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I love that the state of Mississippi is the only state that still has the stars and bars a part of their state flag still. Allowed their people to vote on it and it stayed.
The St. Andrews Cross is not the Stars and Bars.
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Georgia state flag.
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since you cant see why it symbolize slavery, i think i can help you out.
People who defend the flag say that the Civil War wasnt about slavery. It was about states rights, tariffs, industry, and representation.
Well the States right they were fighting for was the right to own slaves.
The tariffs that are always brought up were written by southerners
The industry they were fighting for was food crops,tobacco and cotton. Done by free labor from slaves.
So the American flag doesn't symbolize rebellion? How did we become a nation in the first place? LMAO.
As far as defending slavery, it was a minor component, not even close to the majority cause. News flash, rich people wield influence, crazy I know. But to claim that slavery was a major cause for the Confederacy is false. The average southerner couldn't have possibly cared less about some plantation owner's "assets."
Your point about industry is meaningless as it only applied to an extreme minority. Not enough for the average southern state citizen filling the ranks to care. Really now, the average country bumpkin ran off to war to fight for the five percent of white southerners who owned slaves? You can't possibly be serious.
You came here to correct me, but instead showed up with what comes off as a grossly uninformed opinion tarnished further by political correctness.
I hope you found this history lesson informative and useful.
I really don't get people's need for the confederate flag. What's interesting is that half of these same people will be the ones to tell African-Americans to get over slavery/jim crow, but yet they hang on to this flag as their "heritage." But guess whatever floats your boat. LOL.
I guess some folks like being reminded that their great great great grandfathers got their butts whipped.
Where we are born is not our decision, but I'm glad I was born in a state that didn't exist during the Civil War. I think there is a proper place and setting for any battle flag, but only when it is flown in a historical context. In all other instances, I think it's just picking at a very old scab and not allowing the wound to heal.
I want to see the proof, that every man fighting on the Confederate side of the theater of battle, was a slave owner.
Only a small percentage were rich plantation owners. Less than 3%.
The civil war was about the very same things we are going through today, with a nation split right down the middle in their respect for the US Constitution.
I understand why anyone who's ancestors were slaves may dislike the flag. But they should feel the same way about the US flag for both had slaves. In fact they were slaves many more years under the US flag than under the Confederate flag. But for me it has nothing to do with slavery. It represent my ancestors attempt to begin their own country and break away from the oppression they felt coming from a power that ruled over them that did not have their interest at heart. It represents my ancestors struggle to repel the invasion of their country by a foreign power that was set on our destruction and to desire to rule over us without giving us equal rights. It was my ancestors fight for freedom. It reminds me of the wrong done to my people by the evil Federal government of the United States. We are still waiting for our reparations too!
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow
I want to see the proof, that every man fighting on the Confederate side of the theater of battle, was a slave owner.
Only a small percentage were rich plantation owners. Less than 3%.
The civil war was about the very same things we are going through today, with a nation split right down the middle in their respect for the US Constitution.
The Confederacy and the Confederate flag were specifically created to protect the "right" of the Southern states to allow slavery. They viewed it as their Constitutional right. That is not opinion, that is fact backed up by the actual declarations of secession. Here is Mississippi's:
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 a 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.
The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.
The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.
The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.
It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.
It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.
It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.
It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.
It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.
It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.
It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.
It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.
Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.
Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.
Most of my southern ancestors who fought under that flag were not fighting for the right to own slaves (most of them didn't own slaves). That being said, many of my AA neighbors were enslaved legally by under the laws of the Confederacy. I do not blame them for being offended by this flag.
The flag is divisive and unnecessarily inflammatory. There is simply no need to display it on buildings and sites that are supported by tax payer dollars. Feel free to display it on your porch or your bumper sticker if you like, or on the signage of the business that you own, but I do not believe it should be displayed by government entities.
What's so sad is many people have no clue about the reason for the Civil war, and the real Differences between the north and the south. Slavery became an issue when Lincoln needed to alienate the European countries to prevent them from aiding the south.
Did you know the articles of the Confederacy outlawed the importation of slaves?
Did you know that slavery was alive and well in the North even AFTER the Civil war? Just ask the Wife of Ulysses Grant, the great northern General. She owned several slaves.
Did you know the first Slaveowner was a black man? Prior to him, there were no slaves, only indentured servants who were required to be freed after a certain number of years.
I'm a Southerner and I'm on the fence about the Confederate flag (the national flag would be preferable over the battle flag. Its been co-opted by racists and too few of you stood up for it then. Its a bit tainted now).
I am descended from English and Scots, born in Georgia. Some of my ancestors fought as Loyalists against the Colonists in the Revolution (and in this case, the man's son fought against his father for America). My ancestors fought for the Confederacy AND there are Union (Alabama born) soldiers who were my ancestors.
The CSA was a bloody part of US History but for most of you it was a VERY small part of your southern heritage.
Many of you in the south are of English and Scots-Irish (Ulster Scot) heritage. It is even more appro. to fly the Scottish Saltire over a courthouse than the CSA battle flag. http://www.visitscotland.com/cms-ima...h/saltire-flag
What's so sad is many people have no clue about the reason for the Civil war, and the real Differences between the north and the south. Slavery became an issue when Lincoln needed to alienate the European countries to prevent them from aiding the south.
Did you know the articles of the Confederacy outlawed the importation of slaves?
Did you know that slavery was alive and well in the North even AFTER the Civil war? Just ask the Wife of Ulysses Grant, the great northern General. She owned several slaves.
Did you know the first Slaveowner was a black man? Prior to him, there were no slaves, only indentured servants who were required to be freed after a certain number of years.
This is BS-- read the declaration I posted above. Secession happened because Lincoln was anti-slavery and won the election.
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