Originally Posted by
Hobbit
Since I've seen so many discussions on the Confederate flag, I've decided to give one southerner's view on the whole thing.
First off is the Confederacy itself. Yes, the Confederacy allowed slavery throughout its borders, and that was wrong. To be fair, though, four Union states still allowed slavery, and those were Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. In the Union, racism was still rampant, and a free black in the South enjoyed more liberties than a black in the North. The Confederacy, rather, was formed over states' rights. The South felt that the more populous Northern states were using their legislative power to overstep the Constitution and impose their will on the South. With Northern industry heavily dependant on Southern agriculture combined with Northern condescension towards Southerners, who they thought to be stupid (sound familiar), this was probably true.
The War Between the States. When the war started, it was in response to the Union leaving a fort (Fort Sumpter) manned, despite the fact that the land it was built on was still owned by the state of South Carolina, which had seceded from the Union. Although no person was killed in the assault on either side, Lincoln moved an army into the South, which was routed at Manassas (not Bull Run, Yankee retards. Manassas was where it happened. Bull Run was the nearest river). The Southerners fought valiantly to try to save their new nation, and outfought the Union on every battlefield, but the Union had more men and resources. Knowing that the world depended on their cotton crop, the Confederacy appealed to Great Britain and France for help (France was still worth talking to for help right up until they sunk all that money into the Maginot Line in the 20s and 30s). Britain hesitated, and France awaited Britain's answer.
The war was not about slavery. Yes, you heard that right. Slavery was far from the issue. In fact, despite the hype behind the (admirable) unit portrayed in the movie "Glory," that unit did not contain America's first black soldiers. Although Confederate military records were destroyed after the war (many think to cover up this fact), photographic and mail evidence clearly show that many Confederate units were mixed, with between 30,000 and 100,000 black soldiers fighting for the South, many in exchange for emancipation. With the war already going badly and appearing long and costly, Lincoln feared France and Britain entering the war, as they would force the Union to accept the Confederacy as an independant nation. To this end, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It was nothing more than a speech, and did not affect any slaves in the four Union slave states. However, Britain was a strongly abolitionist nation and, for appearance's sake, kept out of the war, as did France. In fact, General Ulysses S. Grant owned his own slaves until the 13th ammendment passed in 1865.
Following the war, Lincoln was willing to welcome back the Confederacy and get back to business as usual, with no penalties for former Confederates. He wanted the bloody business done and behind us, but before he could implement his plan, he was assassinated. His successors did not have such a merciful view. They were so forceful in freeing the slaves that many of them ended up starving on the streets, unable to return to their former masters for work. In addition to this, many Northern politicians created puppet governments through uneducated blacks, who now controlled most of the Southern vote. To protect the interests of the Southern states, the KKK was formed to combat the influence of Northern puppetteers and 'carpetbaggers,' so named for the luggage they carried, which was made from old carpet.
When the KKK formed, they were not racist in primary purpose, but were rather political. However, it did not take long for the goals of the KKK as a shadow political party to be hijacked by the many racists who had climbed to power in the organization. With their popularity declining, they adopted the symbol of the Confederacy, claiming they carried its legacy. Despite this, the KKK was eventually dissolved, mostly due to new laws designed specifically to bring it down. In the early 20th century, a new movie entitled "The Klansman" opened in theaters. This fictionalized version of the founding of the KKK protrayed all blacks and idiots and the KKK as being the only thing standing between white women and black rapists. It also caused the revival of the Klan, which took on not only the Confederacy, but adopted Christianity (specifically Protestantism) as another symbol, not because of religious endorsement, but to increase their popularity among the protestant majority of the South. Although it has died down from the pre-civil rights days of lynchings and partial political control of the South, the KKK still exists as a racist organization, now expanding further in its goals to take out not only blacks, but Jews, Mexicans, Asians, and even Catholics.
It is also worth noting that with few exceptions, the South integrated more swiftly and with less conflict than the North.
Now to the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag is the flag of a fallen nation. That nation fought for the rights of the states to be free from a federal government controlled by industrialists. Many of us (Southerners) have ancestors who fought for that nation, and we will not be ashamed. However, black race-baiters feed off of conflict, and portraying the South as the cause of all black problems is far easier than telling them what really happened and trying to move on. The fact that the KKK has also soiled our blessed flags in their dogmatic idiocy has not helped matters. However, given the true history of the Confederacy and the flag that the KKK adopted, it is clear that the Confederate flag is no more racist than the cross, another symbol adopted by the KKK. What needs to happen is not the politically motivated suppression of a historical symbol, but rather an abandonment of the attack on all things associated with the Confederate nation. The Confederacy is long dead, and its a horse that has been beaten for nearly 150 years, post mortem.
I, personally, have a full set of Confederate flags in my room, but they will never fly higher than the American flag also in my room, and I will never toss them aside just because some black guy doesn't want to be reminded of the country on which he blames all of his problems.
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