all be better off if liberals all lived in one area, conservatives in another, blacks in their area, whites in their area, etc. It would eliminate a lot of friction and problems.
Knightwatch says
On the contrary, I look forward to the most ignorant and racist of southerners (maybe even some northerners) who don’t agree with the SCOTUS to all move to Texas where they’ll be welcomed. Then Texans can complete their full re-secession from America (let’s face it, they’ve never really been fully integrated since the Civil War, except in San Antonio, Austin and parts of Houston). Then America can move forward in the 21st Century without their hate, bigotry and anti-government bulshit. BTW, this will still leave the moderate, responsible southern majority as part of the U.S. so we can all still enjoy their tolerance, humor, charm, hospitality and their great food, minus the ugliness of those who still honor their “War to Preserve Slavery” heritage.
Jon Hardison says
I’d like to preface the following statement with something clearly stated in the piece above:
No one wants to take you flags away. They shouldn’t be flying on public property.
Here’s the thing. You and your folk aren’t demanding your free speech. You’re demanding tax payer funding of monuments to oppression. It’s bad enough that Americans in many southern states have to drive down major boulevards named for military leaders that fought, many to the death, for the right to keep their families as property. No. You also demand that they same people pay their fair share toward their maintenance, legal defense, etc.
You’re not demanding your first amendment right. You’re demanding another right all together. The right to put your words in everyone else’s mouth.
Again: You’re welcome to fly that flag all day. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you did. I’d even stand at your side and defend your right to do so. But you want your ignorance to spew from my mouth? You want your racist symbol to represent you, me and everyone else in this and every other southern state?
Them days are OVER my friend. It ain’t gonna happen, and where it is, it’s going to end.
Allen says
Jon Hardison,
I’m highly offended by almost every major city in US having a Martin Luther King, Jr. Street,, Road, Blvd, or whatever, plus statues of him on public property. MLK was commie loving womanizer and according to J Egar Hoover,the most notorious liar in the country at that time. His last night on this earth was spent with several women in wild sex orgies in his hotel room. We taxpayers also have to fund for another day off for all federal, state and local employees for an insulting holiday.
I think the Lincoln memorial should be bulldozed into the Potomac. Abe cost the needless deaths of over 620,000 Americans, many women and children. I don’t use $5.00 bills and won’t accept any as I can’t tolerate to look at the ugly ape.
Now we have an entire month called black history month, formerly known as February and we must all put up with that nonsense.
Footballen says
Look I will tell you that I am a proud man that happens to be southern born and raised. I do a have a family member who fought as a confederate soldier. That entire era was a terrible time that i personally wish never happened (slavery and the war). I understand southern pride however; there are actually many things to be proud of. That flag is not one of them! If you are so attached to that then maybe you are what so many people generalize us all into. Be proud of things worth being proud of, let that stupid flag go!
DW Ferg says
How can the Confederate Flag be compared to the German Reich swastika ? How many people were exterminated, deported or tortured by the Southern Rebels, the Grey army ? Just wondering .
Pierre Tristam says
Dwferg, as I noted in the column, we could start with the victims of the Atlantic Slavs trade. The flag stood in defense of an institution that by 1860 had, in that trade alone–not including those murdered, lynched or otherwise exterminated at their “masters”‘ hands–had exterminated 16 million souls, or almost three times the number of Jews exterminated in Hitler’s death camps. The confederacy was defending an atrocity indistinguishable from Nazism, except in numbers.
Allen says
Pierre,
You don’t know what you are talking about. Not one single slave came to north american in a ship flying any Confederate flag. They all came here on ships flying the US Flag (mostly by ships out of Boston), maybe a few with British and Dutch flags. Slavery existed for almost 75 years under the US flag but only 4 years under the Confederate flag. Maybe you are attacking the wrong flag.
Stalin killed about 50 million in the former Soviet Union but you won’t mention that because you most likely favor communism from what I’ve read of articles.
The Confederacy was defending their country, their homes, their families from invading hoards of Yankees who murdered and raped women and murdered thousands of children, destroyed private property of no military value.
Why would someone pay a $1,000.00 or more for a slave and then murder them or even abuse them, that just doesn’t make any sense. Many slaves stayed on and ran the plantations while their male masters were gone off to war. Many slaves went with their masters to war to perform as body guards and many actually fought the Yankees. They could have easily left, but chose to stay. Many stayed on after the war was over. You should read some of the slave narratives written in the 1920’s by former slaves.
Brad W says
Here’s te problem with all of the focus on the confederate flag . . . it has actually distracted everyone from the real problem, which is racism, and the real discussions that should be had about that serious problem. Removing a material object, or even attempting to remove traces of our lowest times as a nation and society does not not move us forward. In fact, those instances and wrongness of society in our past is what we should be talking about and educating young people on what occurred and why it was was wrong.
All that has happened in the days since an atrocity carried out because of racial hatred, is that we have made the issue about a flag. It is actually quite sad that we have even allowed that distraction to take place. And once that flag and story disappears from the media, stores, and society; the media and others have fooled everyone into thinking “problem solved” when in reality it is far from solved. Our hearts and minds as a nation have not been changed which is the real change we need. And until that happens, it doesn’t matter what flag is displayed anywhere, we will truly see each other and treat each other as equal and with true respect for each other.
Outsider says
Does anyone see a trend here? According to the left, the American flag should be burned, defiled, and walked upon like a carpet. The Gadsen flag, according to a recent piece, is now a symbol of hatred, extremism, and pseudo-nazi sympathies. The Confederate flag can no longer represent pride of heritage and southern traditions; it can ONLY represent racism. The rainbow flag, however should be flown from every home on the tallest flagpole money can buy. Welcome to the new America, as defined by the left, where they define the symbolism in a manner whereas if anyone disagrees with them and actually flies one of the three former flags above, they can easily be deemed racists and haters. This is simply a subtle method of restricting free speech by the left side of the political aisle, that claims to be the champion of diversity, but for some reason diversity stops when opinions other than it’s own are involved. If anything, this diatribe inspires me to go out and buy three new flags.
Mark says
Public property is exactly where it should be flown; just not by a government official. It’s called freedom of speech.
Derrick R. says
I find it remarkable that the American Flag is so inconsequential that we can burn it or trample it but the confederate flag is so powerful a symbol we need protection from it
Kevin says
Call me a hater…a hater of bigotry, racism and ignorance. As our President said yesterday at the eulogy of one of the victims of those things I hate, the confederate soldiers fought for a cause (slavery)that was wrong, just as German soldiers fought for a cause that was wrong in WW II, Nazism. Why would anyone want to embrace the symbol of a cause so decisive to our country’s union? How does this relic of a rag honor a fallen soldier? There is no honor in dying for a cause so void of good or morality. Give the fallen soldiers from the wrong side of history pity and empathy for their lost sacrifice and the fact that they were misled by ignorance but they do not deserve honor to their wrong cause.
Allen says
Obama doesn’t have a clue. He’s the worst President since Lincoln. To compare Confederates to Nazi’s is outrageous. But what can you expect from an AFFIRMATIVE action president.
Staying Neutral says
The confederate flag flies all the way up here in NJ. Normally on the back of a pick-up truck and sometimes proudly off the porches in some of the best trailer parks. It goes hand-in-hand with Mossy Oak and NASCAR in these parts. If you want to fly the “rebel” flag, go ahead. You look like a dumbass, and probably are.
Remember, the world needs ditch diggers.
The issue I’m having is with the “white propaganda” I’ve read here. That “we” whites are responsible for all the great achievements in the world. The John Birch Society approach to world history. Among these achievements listed was the bible. A series of stories compiled over the years, written by people that wouldn’t be considered “white” by the standards of the above contributor. It was then “edited” by “white people” to use a a guide for day to day living, crowd control and as an excuse to oppress and conquer people of all colors and ethnicity. Jesus was not the blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy from those bible books in the doctor’s office from my childhood. I’m not bible bashing. Just stating some facts.
As I tell my kids, “Do well in math. It makes the world go round.” If it weren’t for Indians and Moors, we’d still be using letters for numbers. Balance your check book with that. As the great race of white people were wallowing in the dark ages in post-Roman Europe, fearing attack from the ultimate white people, the Vikings, the Arabs were busy making scientific discoveries, improving medicine, architecture, agriculture and mathematics. They may have even come up with toothpaste. These weren’t “white” people.
In East Asia, they were busy making paper, gunpowder, rockets, printing, hydraulics, cast iron and the compass…the thing necessary for long voyages and discovery. I guess these aren’t “white” people either.
Let’s face it, years of empirical study have shown us that we were all “black” long ago. Our human yearning for wandering and discovery took us from a small area in East Africa and led us to populate nearly the entire world. Whatever color our skin became depending on our location, really doesn’t matter.
.
So, as you lie in bed under your rebel flag tapestry, lovingly clutching your copy of “Mein Kampf”, try to think for a minute on what your perfect “white” world might be like. The world has not “ridden the coattails” of white people. If anything, it’s been an even distribution of invention. Without the contributions of all, we’d all still be squatting in a leafy hut, eating rodents off a stick
Jon Hardison says
Hey there Staying Neutral: You’re doing it wrong. LOL! But I like it.
Allen says
The Confederate Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia flies all around the world. US troops fly it in the middle east and other combat areas, I’ve seen it in Australia, all over Europe. There are actually Sons of Confederate Veterans Camps in Europe, Australia, South America and in almost every state of the USA.
theevoice says
it is such a shame the south lost!!!
Commom Sense says
Allen, perhaps if blacks had not been enslaved, suppressed and victimised they would have been able to make more contributions to human development. It is tragic that we will never know.
Let’s take down the flag and move on.
Allen says
Common Sense,
Please tell us some great inventions that came out of Africa. Please tell us how Africans have advanced civilization. They hadn’t even invented the wheel prior to the arrival of Europeans. They had no government, no law, no printed money, no nothing, just savages living in mud huts.
Staying Neutral says
You mean places like Egypt? Nubia? Aksum? Timbuktu? There are ruins of great cities in sub-Saharan Africa as well. Not unlike the ruins of cities in Central and South America. All of which had some form of currency.
Many civilization didn’t have the wheel. Maybe they didn’t need it. It seems everyone, equally, had spears and bows and arrows. Each had the ability to grow their own food, domesticate animals and mine for metals to forge tools. Most had some form of mathematics. Many had astronomy and the ability to treat sickness. Some had surgery and dentistry. And every civilization had some sort of law. It would seem if they didn’t have something, they probably didn’t need it.
What they didn’t have was the internet. It’s this really amazing tool one can use to spew ignorant, xenophobic drivel or they can use it to find out factual information on nearly anything that exists or has ever existed. The information comes from a wide array of sources with differing opinions so it’s not a single source.
Some information that one might query is The Evolution of Thought. It’s the idea that as we advance in our humanity, we realize that maybe some beliefs or practices that were once thought to be acceptable and humane…weren’t. For example, we no longer raid the habitats of native, indigenous peoples and massacre them because we believe they are uncivilized heathens. We no longer burn people at the stake for being a witch. We no longer buy and sell people as property because, well…they’re people. And people are people. The only difference is skin tone. If that is a base for criticism and ridicule then it’s a personal issue based on a lack of knowledge and fear.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but, not based on empirical fact, it’s just that; an opinion.
” I realized that one of the last stereotypes that prevailed among people who carry stereotypes is that, sort of, black people are somehow dumb. I wondered, maybe … that’s a way to undermine this sort of, this stereotype that prevailed about who’s smart and who’s dumb. I said to myself, ‘I just have to be visible, or others like me, in that situation.’ That would have a greater force on society than anything else I could imagine. ” Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Allen says
Staying Neutral,
What are some great cities in sub-Sahara African the predate exposure to European culture? You didn’t name any. You didn’t provide any inventions, literature, music, etc. out of sub=Sahara Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans either.
It’s true people in the Western world are no longer bought and sold, the Europeans and their descendants ended that practice, the only race to end it. People are still bought and sold in at least three African countries and many places in the Arab world.
Staying Neutral says
They did contribute…even in the midst of oppression.
http://blackinventor.com/
Allen says
Staying Neutral,
Good try, I’m was referring to blacks living in Africa prior to European colonization or prior to exposure to European culture. The ones at the link you provide have all been westernized and schooled by white Europeans and most are of the modern era. I admitted there is what is referred to as the lucky 10% who are equal to or superior to white achievement and intelligence.
Staying Neutral says
Allen, you also asked for African civilizations prior to the European colonization. I gave you a list in another post. The “black inventor” post was in response to another post from someone else.
So a one word answer to your question is, Egypt. They were a thriving civilization long before Rome and at that time Europeans were still hunting and gathering.
The only reason we think that the European culture is dominant is because world history was collected and written by…Europeans.
Allen, is the earth only 6,000 years old?
Allen says
Staying Neutral,
Let me make a correction, sub-Saharan Africa. I acknowledge the Egyptians had a great civilization going, but for the most part, they were not of the black species. I doubt Mark Anthony would have had his fling with Cleopatra if she were black.
Yes, Europeans dominated world history and always will until Europeans become extinct, which very well could happen and I’m certain it would make a lot of people very happy including the white far left wing liberal nut jobs who hate their own race. Whites are less than 10% of the world’s population, we should be on the endangered species list.
I don’t know how old the earth is, but I would say in the hundreds of millions, surely not just 6,000. .
Staying Neutral says
The 6,000 year question was just to clarify that you’re not of the NWC ilk…thanks.
There were kingdoms in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Nok for example. They independently forged iron tools and domesticated the horse. The Mali and Ghana Empires arose before the Muslims arrived. The horn of Africa had quite a few as well. Google it…
I’m not sure what you use as a baseline for your judgement on what makes a people “civilized.” Throughout history the peoples that advanced the most were those who were in contact with other peoples. Staying in one area limits your needs and thus your need for new technologies. Most native tribes to the Americas were that way. Why did the Aztec, Mayans and Inca thrive (without the wheel) and other groups like the plains Indians and Eskimos not advance? Like any human on earth, once you learn a new idea that you like or would benefit you, you adapt it, improve it and share it. But if you don’t, you don’t.
These people that were educated and trained by white Europeans apparently had the intellectual capacity to use this education and often improve on it. Aside from individuals who may lack the IQ to do so, it would seem any human, regardless of skin tone, is capable of learning anything they are taught.
Each great civilization has their time to be the ruling class of the world. And each one will rise and fall. The next will pick up the pieces and run with it. And each will use their revisionist history to give themselves all the credit. To the victors… It’s the way you play the game.
Recognizing that all people all over the earth contributed to what we know today is not hating your “race” or the color of your skin. You clearly don’t mind showing your dislike for people with dark skin-and seem to know the preferences of Marc Antony-Cleopatra was from a Persian Family so you may be right- That’s fine. We each have our likes and dislikes. But that doesn’t give you or anyone else the right to oppress or deny these people their equal rights or their pursuit of happiness.
Outsider says
You forgot those eaten by Idi Amin. And the half million he killed.
RickG says
Wow Pierre… talk about a hot button issue.. Thanks for the article. I also enjoyed the mostly (not all) misinformed individuals who completely missed the point or just didn’t pay attention in any American History classes.
Just saying says
I believe the black community of Charleston should be highly commended for how they handled the tragic action of a disturbed white person. Taking down the flag at government buildings there I’m ok with. I think the actions following Ferguson and Baltimore were a disgrace by the protestors and the authorities. Being white with ancestors who came here from Czechoslovakia at the start of WW1, settled in western Pennsylvania and worked in a coal mine I don’t feel responsible for slavery. The Irish and Chinese had a ruff go themselves with bigotry. Funny how 6 and a half years of a black President the blacks have done worse in every category I can see. I heard Al Sharpton flew to Charleston but heard nothing after that. He must have been disappointed.
Knightwatch says
Let’s be historically real here. That battle flag led the Confederate forces in their attempt to break apart the United States. No matter what each individual soldier thought of or fought for at that time, collectively they were fighting to protect the South’s “right” to maintain slavery as means of sustaining their cotton-based economy. After the Civil War, radical southern racists, embodied by the KKK, used the flag harass and intimidate blacks (and too often, murder them) and to rally other racists to their cause. After a further 100 years of Jim Crow discrimination, the South adopted that flag as a visible symbol of their opposition to integration and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Some heritage, there. We don’t honor the Nazi flag, nor should we honor the Confederate flag.
Take it down!! Bury it with all other symbols of hate and discrimination.
rst says
Well said Knightwatch!
Sherry E says
WOW Pierre, you are most definitely on a roll!
You’ve struck the nerve of the local racists yet again! My how they are pontificating and showing their complete ignorance, while spewing their hatred of humanity. They continue to look like the complete asses and fools that they obviously are. . . how humiliated they must be. . . OOPS! I forgot, it takes intelligence to be humiliated!
DW Ferg says
Mr. Tristram,
Thanks for the history lesson on Atlantic Slave trade. While your facts on 16 Million victims cannot be ascertained here in 2015,, the American component to this figure must be reconciled. According to my sources, far many more slaves were being transported to South America, not here in the great USA. The British, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese were mostly culpable. While American history may not be kind to African Americans, your figures distort the sins therein. So, where are we, the Germans tried to eliminate Jews and other people in their way ( Russians, 17 Million , I think is the #) , The Polish people and others). . This occurred 75 years ago and there has been some Healing. The racism of today can be traced back centuries, and much Progress has been made. To compare the subject flag to the swastika, is pure foolishness, even if your sources like the Times or WaPo think it so. IMO. Thank you for the forum/ healthy discussion.
Allen says
I didn’t write this, but I just had to post it, it’s to good not to.
by Winston Smith
White-haters and anti-South bigots have been clawing and hissing at the South Carolina Statehouse Confederate flag for decades, and they have deployed the lowest and most underhanded insults and campaigns imaginable, and in doing so, they have revealed themselves to be, well, low and underhanded.
I look at the footage of the protests, and I see the vulgar signs, scrawled by hands that trembled under the coercion of the blackest of hatred; I read the comments of the emboldened Philistines in suits and ties, whose every word is calculated to insult an entire culture and enflame a barbarous horde; I behold the faces of the haters on the street, contorted into demonic-looking visages as they shriek their hateful demands. And it’s happening because those creatures have gleefully embraced what they know to be a lie — that the Confederate flag on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds is responsible for a lunatic killing nine blacks.
It’s the same sort of lie that says Michael Brown was just a good boy who dindoo nuffins when he was inexplicably shot by White police officer; it’s the same sort of lie that says Trayvon Martin was minding his own business when he was stalked and killed by something called a “White Hispanic;” it’s the same sort of lie that says Omar Thornton was right to murder eight White people after he was fired from his job for stealing from his employer; and on and on and on and on. And everyone — including blacks — knows they are lies. But just like the crowd that chose Barabbas over Jesus, so the haters have chosen “controlling the narrative” over seeking the truth. So, the lies are allowed to fester into what we see happening in South Carolina because black lies matter.
Surely, something that is so hated by such a despicable and vile community is certainly worthy of preserving. But, alas, the Confederate flag in Columbia will come down; political expediency, cowardice, the prevalent hatred demand it. For the people who will claim victory, the day after the flag comes down will show not one bit of improvement in their barren, bigoted lives. That’s what lies do to people. In fact, for most of them, they will be a bit more miserable, because they will have indulged their hatred to get the result they wanted. And the result they want is bragging rights, nothing more. Indeed, that’s the absolute most they can get for all their spleen and gall, because bragging rights do not result in jobs; bragging rights are not a marketable skill; bragging rights do not earn a diploma; bragging rights do not increase EBT deposits; bragging rights do not stop bullets from flying in black neighborhoods; bragging rights will not get them better Section 8 housing; bragging rights do not get people out of poverty; bragging rights do not change the price of meth; bragging rights do not make “baby-daddies” accept their responsibilities. But none of that matters; the flag will be gone! And, to borrow from Bill Murray’s Caddyshack character, they’ll have THAT going for them, which is nice (so they think).
But, the flag gone from the Statehouse does not equal the flag totally gone. Relatively few people have been to the S.C. Statehouse, and have therefore never seen the flag there. But sales of the banner have skyrocketed, and there will be more Confederate flags seen by more people than ever before. Ironic, isn’t it? And more people will be inspired by what they know to be the truth — that the Confederate flag has always stood for resistance to tyranny, even the tyranny that plagues South Carolina these days; they’ll be inspired by the memory of Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and they’ll remember that they were two of the best, noblest, and most sterling men to ever bless the earth with the prints of their boots; they’ll be inspired to live their lives productively and honorably — exactly opposite of the lives of the people who hate the Confederate flag because they hate us. There’s just something about that flag that brings out the best in the people who see the truth behind it. But that’s what the truth does to people.
Staying Neutral says
He forgot to add, “AND THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN!”
Philistines…Oy vey…
And to compare the removal of an object deemed by many as offensive to the ancient crowds choosing Barabbas over Jesus is priceless.
Anti-South Bigots? Really?
His overt disdain for people of color shows through. He blames THEM (through their “black lies”) for the loss of the public display of this old, useless relic of a troubled time in our nation’s past.
Yes, this is a knee-jerk reaction to one more terrible event. But it’s not new subject. You know how when there’s an annoying issue that bugs you but it’s not worth the argument? It bothers you for a long time but you just bottled it up. Then something happens and you reach your limit and it all comes spilling out all at once. That’s whats happened here. People have finally had enough with this flag. This isn’t invented. To many, this is a terrible symbol.
The comparison to the swastika is not because the Army of Northern Virginia committed genocide or atrocities any more than any other army. It’s because later groups used it as a symbol of hatred and bigotry and intimidation. The swastika (Sanskrit meaning “Lucky”) is an ancient Chinese character that was sacred. Later groups used it as a symbol of hatred and bigotry and did cause the deaths of many.
If this symbol was so important for so many, they were poor caretakers of its symbolism in later years. They dropped the ball. No one says that the memories of these great generals should be lost. It’s their accomplishments that resonates through history. Not a piece of cloth.
To the victors go the spoils of war. One spoil is, you need to get rid of that old rag.
DwFerg says
another view, this time direct quotes from a former Democratic Senator from Virginia and possible 2016 Presidential candidate.
Webb(a DEMOCRAT,and possible/likely Presidential opponent to Ms. Clinton)) has a reputation for meticulously thinking through every issue with the perseverance of an academic before rendering an opinion — as he did earlier this week with a Facebook posting about the Confederate flag. Webb decreed that the issue was “complicated” and that any discussion about the flag needed to recognize that the majority of soldiers who fought for the South did not own slaves and that the nation needs “to respect good people who fought on both sides.”
Many of Webb’s most ardent fans saw it as a defense of a flag that has come to symbolize racism and vigorously disagreed with him.
“The Confederate battle flag was a battle flag, It was misused particularly during the civil rights era as a racist and political symbol. And I am fine with it coming down from public fora. At the same time, let’s remember our history and let’s not turn the acts of people who fought on either side in the Civil War into something they were not.”
Allen says
Jim Webb is the single Democrat that has any knowledge and makes any sense on this issue. I might even be able to vote for him. I hope he decides to run, but doubtful he could win over HRC. I’m convinced there is a very large group of people who support HRC regardless of her lies and law breaking. I think she could commit first degree murder and still receive their support. Very sad.
M&M says
Doing away with a flag does not get rid of the issue of racism. Getting rid of Obama will be a good start. He indorses and promotes it with his stupid remarks supporting the rioters and thugs.
rst says
M&M,
Please take some time to educate yourself (a formal education would help) prior to exposing yourself to public scrutiny and humiliation. I’m sorry that you maintain a hateful attitude to what history will prove one of the greatest times in our history. President Obama proved to be the catalyst of many of the accomplishments of the past years since his election and re-election. Evidenced by your grammar and spelling abilities, exposure to educated people in an academic environment should help, but you never know; best wishes and burn that hateful rag!
Linda says
Thank you for the courage to make this point.
The pretext of flying the Confederate flag to honor and preserve history is pure and simple BS. You lost the war. Get over it. In the meantime, I will look at as a symbol of two things – hate towards many, and a reminder that my Northern soldier family members defeated you. Wrap that in your flag.
You LOST the war. You almost destroyed this country. But we won. The United States of America.
But you try to perpetuate the divisiveness and hate of that time in history. I used to struggle everyday with the fact that one of my black students from the projects had to sit in class next to one of the white kids from west Flagler who was allowed to have the Confederate flag on his backpack.
I had another white student in one of my diverse classes telling his classmates that his grandfather could tell you which trees were used to lynch the blacks. He, of course, was removed from the classroom, arguing that he was just telling history. Like the Confederate flag, his “history” was used to intimidate.
I took some “brown” friends to visit some other friends, who happened to have the Confederate flag displayed. It took me by surprise to see how shaken my friends were when they saw the flag.
Preserve the history in a museum. Remove it from the sanction of being flown at government locations. Fly it at home if you must. It tells the world who you are.
David B says
It’s not the flag. The Confederate flag was a symbol of the unity of the Southern States that separated from the union. The stars on the confederate flag were for the original seven states that separated and the bars were a symbol of being against the control set forth by the North in trade, currency, and productivity of goods and services. The Southern States felt they were being unfairly treated. Not over slavery. Their were many indenture servants who were both white and blacks that had to work off their debts to rich Northerners How can the confederate flag be an issue, when only 1 out of 9 landowners in the South could even afford to own slaves.
Derrick R. says
16 million ? Your facts are anything but! Of the experts estimate the Negro Slaveshad a ruff total of just shy of 12 million. Now of those less than 10% of them I believe the number was around 750 thousand actually came to America. But why let the truth stand in the way of P.C. ? How about you run an addition to the number of Caucasians that were enslaved? Yes Slaved not indentured, The Crown enslaved millions. Many of them exported to the West Indies where they were sold / breed and shipped off around the world including America. Slavery was & is wrong but let’s also not scribe on to only The PC versions, Blacks were Slave Owners/ Blacks also profitted by working the Trade . Fact Slavery continues to this day in other countries.
Knightwatch says
O.k., Derrick, here’s the facts. About 700,000 black Africans were shipped to America before the slave trade was banned in 1808. By 1860, due to high annual birth rates, there were almost 4 million slaves in this country. That’s 4,000,000 enslaved human beings in America, all but 2,000 (mostly in Delaware) in the southern states.
By the way, about 2 million blacks died on slave ships enroute to the Western Hemisphere. No one knows how many died here in America due to the abuse of southern slaveholders. We do know slave babies died at twice the rate of white babies and slaves had a life-span at least a dozen years less than their southern white
owners. Few slaves were older than 50.
So, given these figures, do you still think that universal condemnation of Black slavery in America is merely PC gone too far? That Black slavery is mitigated, maybe even less horrific because other countries had slaves, or that some Blacks participated in slavery, or that we spend too much time discussing Black slavery when we should concentrate more on decrying white slavery, as you imply?
White apologists like you are the problem in this country. We’ll never have true equality until you and you’re fellow history deniers are gone forever.
YankeeExPat says
The confederate flag is just paying homage to the southern history? Well , using that Logic it seems appropriate that the next Fire House built in Palm Coast should be the named the Gen. William T. Sherman memorial Fire Station.
Anonymous says
Well that would work if those in firehouses started firers and burned to the ground towns and city’s.
Yellowstone says
In 1965 I was actively placing resumes in the most prominent companies – the best! After accepting an invitation to take a week a go through a series of qualification tests (which I passed) – the company (Big Blue) let me in on a discovery they had made.
Back up for a week or so, in those days big companies made background checks . . .
The discovery made was the presence of a Confederate flag hanging in, what was presumed to be, my living room.
I countered by telling it was untrue, and would ask ask an attorney to uncover the truth.
The truth revealed the investigator’s ‘blue sheet’ was at a wrong address in Winter Park, Florida in which there was a flag displayed. Not far from me – but it was not my home address.
The flag in Florida played a significant difference in many people’s lives – in the past and now in the future.
REMEMBER TO VOTE THIS TIME . . .
PeachesMcGee says
If they’re going to remove one confederate flag, they need to remove them all.
IIRC, there are over 10 different designs.
tomc says
We have devolved to a nation of weak sheep.
Tyler says
Let the flag fly it’s southern pride and strong roots if us southerners want to fly it then so be it that picture of the truck is my best friend I’ve known him for a while and he’s a hard worker and funny good guy u don’t have to like we don’t care so leave it be did who you are or we’re you’re from this is what we like so leave us alone.
Lancer says
This has been pretty entertaining…because of the ignorance involved.
The mislabeling of things, the outright lying, the propaganda.
1. First, its the attempt of the left to make the atrocious mass murder in South Carolina a “right wing” thing. It wasn’t. If you’re going to do that, then the Boston Marathon bombing was a “Muslim” thing. The fact that the left ran from making those characterizations says everything. In this country, however, the left sees the right as an enemy worse than the Taliban.
2. Second, are the people attempting to now educate everyone about the Civil War. Of course, the confederacy had different flags for their corps. They had to be distinct on the battle field, the “fog of battle” and what not. That isn’t the point. When you hear “confederate flag” there is one specific image that comes to mind. It’s what was worn as belt buckles and on the roof of the “Gen Lee”. Yes, it is properly called “the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia”. However, when it became adopted by vile racist groups…it was allowed to become their symbol. Especially, since very few people fought to keep it out of their hands and becoming what it was not. The University of Mississippi knew this, full well, when they stopped flying it on their campus and at athletic events decades ago.
3. The utter ridiculousness of this is this…it is part of our history. Personally, I had 8 relatives who fought in the American un-civil war, 6 fought for the confederacy and 2 for the union. None of the 6, who fought for the confederacy owned slaves. However, what is lost in ALL of this complete and utter nonsense is this:
In every civilization in the world, slavery existed. In the USA, over 600,000 people died. 600,000+! Of all the countries in the world, the United States paid, by far, the heaviest toll for this blemish in our history. Yet, we completely choose to ignore that fact and continue on being offended, because of ignorance, and attempting to erase who were are.
w.ryan says
1. The Left favor a progressive harmony for everyone. But if the right wing nuts of America is killing and are active in plotting the overthrow of the American Gov. and is killing Americans out of hate, they are just as bad as the Taliban or even worse.
2. You must educate yourself about Reconstruction, Jim Crow and Segregation because you have no clue! Many of armies of the Union and the Confederate had battle flags for where they originated. The flag thing need not be mentioned because Confed flags represented TRAITORS. Put them in the museum and talk about them in that context. As for the flag of the Army of N.Virginia, it was a battle flag. This battle flag was adopted by hate mongers because the battle continue in their minds. It was used as a message of defiance. It is a tool of hate and intimidation and a declaration of war against the push for Civil Rights.
3. So lets forgive the great sin of slavery because it was done in the past by every other civ. Millions of black life’s were lost. Your two relatives who fought for their Country were hero’s. The other six are traitors. Countless black life’s were lost during the middle passage alone. It’s a disgrace that you bring up losses brought about from the Civil War as a point in your argument but failed to mention this. Its a mere blemish. That blemish was to maintain an apartheid system. Get Real!
Sherry E says
Tyler, et al. . . Please do not ever paste ME with your hateful broad brush of “us southerners”.. Although my mother’s ancestors “illegally” immigrated from England in the 1600’s, and some even owned slaves in Georgia, I am an intelligent, educated, self actualized (look it up), independent, loving, caring, compassionate, open minded, progressive, woman. . . who thinks the racism so ardently pontificated in some of these comments is a travesty to our country and to the human race!
Allen says
If the Confederate Battle Flag and the CSA represented something so vile and evil as to warrant the treatment they are now receiving, I would like to have 4 questions answered.
Yes. white European people had slaves in what we now know as America during the first 365 years or so after the discovery in 1492. But, so did blacks. In 1860 approximately 6% of the slaves were owned by fellow blacks. They did so because it was “normal”, customary, and legal to do so much the same as it was to own a cow or a horse. This is not accepted now, but it was perfectly acceptable at that time.
Slavery was practiced by the Indian tribes who were here before the white man. Slavery has been practiced on every continent throughout the world at one time or another, and experienced by every race on this planet both as the slave and the master.
The 1860 Census tells us that of the 8 million people who lived in the slave owning states of the South only 385,000 owned slaves. Statistically, that’s 4.8% of all Southern whites owned slaves. Why would “slavery” be the main reason for seceding from the union and willingly fighting the North when less than 5% of the population “had a dog in the fight?”
Noted Lincoln scholar Doris Kearns-Goodwin, wrote in her book, Team of Rivals, of how Lincoln was actually the source and promoter of the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. In early 1862, Lincoln and the Republican Congress offered to amend the Constitution – the Corwin Amendment – to forever allow slavery in the South if only the South would return to the Union. The South refused. If slavery were the reason the South left, why would they not return if the North were to enshrine forever in the Constitution the right for slavery?
Lincoln had expressed his views on the black slaves in America many times. In his own words from, “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, (CW) by Abraham Lincoln, let him explain immediately below the value he placed on the black slaves. (Source included)
“Free them [blacks] and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . . We cannot then make them equals.” (CW, Vol. II, p. 256).
“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races . . . . I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary.” (CW, Vol. III, p. 16).
“I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races . . . . I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people . . .” (CW, Vol, III, pp. 145-146).
“The place I am thinking about having for a colony [for the deportation of all American blacks] is in Central America. It is nearer to us than Liberia.” (CW, Vol. V, pp. 373, 374).
“I meant not to ask for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.” (CW, Vol., II, p. 260).
“I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination I the people of the free states to enter into the slave states and interfere with the question of slavery at all.” (CW, Vol. II, p. 492).
“I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.” (CW, Vol. III, p. 16)..”I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the fugitive slave law.” (CW, Vol., III., p. 40).
“[T]he people of the Southern states are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave Law.” (CW, Vol. III, p. 41).
As evidenced by his own words, since Lincoln had such a low opinion of the value of the slaves held in the South, why would he be so willing to fight a war for their “freedom?”
Kendall says
Hope you don’t mind a link to another media site…… this sums up my feelings about most of the ignorant commenters here. http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/many-in-nation-tired-of-explaining-things-to-idiots
Joseph Pulitzer says
One word for the republican old white racist men, Hillary!
Sherry E says
For those of you who believe Cleopatra and Elizabeth Taylor were one and the same, Cleopatra was NOT lily white, “scientific” evidence indicates she was of mixed race. . .
In December 2008, Egyptologist and Senior Assistant Keeper at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Sally Ann Ashton, after a year of painstaking research, created a computer animated 3D image of queen Cleopatra’s head, which she and her team forensically pieced together by interpreting a collection of images drawn from ancient artefacts, including a 2000-year-old ring dating back to Cleopatra’s reign. The resulting graphic is of a striking young woman of mixed ethnicity, with African-style cornrowed hair — very different to the white Cleopatra portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 film. “She probably wasn’t just completely European,” Ashton confirmed. “You’ve got to remember that her family had actually lived in Egypt for 300 years by the time she came to power.” Dr Ashton also stated that the images, which formed part of a British television documentary on Cleopatra, reflected the monarch’s Greek heritage as well as her Egyptian upbringing.
CLEOPATRA’S REAL ETHNICITY AND NATIONALITY
In 2009 more interesting facts were uncovered which shed fresh light on queen Cleopatra’s ethnicity and skin color. A research team headed by Hilke Thuer of the Austrian Academy of Sciences revealed evidence that the remains of the queen’s sister, Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey, indicated that her mother’s skeleton was of African origin. “That Arsinoe had an African mother is a real sensation which leads to a new insight on Cleopatra’s family and the relationship of the sisters Cleopatra and Arsinoe,” Thuer revealed. His assertion that Cleopatra was part-African is also consistent with Ashton’s 3-D model.
Sherry E says
Thanks so much Kendall. . . my thoughts exactly! It IS exhausting trying to educate those that are determined to stay idiots! This from the New Yorker:
MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report)—Many Americans are tired of explaining things to idiots, particularly when the things in question are so painfully obvious, a new poll indicates.
According to the poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, while millions have been vexed for some time by their failure to explain incredibly basic information to dolts, that frustration has now reached a breaking point.
Of the many obvious things that people are sick and tired of trying to get through the skulls of stupid people, the fact that climate change will cause catastrophic habitat destruction and devastating extinctions tops the list, with a majority saying that they will no longer bother trying to explain this to cretins.
Coming in a close second, statistical proof that gun control has reduced gun deaths in countries around the world is something that a significant number of those polled have given up attempting to break down for morons.
Finally, a majority said that trying to make idiots understand why a flag that symbolizes bigotry and hatred has no business flying over a state capitol only makes the person attempting to explain this want to put his or her fist through a wall.
In a result that suggests a dismal future for the practice of explaining things to idiots, an overwhelming number of those polled said that they were considering abandoning such attempts altogether, with a broad majority agreeing with the statement, “This country is exhausting.”
Dlf says
If Roof had wrapped himself in ISIS flag I bet we would not have seen this article.
Geezer says
When the government bans, regulates or restricts something – people want it more than ever.
Just like guns, you’ll notice that sales will be brisk for the Stars and Bars despite bans from
popular retailers. Someone will satisfy the demand and get rich!
Good southern folks and bad alike love their flag. Now even more….
Let’s ban hate groups instead! Say we ban the Klan?
I’d rather see that than banning The Dukes of Hazzard and the toy General Lee’s!
People are murdered at a bible study and all we can think of is banning a flag.
RIDICULOUS! This just stirs the pot some more.
Ed Brown says
It could have been worst. If the Confederate had won the war, achieved political succession from the Union and in so doing divided the United States of America into two nations, with the south dominated by slaveholders and the North not, slavery would have lasted in the North American continent well into the 20th century beyond that of Cuba and Brazil which ended slavery in 1885 and 1888 respectively. But perhaps much more significant, on a global scale, North America would have been reduced to an ongoing balkinized warring region comparable to the Balkins (Bosnia and Serbia , etc.) in Europe and the United States would never have risen to a world power in the 20th century. Accordingly, the outcomes of World Wars I and II would have been different, with the Confederacy siding with Germany in both wars, and democracy as we know would have ended in Europe by 1940. We in North America would be either speaking German or Japanese. Thank God for President Abraham Lincoln and General U.S Grant and for inadvertent strategic foresight of Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William H. Seward, in purchasing Alaska form Russia (so-called Seward’s Folly) thus denying the Soviet Union a foothold on the North American continent in the long Cold War on the 20th century. GOD BLESS AMERICA and HAPPY JULY y 4TH !
Robert Lee says
Good grief… while I appreciate you patriotism, unless you’re a modern democrat*, what a bunch of ignorant, hyperbolic speculation…. Happy Fourth
*The democrat party is doing more to destroy this nation than the Confederacy every imagined.
Allen says
Are you related to Robert E Lee? Great post and you are right on.
Heck, with the way things are now, I think we should apologize to George III, or maybe Queen Elizabeth and ask if we can rejoin the British Empire.
Allen says
Ed Brown,
You don’t know what you are talking about. You make a lot of false assumptions.
None of us know, but I doubt very seriously that slavery would have lasted much longer in the Confederate States of America, it was on the way out because of the advanced improvements in agriculture. To say it would have lasted into the 20th century is totally ridiculous. To make the assumption that the Confederate States would have sided with Hitler is also outrageous.
Lincoln had his chance to avoid the war, he didn’t want it, he wanted the war. He wouldn’t negotiate with the moderates in his party and the Southern delegations to avoid the war. He was a tyrant who spoke out of both sides of his mouth. He caused the needless deaths of over 620,000 Americans, many Southern women and children.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Ed Brown says
Cute quote from John Wilkes Booth in your salutation. Re-read Lincoln 1st Inaugural Address where he is painstakingly pleading with the South to avoid a Civil War . http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html Also if I remember correctly it was the South that first fired upon federal troops at Fort Sumpter initiating the so-called War on Northern Aggression. . I grant you that no one can accurately project what the future may have been in an alternative Universe where the Confederacy won the Civil War but there can be little doubt that with the United States split into two nations on the North American continent it would not have risen to a world power in the 20th century thus would not been in as strong of a position to save democracy in Europe in the 1st and 2nd World Wars. And yes the notion of White Supremacy, which your previous comment seem to endorse, is comparable to Hitler’s notion of a “Master Race” so the idea of a 2Oth century alliance between these two parties is far from being outrageous.
Allen says
Then why wouldn’t Abe accept several Southern delegations sent to negotiate to avoid war? Lincoln was very tricky, He talked out of both sides of his month. When campaigning in Southern Illinois, he would tell the crowd that he didn’t support blacks being equal to whites, they should never intermarry, serve on juries, etc. Then when campaigning in norther Illinois he turned 180 degrees and talked of the virtues of the black man. That’s why he was known as dishonest Abe.
After the Civil War with Great Britain when secession was complete, about 1/3 of Americans living in the colonies (the Torres) were tarred and feathered and sent off to Canada. The Canadians certainly didn’t side with Hitler.
Ed Brown says
You seem to be getting the American Civil War (1861-1865) mixed up with the American War of liberation from Britain (commonly called the America Revolutionary War (1776-1783) and the Torries confused with the Confederates. Bottom line is, putting the question of African enslavement and the equal rights of Black people via the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments aside (which is very hard to do) , the bottom line is that if the Republic of the United Stets of America had split in two in the last third of the 19th century, she wouldn’t have risen to be a world power in the 20th century and the global history of the 20th century would have been significantly different with democracy being the loser.
Allen says
Ed Brown,
You seem to be confused like most in the US on what the definition of a Civil War is. A Civil war is when two or more groups are trying to gain control of the same government. I assure you and everyone else, the Confederates formed a new country and had no intention whatsoever to gain control of the US government, therefore the definition of a Civil War does not fit the conflict between the USA and the CSA in the period 1861 to 1865.
After what is commonly referred to as the American Revolutionary War, approximately 1/3 of the population living in the 13 original colonies/states who had opposed the war and didn’t want to separate from Great Britain were brutally ushered out of the new country and relocated in what would become Canada (there property confiscated by the US Rebels) . Therefore there was a split in the population of the original settlers (mostly English) and two English speaking countries were formed on the North American Continent. Both countries fought on the same side in all wars in the 20th century, I believe it would have made little difference if it were 3 countries fighting on the same side rather than just two in the 20th century. And don’t forget the other English speaking countries (children states of the mother country England), Australia, New Zealand, South Africa also fought in those 20th century European wars.
Have you ever read the Confederate Constitution? It’s very similar to the US Constitution with some good improvements i.e. the President could only be elected for one 6 year term.
I think it would have been good for the US to have some good competition and who knows, they might have even settled their differences and re-united.
Robert Lee says
Robert Lee is a pseudonym that I use with pride and affection. The posts on this subject do unfortunately confirm my thoughts that most Northerners and most liberals are grossly ignorant of Civil War history and American history in general. Their views are formed by A&E, the un-History Channel, liberal-revisionist teachers in the public school system etc… North Carolina (the last state to secede, but the one to contribute the most troops) recently tried to revise their US History program for public schools to only teach Amreican History from 1875 forward… Thank God the rednecks woke up and elected a Republican legislature that is not ashamed of its Southern history. Well, I could go on…. Before any one accuses me of being unpatriotic, remember I am a Marine and a dis-abled veteran who served in Vietnam for the cause of freedom That is what the Confederate flag represents to me.. Southern people who fought for the right not to be enslaved by a system of tariffs designed to keep them as poor agricultural colonies of the Northern bankers, industrialists, and railroad men. Read your history!
Knightwatch says
O.k., Robert Lee, you say that the Civil War was fought by southern people “for the right not to be enslaved by a system of tariffs…” Your words. Now expalin South Carolina’s official declaration of secession in 1861, and this is a historical document that cannot be denied.
“A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.”
Funny, no mention of “tariffs”, just the desire to maintain the human horror of slavery in the south.
You can research this and other secessionist “declarations” if you still insist that the south fought for their freedom. They fought to deny the feedom of their slaves who kept the south’s cotton-based economy viable. Fortunately, the south lost, and real freedom prevailed.
Allen says
Here is South Carolina’s official Ordinance of Secession. No mention of slavery here.
AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”
We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the “United States of America,” is hereby dissolved.
Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.
Source: Official Records, Ser. IV, vol. 1, p. 1.
Lancer says
Sure…the “battle flag of the Army of N. Virginia” has been adopted by racist hate groups. So has the American flag and one with a cross on it. To presume everyone is “racist” who waves it is completely ignorant.
Many things have double meanings. For instance, “liberal” used to represent people who understood the Constitution and wished government to remain and stay beholden to the Constitution. Now…it represents people who wish to circumvent the constitution and grow government into every facet of our lives. Next…we have the term “progressive”. It was invented the Communist Party of the United States because people weren’t receptive to their parties beliefs. Now it has become the leading chant and label of democrats seeking to advance that, exact, agenda.
When the US Constitution was written, it had to be ratified by the individual states. Yes, the states existed before they became “United”. In reading, virtually, every ratification agreement by each individual state…you will see an astonishing sentence or two that says, essentially, we will be apart of this union as long as this central government we’re creating upholds what it is limited to in this “constitution”.
The South should have never fired on Ft. Sumter. It was under prepared, thought cotton was larger economically than it was and, technologically, ill prepared for total war. Slavery needed to be abolished and the fact that over 600,000 American died…is extremely sad.
Though slavery has existed in every civilization in the world, I believe, no other country paid as high a price as our country for its historical blemish. It’s a damn shame that the cost of our nation’s uncivil war has been completely ignored.
Allen says
I agree South Carolina was foolish for firing on Ft. Sumter, but Lincoln set them up to do it by sending ships to replenish the fort which was now the property of South Carolina. They shouldn’t have been drawn into Abe’s trap. Fort Sumter was a major tax collection point and Abe wasn’t about to give it up.
Many wars are started this way. There’s strong evidence that FDR knew a week to 10 days in advance of Pearl Harbor, but he needed away to drag us into WWII, so he let it happen without alerting Admiral Kimmel, or General Short (the scapegoats).
Remember LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin. This strategy has been around as long as war have been fought. Make the other guy look like he started.
Robert Lee says
Before I bother responding show me your serious interest in the truth by telling me what was the actual percentage of the Federal Budget sustained by tariffs and which section of the country paid what percentage.
People often weigh in on these debates with nothing more than their prejudices and some quotes from Wikipedia and are not grounded in political history.
Thank You
Robert Lee says
Here, here, Alan… keep up the good work. However you’ll never convince these Yankees. Those who win wars write the history books.. It’s not their fault that they are ignorant of the whole political, economic, and social milieu surrounding ante-bellum times. The real Truth is that the new (1854) Republican party was that they were founded primarily by radical abolitionist and free soil people (the editor of the Chicago Tribune comes to mind) who would have loved to see the South out of the Union and Industrialists, Bankers, Shippers, & Traders who needed the 87% of the Federal Budget supplied through the tariffs that was supplied by the Southern states. The tariffs also subsidized the big Railroad men who wanted to use those Southern generated funds to pay for the new Trans-Continental Railroad… As one of them said, “We can’t let the South go… who would pay for the government.’ It was all about money, Lincoln was a puppet like all politicians.
August Maxwell says
Southern Histry you dont know—-On April 2, 1863 in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, thousands of people, mostly women, broke into shops and began seizing clothing, shoes, food and even jewelry before the Militia arrived to restore order.
Jefferson Davis gave a speech and even threw the money from his pockets to the rioters, asking them to disperse, saying “You say you are hungry and have no money; here, this is all I have”. The mob stayed put; only when Davis threatened to have militiamen fire on the mob did they disperse. –Instead, they stormed stores, broke windows & took food they needed.
I was raised in Noth Florida, and raised partially by black women. One of whom I cared for daily, when she became infirmed, till her death. Its with her I spent my holidays & Mothers Day.
. I moved back to Flagler Beach when she died. I have rebel flags, and keep on sticker on my car. The racist factor, for me, never existed. It damn sure had nothing—to do— with a mentally delusional kid, who shot innocent church goers.
Diane J Cline says
Actually, I have realized that I have no problem with people displaying the “hate” flag as I now know what their gut feels and it will be easier to avoid them. Up until this point I never knew for sure what was hidden behind a person’s eyes and now that they are “tagging” themselves it makes things much easier. The sheet has been lifted!!! Halleluiah!!!
Diane J Cline says
P. S. Great title ha ha
gary morris says
I don’t hate another race. I hate ignorance and crime. Good Americans suffered and so did their families in that horrible war. Majority never owned a slave of any kind but slavery to the land trying to exist from day to day. These people were my ancestors and honor them and will till I die.
The flag is a symbol of our heritage we will always honor it.
Tommy Jones says
I am a 14 year-old boy gladly going to school at Matanzas high school this year, and i think that my opinion is just in titled as the writer of this post. This flag has never been flown above my house, but half of my family is born deep in the south, and i believe that all this hate needs to stop. It’s their flag, and it’s their heritage, not yours unless your from the south (probably not many). So, do us all a favor and just accept that people will be flying this flag for the rest of eternity, and it does not support racism. Did the writer of this post seriously relate the confederate flag to a swastika? Come on people! Listen to yourself! “And oh, what a heritage. It’s the heritage white soldiers waved in black soldiers’ faces as they burned crosses in Da Nang after Martin Luther King was assassinated, the heritage Virginia Senator Willis Robertson, father of Televangelist Pat, waved on the floor of the Senate as he filibustered the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the heritage Dylann Roof spoke for when he murdered nine black church-goers in Charleston, and of course the same heritage that flew from the back of a pick-up truck parked at our own Flagler Palm Coast High School a couple of weeks ago until an insurgent of intelligence informed the administration, and the administration immediately did the right thing.”
ITS NOT YOUR HERITAGE! A bunch of children playing with their rules…
Go read the constitution.
Jon Hardison says
Tommy Jones:
I’ve been doing my best to ignore the responses to this post that have dripped in as the issue is, for the most part, dead and we’ve agreed to disagree. But you should be commended for your interest in the issue and willingness to speak up for what you believe. I hope you continue to make a habit of it, even though I disagree with your standpoint.
While this article may, on the surface, seem like a discussion about whether or not folks should be flying the Rebel Flag, it isn’t. As you point out, look at the constitution. Everyone has a right to flay whatever flag they want.
What IS at issue here is history, and this has come about for good reason. I, nor anyone else, can point to a person with you view and claim that you’re ignorant. You’re not, but the version of history you’ve been taught, whether in school or by a parent is, in fact, incorrect. That’s what we’re arguing about.
Folks that have chosen to fly the flag, which is their right, have also chosen to interpret it as something it is not. Your parents have a right and responsibility to teach you as they see fit and I’m not going to try to argue against that teaching – it’s not my place. But you should know that there is a different version of history. It is the only one that is well documented from the time and the one that’s taught in every place in the world that isn’t the south. The south’s history was rewritten to justify and tuck away a dreadful part of its history.
Feel free to watch this following video (if it’s posts) from a Professor of History at West Point.
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Lancer says
The American civil war had nothing to do with the freedom of slaves.
This is an interesting little factoid:
During the 1850’s 90% of federal revenue was from tariffs.
In 1859, 75% of these tariffs were paid by Southern ports.
You think a DC politician is just going to let that walk away???
Jon Hardison says
Post the same thing every morning if you like. LOL
You’ll still be wrong.
Lancer says
The American civil war had nothing to do with the freedom of slaves.
This is an interesting little factoid:
During the 1850’s 90% of federal revenue was from tariffs.
In 1859, 75% of these tariffs were paid by Southern ports.
You think a DC politician is just going to let that walk away???
Jon Hardison says
From their own mouths:
Mississippi Resolutions
Whereas, the constitutional Union was formed by the several states in their separate sovereign capacity for the purpose of mutual advantage and protection;
That the several states are distinct sovereignties, whose supremacy is limited so far only as the same has been delegated by voluntary compact to a federal government, and, when it fails to accomplish the ends for which it was established, the parties to the compact have the right to resume, each state for itself, such delegated powers;
That the institution of slavery existed prior to the formation of the federal Constitution, and is recognized by its letter, and all efforts to impair its value or lessen its duration by Congress, or any of the free states, is a violation of the compact of Union and is destructive of the ends for which it was ordained, but in defiance of the principles of the Union thus established, the people of the Northern states have assumed a revolutionary position toward the Southern states;
That they have set at defiance that provision of the Constitution which was intended to secure domestic tranquillity among the states and promote their general welfare, namely: “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due”;
That they have by voluntary associations, individual agencies, and state legislation interfered with slavery as it prevails in the slaveholding states,
That they have enticed our slaves from us and, by state intervention, obstructed and prevented their rendition under the Fugitive Slave Law;
That they continue their system of agitation obviously for the purpose of encouraging other slaves to escape from service, to weaken the institution in the slaveholding states by rendering the holding of such property insecure, and as a consequence its ultimate abolition certain;
That they claim the right and demand its execution by Congress, to exclude slavery from the territories, but claim the right of protection for every species of property owned by themselves;
That they declare in every manner in which public opinion is expressed their unalterable determination to exclude from admittance into the Union any new state that tolerates slavery in its constitution and thereby force Congress to a condemnation of that species of property;
That they thus seek by an increase of Abolition states “to acquire two-thirds of both houses,” for the purpose of preparing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolishing slavery in the states, and so continue the agitation that the proposed amendment shall be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states;
That they have, in violation of the comity of all civilized nations and in violation of the comity established by the Constitution of the United States, insulted and outraged our citizens when traveling among them for pleasure, health, or business, by taking their servants and liberating the same, under the forms of state laws, and subjecting their owners to degrading and ignominious punishment;
That to encourage the stealing of our property they have put at defiance that provision of the Constitution which declares that fugitives from justice into another state, on demand of the executive authority of that state from which he fled, shall be delivered up;
That they have sought to create domestic discord in the Southern states by incendiary publications;
That they encouraged a hostile invasion of a Southern state to excite insurrection, murder, and rapine;
That they have deprived Southern citizens of their property and continue an unfriendly agitation of their domestic institutions, claiming for themselves perfect immunity from external interference with their domestic policy;
We of the Southern states alone made an exception to that universal quiet;
That they have elected a majority of electors for President and Vice-President on the ground that there exists an irreconcilable conflict between the two sections of the Confederacy in reference to their respective systems of labor and in pursuance of their hostility to us and our institutions, thus declaring to the civilized world that the powers of this government are to be used for the dishonor and overthrow of the Southern section of this great Confederacy. Therefore:
Be it resolved by the legislature of the state of Mississippi that, in the opinion of those who now constitute the said legislature, the secession of each aggrieved state is the proper remedy for these injuries.
Jon Hardison says
Here’s South Carolina:
South Carolina Declarations
THE PEOPLE of the state of South Carolina, in convention assembled, on the 2nd day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States by the federal government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the states, fully justified this state in their withdrawal from the federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding states, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And, now, the state of South Carolina, having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British empire embracing Great Britain undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the colonies, “that they are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.”
They further solemnly declared that whenever any “form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.” Deeming the government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the colonies ,.are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen states proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of Government in all its departments-Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels, and, in 1778, they entered into a league known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the 1st Article, “that each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”
Under this Confederation, the War of the Revolution was carried on; and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the colonies in the following terms:
Article 1. His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz.: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and independent states; that he treats with them as such; and, for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.
Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the colonies, namely, the right of a state to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles was the, fact that each colony became and was recognized by the mother country as a free, sovereign, and independent state.
In 1787, deputies were appointed by the states to revise the Articles of Confederation; and on Sept. 17, 1787, these deputies recommended, for the adoption of the states, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.
The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted were the several sovereign states; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed, the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the general government, as the common agent, was then to be invested with their authority.
If only nine of the thirteen states had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were – separate, sovereign states, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the states did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several states, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily impelled their continued existence as sovereign states. But, to remove all doubt, an amendment was added which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. On the 23rd of May, 1788, South Carolina, by a convention of her people, passed an ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterward altered her own constitution to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.
Thus was established, by compact between the states, a government with defined objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the states or the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights. We hold that the government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely, the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that, where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.
In the present case, the fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the states have deliberately refused for years past to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its 4th Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
This stipulation was so material to the compact that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which obligations, and the laws of the general government, have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa have enacted laws which either nullify the acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these states the fugitive is discharged from the service of labor claimed, and in none of them has the state government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.
The state of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of antislavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own laws and by the laws of Congress. In the state of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the states of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder and with inciting servile insurrection in the state of Virginia. Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the nonslaveholding states; and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
The ends for which this Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a federal government in which each state was recognized as an equal and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights; by giving them the right to represent, and burdening them with direct taxes for, three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this government was instituted have been defeated, and the government itself has been destructive of them by the action of the nonslaveholding states. Those states have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the states and recognized by the Constitution. They have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace of and eloign the property of the citizens of other states. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and, those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books, and pictures to servile insurrection. For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common, government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found, within that article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has I been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution has been aided, in some of the states, by elevating to citizenship persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South and destructive of its peace and safety.
On the 4th of March next this party will take possession of the government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunal shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guarantees of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the states will be lost. The slaveholding states will no longer have the power of self-government or self-protection, and the federal government will have become their enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation; and all hope of remedy is rendered vain by the fact that the public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates in convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this state and the other states of North America is dissolved; and that the state of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as [a] separate and independent state, with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.
Jon Hardison says
Here’s Virginia:
Virginia Ordinance of Secession
An ORDINANCE to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, by the State of Virginia, and to resume, all rights and powers granted under said Constitution.
The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the federal government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the southern, slaveholding states:
Now, therefore, we the people of Virginia do declare and ordain, that the ordinance adopted by the people of this state in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the general assembly of this state ratifying or adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between Union between the state of Virginia and the other states under the constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the state of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent state.
And they do further declare, that said constitution of the United States of America is no longer, binding on any of the citizens of this state.
This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day, when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this state, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May. next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted.
Done in convention, in the city of Richmond, on the seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the commonwealth of Virginia.