Reply To: Fly the flag of the Confederate States of America?
Gallup: I’m gratified to see that some legislatures are realizing what is appropriate for a cemetery on public land.
_Robert_: You mean Federal land, I hope.
I mean public land and not just cemeteries either. For instance the legislature of South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from the (public) grounds of the state house today.
And I agree with that. States, local and private parties should do what they want.
Private parties, sure.
I don’t think government at any level in a free and democratic society ought to have the power to fly the banner of slavery and white supremacy.
Lets face it, the South lost and even if it won in the 1860s, the North probably would have reinvaded later anyways. The North was also built-up largely on the backs of slaves and in general had only decided it was wrong when economics deemed it to be wrong. The South would have as well.
When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783 slavery was outlawed everywhere in the North but New Jersey within sixteen years. The first state constitution in Massachusetts– the oldest in the world and the model for the US constitution– abolished slavery as a matter of law, not economics.
The average confederate solder was a pawn, didn’t own slaves and got caught up in a rich man’s war. As a southerner that is all that flag ever meant to me.
I find it difficult to believe that the average Confederate soldier did not know he was fighting for slavery (whether he owned slaves or not). But assuming most Confederate soldiers were pawns, isn’t that another reason not to fly the flag of those who manipulated them (literally to their graves)?
