The CSA Flag

The Confederate Flag flies proudly

October 23, 2015

Well not really; the confederate flag, the “Stars and Bars”, was short lived and looked a lot like the Union flag confusing the troops at the start of the “Civil War”, the second confederate flag; the ”Stain-less Banner”, included the battle flag of northern Virginia in the field but looked a lot like a flag of truce so the confederate states added a red bar at the end; the “Blood-Stained Banner” to prevent confusion. Then after four years of death and destruction and the loss of the war by the Confederate States, the flag was relegated to history.

Recently though the battle flag has been flying regularly in the area. I am not sure, which version of the battle flag though, because there were so many.  It seems that after the recent racial violence in the nation and most specifically the shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the South Carolina state legislature decided to remove the battle flag from the capitol grounds and so once again the flying of the battle flag is prominent in the area. It seems every time there is a challenge to racial bias in the U.S. the battle flag comes to the fore.  It arose in the 1920’s due to the expansion of the KKK, in 1948 when the Dixiecrats were active and all through the 1950’ & 60’s with the civil rights movement and the forced legislation to provide a free society for all U.S. citizens. Then it was set aside but for a few southern states that just couldn’t give it up. These few states remain embroiled in the discussion and are slowly realizing that the battle flag alginates a large number of their citizenry.

I was at the Flea Market the other day; you know the flea market is the pulse of the citizens, not highly affluent but a demonstration of the populace; and while at the market the battle flag of the confederacy was prominent in many sales booths. Sales included other items with the flag; T-shirts with the slogans; “Not hate but heritage” or “If you think it is about hate you need a history lesson” or less provocative, just a license plate for your car. Well history is tricky, I have read a little history, and I assure you the flag was about hate, a hateful economy of enslavement of humans for their labor and the confused assumption that a white “race” was superior and if not hate then indifference; like you may be indifferent to your cow although it provides milk or indifferent about a horse although it provides transportation. You may care for the animal but it isn’t a big importance out side of its use. That hate, that indifference, existed then and it exists today.

The history of the civil rights in the United States is troubling when you consider a free nation, placing so many in servitude by force and by law, and this action, this institution, this economic business of forced servitude conducted by a free nation will never be lived down. However we can enlighten ourselves to assure that the mistake of enslavement, bigotry, discrimination, in a nutshell ignorance and meanness, remains history. In a nation of freedom, with freedom of speech we do have the right to be dumb but not the right to abuse. Flying a hateful symbol on your car is dumb but on the capitol grounds is abusive.  An abusive state telling part of it’s citizenry that we are proud that we enslaved you, confined you, hurt you, and prevented you from having the freedoms that the dominant race were entitled and we remain proud of that heritage.

Make no mistake, the Civil War or War of Northern Aggression if you prefer, was about slavery. The early draft of the Declaration of Independence had much wording on the issue but was edited from the final declaration. The Constitution addressed slavery cautiously to encourage the southern state to agree. Jefferson himself made many quotes about God’s wrath on the individuals utilizing the institution of slavery.  Troubling for a man that owned so many humans, his hypocrisy must have been a burden, how would we know? U.S. history from the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence to the Civil War is fraught with the argument to maintain a balance of free and slave states. The Mexican American war and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo where America acquired large areas of land in the Southwest catapulted the U.S. into an Electoral College inequity of free and slave states. Lincoln tried to hold the middle ground on the issue but he knew that we were divided and could not stand, “half free and half slave”, so the war became the “last battle of the revolution”.  If you read the secession statements of the southern states there is no confusion that the war was about slavery, cheap labor and the economic assets of human bondage.

Mississippi: … Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product; which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove. ...

Georgia: … Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican Party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. …

South Carolina: … an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their 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 service or 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 anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law 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 constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself; to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, 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 burthening 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 made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume 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 open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to 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* [emphasis in the original] 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 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.

On the 4th day 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 tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties 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. …

Alexander Stephens – Vice President of the Confederacy: Our new Government is founded upon  … and its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.

The statements above are not confusing; the establishment of the Confederate States of America is fraught with these statements addressing secession and it’s connection with slavery.  The original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the compromised wording of the U.S. Constitution, the change in the Electoral College after the Mexican American War, Missouri Compromise, Dred Scott, John Brown and On and on and on. U.S. history shows our mistakes and we continue this by accepting the confederate battle flag (a symbol of hate) so casually.

A southern citizen of the 1860’s may have fought proudly for the homeland of the state but southern state politicians that acted to secede did it to maintaining slavery and an economic way of life built on the suffering of human bondage.

There are other flag symbols that could be flown, the flag of the “Third Reich” for example: but we know that flag was hateful. So why don’t we understand the hatefulness of the flag of the confederacy? It may be about heritage but there are some parts of our heritage we shouldn’t boast about. Compliment the southern soldier for his heroism but not for the cause.

If you are hateful and ignorant and are proud to be so then by all means fly the flag on your car or home so we can have disgust. However, if you are proud of your heritage but not hateful, relegate the confederate flag to the museum and unite to treat all with equality, kindness and understanding.

Gentlemen; pack away your battle flags and go home – Robert E Lee

Some symbols we should think about before displaying.