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It still stands for the Confederate cause. Go read the link I posted. If you know what the Confederate cause is about, why would you pick that symbol?
So you admit that it's about "southern white pride", it's not for Black people. Well, consider this. Picking a symbol heavily rooted in the Confederate cause is essentially screaming "white separatist".
So be it.
There's nothing you can do about it. People can fly whatever flag they want on their own property.
Virginia had the most slave owners followed by Georgia then Kentucky
Virginia had the most slaves in raw numbers. However, it also had the largest population of any of the Confederate states. In terms of percentage of population enslaved, Mississippi and South Carolina ranked the highest, per capita.
1) Alot of Whites likely didn't owned slaves in certain states. However, many did. And by the way, I do not have conflicting numbers. In Mississippi and South Carolina, a majority of those living there were enslaved. In 1860, Mississippi had 791,305 people. 436,631 were slaves. In South Carolina, of 703,708 people living there, 402,406 were slaves. 462,198 slaves lived in Georgia, out of a population of 1,057,286. 964,201 people lived in Alabama, 435,080 slaves were among that population.
While the dirt poor among the White population didn't own slaves, and were not well of, it still doesn't change what the Confederate cause was about.
2) Slaves did not own any property. Slaves were counted as property. The slaves were just using the land. The slave master owned all of that land. Using land is not the same as actually owning it. Borrowing is not the same as owning.
3) I know about those baronesses and the industrial barons. Here is the the thing. The persons on the land, they could just walk off at any time. In America, slave patrols were formed specifically to make sure slaves could not get off the plantation. Slaves could be bought or sold at the whim of the slavemaster. If you work in the industrial world, as bad at the conditions were, you can just walk away. Say what you will about having a family to support. This is the thing. It still does not negate what the Confederate cause was about, and what the Confederates were about. I'd rather be dead than be a slave.
What the South had was different. It was CHATTEL SLAVERY. Blacks were OWNED AND TREATED AS PROPERTY. They were denied any personhood.
4) Again, I'd rather die than be a slave. It is better to die than to be owned by someone. Live Free Or Die is not only New Hampshire's motto. It's how I see the world.
5) I don't care about Lee's position. Lee still owned slaves. Lee still felt that Blacks needed to be slaves because he claimed "it's important for their training and discipline in this lifetime". It doesnt change the fact that he chose the Confederacy. The Confederate cause is still a cause about slavery and white supremacy.
6) I know what sharecropping is about. My grandparents were sharecroppers. They got off of the farm and moved north, and never returned. Under slavery, no slave had a chance. At least my sharecropper grandparents left, and never went back.
I look at it from this perspective. The Confederate cause stood explicitly for keeping slavery and white supremacy. The Articles of Secession and Confederate Constitution explicitly mention this. The Confederates wanted to keep slavery and keep Blacks enslaved. Anything that you say cannot negate that. It is wrong and those who fought for the Confederacy, regardless why they personally fought, they still fought under that cause. In Germany they don't honor Nazi soldiers, regardless of why they personally fought. We should not honor Confederate soldiers here.
1. And those white owners of cattle slave where the minority, and they may have been the political force behind the confederacy, but they weren't what kept it alive.
Alone, just like the land nobility in England, they were nothing. What kept the war going for 4 some years was the blood and toil of white peasants who never owned any slaves. They were fighting for more than slavery, however integral that was to keeping their way of life.
The Nazis wanted to kill jews as an end, not a means to an end. Slaves were only a means to an end, and the land gentry, southern nobility, and paternalistic outlook on the part of the top breed. That no longer exists, and they were fighting to keep that.
2. Sure they owned no property, but they lived like they did. It was a paternalistic system, and just as slaves were mistreated, or how tidal farms spread malaria among the workers, there were others that believed they provided for the slaves. The white peasants weren't just ignorant, they shared the same commons as the blacks which was used for hunting. My point is the land owned by the whites was protected, and the black slaves built their own housing on it. Compare it to the rent seeking up north were the land could be taken from poor blacks at any given moment and had them thrown off into the streets.
It wasn't about helping blacks, but it showed their lifestyle valued different functions than the north. Cotton made things worse for blacks and the south since they were wholly dependent on the north for everything else, but it wasn't always like that. The south grew up with slavery, but had more diversity in their production and sustainability. The north wanted them to be dependent on cotton, and made the lives of black people worse.
3/4. Of course most don't want to be slaves, but my point was the reality resulted into the same social dynamics. Blacks weren't given a choice, but may not have chosen anything different if given the opportunity. The point being the north wasn't fighting this war for a humanitarian reason in saying all people have a right how they choose to suffer. It was not about the moral evils of slavery.
5. He was willing to give up all slaves to the north, I don't see how dedicated he was to the concept. And he had the same paternalistic outlook many southerners had towards black.
I agree there shouldn't be monuments to confederate soldiers because they lost. But the cause was more than just evil. That is why the confederacy fought the way it did, and that perspective shouldn't be lost.
There's nothing you can do about it. People can fly whatever flag they want on their own property.
I never said people couldn't fly what the wanted on their property. Don't be surprised when people see you as a bigot for flying a Confederate flag. And those like me, who know what the Confederates were about, whose ancestors were slaves, I have every reason to hate the Confederate flag. I have every reason to smile when Confederate monuments are torn down. I saw a video of some men burning a Confederate flag. To say the least I was happy.
I never said you can't fly what you want on your property. I'm saying they should never been flown in public spaces. And one should never be surprised when someone sees the Confederate flag as a racist symbol. There is a reason for it, and it's rooted in history.
1.) I read it in a book some where and it stuck with me. It wasn't phrased as 95% but more that only 5% owned a slave
That's substantially different from 95% never saw one. The ownership figure is a little suspect, because of course it would only be the head of the household who owned a slave. It's more a representation of the fact that ownership of pretty much everything was concentrated on few hands. How many could claim ownership to a horse?
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Those soldiers who bleed weren't fighting for slaves, and even most of these slave holders weren't what you think. Most of them worked on the field with the owners, and numbered no more than a few.
The rank and file were what any 19th-century army was: Farm boys who'd been told that it was their duty to show Johnny Foreigner the error of his ways, who were enticed with a chance of a smart uniform (girls like uniforms) and an opportunity to see something a bit different from the weeds they'd otherwise be pulling. Their best outcome was to get back to the farm with all limbs intact. Such is war.
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Do you need a paper for property to be yours? They used it, lived in it, and did what they needed with it.
If you can't sell it, it isn't yours. If it can be taken from you on a whim, it isn't yours. It's an absurd notion.
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Do you know who the dukes and baronesses were of pre-industrial England?
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Have you read north and south, or heard of Victorian England?
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They didn't 'own' slaves but their lifestyle was much the same.
As much as the lives of the farmers in rural England sucked, they weren't serfs, much less slaves. The lord of the manor couldn't sell off half a dozen strong fieldhands and tell them to pack up and leave for the next village over, with no thought of families or sweethearts. This of course happened to slaves all the time.
The lord of the manor couldn't have a farmer whipped. Couldn't rape wives and daughters with complete impunity. The farmers were not punished for reading, their kids weren't assets to to be counted as property. A farmer's son could wander off to try his luck in the industrial cities without having armed patrols bring him back for whipping and neck irons.
Serfdom - you'd have to go to Russia to find that, in the 19th century.
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That 'slavery' didn't end until world war 2. Its not as flashy as uncle tom's cabin, but the reality for most blacks in the south went back to being the same.
Even under sharecropping, what little they had was theirs. They couldn't be sold off. They could learn to read, and did. Comparing it to slavery as some sort of defense of slavery shows ignorance of just how depraved the institution was.
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...from their perspective things were very different.
It's a pretty much a given that the slave and the slave owner have very different perspectives on slavery. Doesn't mean we have to respect the perspective of the slave owner, IMO.
That's substantially different from 95% never saw one. The ownership figure is a little suspect, because of course it would only be the head of the household who owned a slave. It's more a representation of the fact that ownership of pretty much everything was concentrated on few hands. How many could claim ownership to a horse?
Heads of households could own slaves. This means the rest of the family saw those slaves too. 95% of Whites not ever laying eyes on Black slaves is beyond ridiculous. Now, 4.9% of people in the South owned slaves. However, 25% of households in the South had slaves. As you mentioned, only heads out households owned the slaves. But when you take into account that 25% of white southern households had slaves in their homes, that "95% of White southerners never set eyes on Black slaves" is a boldface lie. And this doesn't take into account the slave patrols, overseers, and poor Whites who lived in counties with large slave populations.
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The rank and file were what any 19th-century army was: Farm boys who'd been told that it was their duty to show Johnny Foreigner the error of his ways, who were enticed with a chance of a smart uniform (girls like uniforms) and an opportunity to see something a bit different from the weeds they'd otherwise be pulling. Their best outcome was to get back to the farm with all limbs intact. Such is war.
That is a part of why some people went off to fight.
In addition to duty, there is more to consider. Slavery was more than just an economic system. It was part of the South's social order.
This is what a minister in South Carolina had to say regarding Lincoln's election.
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“every Negro in South Carolina and every other Southern state will be his own master; nay, more than that, will be the equal of every one of you. If you are tame enough to submit, abolition preachers will be at hand to consummate the marriage of your daughters to black husbands.”
Many were afraid of the idea of Black people being free. It wasn't just the loss of slavery and having to pay Black people what one would pay Whites. It was the fear of Black men mingling and mixing with White women that scared many.
Here is more from the link....
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William Harris, Mississippi’s commissioner to Georgia, explained that Lincoln’s election had made the North more defiant than ever. “They have demanded, and now demand equality between the white and negro races, under our constitution; equality in representation, equality in right of suffrage, equality in the honors and emoluments of office, equality in the social circle, equality in the rights of matrimony,” he cautioned, adding that the new administration wanted “freedom to the slave, but eternal degradation for you and me.”
One of the ways of stoking fear among non-slaveholders was to remind them "if these slaves are freed, they'll take over and take from the White man".
This is what John Townsend, the owner of a cotton plantation in Edisto Island,SC, had to say about how the end of slavery would effect non-slaveholding Whites.
-“It will be to the non-slaveholder, equally with the largest slaveholder, the obliteration of caste and the deprivation of important privileges,”
-“In the Southern slaveholding States, where menial and degrading offices are turned over to be per formed exclusively by the Negro slave, the status and color of the black race becomes the badge of inferiority, and the poorest non-slaveholder may rejoice with the richest of his brethren of the white race, in the distinction of his color. He may be poor, it is true; but there is no point upon which he is so justly proud and sensitive as his privilege of caste; and there is nothing which he would resent with more fierce indignation than the attempt of the Abolitionist to emancipate the slaves and elevate the Negroes to an equality with himself and his family.”
-“The color of the white man is now, in the South, a title of nobility in his relations as to the negro,”
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If you can't sell it, it isn't yours. If it can be taken from you on a whim, it isn't yours. It's an absurd notion.
THANK. YOU. If you own something, you can sell it, you can do whatever you want to it. You do not rent or lease it. It is yours for perpetuity to do what you please.
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As much as the lives of the farmers in rural England sucked, they weren't serfs, much less slaves. The lord of the manor couldn't sell off half a dozen strong fieldhands and tell them to pack up and leave for the next village over, with no thought of families or sweethearts. This of course happened to slaves all the time.
The lord of the manor couldn't have a farmer whipped. Couldn't rape wives and daughters with complete impunity. The farmers were not punished for reading, their kids weren't assets to to be counted as property. A farmer's son could wander off to try his luck in the industrial cities without having armed patrols bring him back for whipping and neck irons.
Serfdom - you'd have to go to Russia to find that, in the 19th century.
And thus, you have shown the difference between what went only England and what went on in America. In England, one's humanity was still intact. Working the land in England was rough. And it was miserable. However, they were not bought and sold like chattel property. They were far more free than Black slaves in America were.
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Even under sharecropping, what little they had was theirs. They couldn't be sold off. They could learn to read, and did. Comparing it to slavery as some sort of defense of slavery shows ignorance of just how depraved the institution was.
Sharecropping did put people in debt. Just the same, they could leave more easily than in slavery. In slavery, one was literally property. Sharecroppers, at least, could leave. Slaves could not and there were slave patrols to make sure slaves didn't leave. Slaves still tried to escape. As bad as sharecropping was, there was more freedom out of sharecropping than slavery.
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It's a pretty much a given that the slave and the slave owner have very different perspectives on slavery. Doesn't mean we have to respect the perspective of the slave owner, IMO.
The slave owner's perspective doesn't deserve to be respected. I thought that was just common sense. But then, we're dealing with individuals who really don't use common sense. Or rather, they just don't care. Anyone who sides with the slave owner will come up with every excuse to justify their position.
To many that fly them is Heritage not Hate, feel free to get into the discussion with them but you already know how far that will go. My favorite are the ones along the interstate so people can drive by and laugh.......
I grew up hearing "heritage, not hate". To me that is a load of bull feces. If it was southern heritage, then said persons need to consider this. 56% of America's Black population lives in the South. This means a majority of Black Americans are southerners. And most Black Americans, regardless of where they live, have southern roots. I notice Black people aren't referring to the Confederate flag as part of their southern heritage. I notice alot of Black people view the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism. If it was really about southern heritage, wouldn't it be a uniting symbol, something all southerners regardless of race would cherish?
that the governor is a racist, the vice governor is a rapist, and protesters are whiners.
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