The Confederate Flag

[Low C Sharp]

comparing the Nazi Flag to the Confederate flag is just out there

Really? Even though both were used in living memory during the 20th century to display the bearer's support for a nationwide campaign of race-based intimidation, expulsion, and murder? You don't see any parallel? What was the Holocaust but lynching on an industrial scale?

[PiKA2001]

Originally Posted by Low C Sharp

Really? Even though both were used in living memory during the 20th century to display the bearer's support for a nationwide campaign of race-based intimidation, expulsion, and murder? You don't see any parallel? What was the Holocaust but lynching on an industrial scale?

As terrible as both were I do believe that you are comparing molehills to mountains. The Klan (whom I'm assuming you are referring to in regard to the Confederate flag) has historically always been a small right wing fringe group in regards to the general American populace (if they were so well respected or welcomed in the community they wouldn't need to wear hoods). While there have been a few state governors, U.S. Congressman, Senators, and local elected officials who had been members or sympathizers to the cause of the KKK, the U.S. government never had a state sponsored policy or practice of genocide of anyone post Civil War. The Third Reich, on the other hand did, and not just in Germany but any European country they rolled through. Two thirds of all European Jews, millions of Polish, Russian, homosexuals, disabled people, religious minorities, etc..... 17 million total in just a few years.

I'm not trying to have a battle of atrocities with you, but to compare a Confederate to a Nazi is a comparing a molehill to a mountain.

[Leslie Anne]

Originally Posted by PiKA2001

I'm not trying to have a battle of atrocities with you, but to compare a Confederate to a Nazi is a comparing a molehill to a mountain.

I completely and absolutely disagree. Yes, these atrocities are very different but if we're looking at flags and what they represent I would hardly call centuries of slavery, unspeakable violence, rape and murder a "molehill".

[PiKA2001]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

I completely and absolutely disagree. Yes, these atrocities are very different but if we're looking at flags and what they represent I would hardly call centuries of slavery, unspeakable violence, rape and murder a "molehill".

It's more than just slavery, violence, rape and murder. The rebels did have some legitimate reasons to want to break from the Union other than to commit...rape, murder, torture, genocide.....

[KDCat]

Originally Posted by PiKA2001

It's more than just slavery, violence, rape and murder. The rebels did have some legitimate reasons to want to break from the Union other than to commit...rape, murder, torture, genocide.....

No, they really didn't. If you read the secession declarations for each state, they state very clearly that they are seceding because of slavery. They cloak it in "states' rights," but the right the states' right that they are seeking to protect is the right to own slaves.

South Carolina seceded first, so I'll quote its secession statement:

"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."


My family is from the South. (I'm not.) I appreciate the feelings of pride in Southern heritage. There are things to be proud of, if you are from the South. The Battle Flag isn't one of them.

[Cen1aur 1963]

To me the Rebel flag represents hate, not the South like it once did. For those who use it on their car or have it waving in their backyard, I'll put money on it that they're racist.

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by KDCat

No, they really didn't. If you read the secession declarations for each state, they state very clearly that they are seceding because of slavery. They cloak it in "states' rights," but the right the states' right that they are seeking to protect is the right to own slaves.

While I agree that slavery was a major factor (if not the major factor) in the war, let's not ignore the reason the North wanted to abolish slavery. It wasn't because they were more moral than the South or felt like slavery was a bad thing - it's because they were afraid that white people wouldn't be able to land paying jobs if they were competing against slave labor. Just wanted to point that out before this turns into a moral-North vs. hateful-South debate.

There are (at least) two distinct groups of people who wave the Battle Flag: one group who flies it as a nod to their heritage (not unlike Americans who fly the American flag), and another group who flies it in a less appropriate manner.

I personally don't fly it at all, but I can recognize why some people do. I don't automatically associate it with hate and/or slavery, but I recognize that some people do. It's a flag that has different meanings to different groups of people - the flag itself doesn't have its own intrinsic meaning.

[Cen1aur 1963]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

While I agree that slavery was a major factor (if not the major factor) in the war, let's not ignore the reason the North wanted to abolish slavery. It wasn't because they were more moral than the South or felt like slavery was a bad thing - it's because they were afraid that white people wouldn't be able to land paying jobs if they were competing against slave labor. Just wanted to point that out before this turns into a moral-North vs. hateful-South debate.
.

Your whole premise is wrong. Blacks in the north were already free. I'm not saying they were equal in rights, but they were free. Whites in the North were already being paid wages for the work that they were doing. The mere idea of bringing in free labor to replace workers that are paid would have been as destructive to the nation as the succession of the South was.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

While I agree that slavery was a major factor (if not the major factor) in the war, let's not ignore the reason the North wanted to abolish slavery. It wasn't because they were more moral than the South or felt like slavery was a bad thing - it's because they were afraid that white people wouldn't be able to land paying jobs if they were competing against slave labor.

Of course, there certainly were abolitionists for whom it was moral issue.

All of which points up something I think has to be remembered: When it comes to something like the Civil War, there are no simple explanations. There certainly are major factors such as slavery, which as you say may be the predominant factor. But it's a mistake to reduce it to "The Civil War was about x," even if that x is a major factor There were lots of inter-related things going on -- racial factors, class factors, economic factors, religious factors, philosophical factors, governmental factors . . . . The reason one person supported one side or the other may have been quite different from his neighbors reasons.

It's not necessarily glossing over uncomfortable history or trying to put a positive spin on things to debate what the Civil War was really about. It can just be taking a realistic view of a complex thing.

And its part of the reason that symbols from that war can mean different things to different people.

[KDCat]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

Just wanted to point that out before this turns into a moral-North vs. hateful-South debate.

I would never say that it was that simple. The North is not anti-slavery at the start of the war. The South secedes because they are concerned about the abolition of slavery. (They clearly state in all of their secession documents.) The North, on the other hand, enters the war in an effort to preserve the Union. Lincoln is very clear that if continuing slavery will help win the war, he'll work to continue slavery, and that if abolishing slavery will help win the war, he'll work to abolish slavery. He's anti-slavery in a moral sense, but he doesn't care about it that much. He cares about preserving the Union. It's only as the war continues that Lincoln and Congress move towards abolishing slavery. The 13th and 14th amendments are only passed in 1865, at the end of the war.

There are also some Southerners who fight because they're fighting to protect their homes. There are other Southerners who work valiantly on the side of the Union because they are anti-slavery and pro-Union.

[DubaiSis]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

I completely and absolutely disagree. Yes, these atrocities are very different but if we're looking at flags and what they represent I would hardly call centuries of slavery, unspeakable violence, rape and murder a "molehill".

Over the span of time that slavery existed, how many slaves died in transport, were hunted down and killed if they tried to escape, were tortured to death, or died of a variety of diseases as a direct result of their slavery? My guess (non-scientific) is it exceeds the holocaust.

To put a positive spin on why the south wanted to separate and why 130 years later people want to celebrate that I think is a bogus excuse. Going back to the ever-dreaded nazi comparison, the reason they needed to get rid of the Jews was because they were killing the economy. That was part of their thinking... everything that was wrong with Germany was the Jews' fault. So you can say the Swastika represents Germany's economic rebirth if you want. It still means 6 million dead to me. And the rebel flag to me represents a long and abiding dislike of personal freedom of all kinds, hate in it's most uneducated, head in the sand form.

[Elephant Walk]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

Over the span of time that slavery existed, how many slaves died in transport, were hunted down and killed if they tried to escape, were tortured to death, or died of a variety of diseases as a direct result of their slavery? My guess (non-scientific) is it exceeds the holocaust.

Guess which flag was flying on those ships?

The American flag.

Not the Confederacy. I believe the Confederacy banned the importation of slaves with the ratification of the CSA's constitution.

For the record, I fly the Bonnie Blue. It exhibits Southern Pride to those who love the South and looks like part of the Texas flag to those who have no knowledge of history.

[sigmadiva]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Guess which flag was flying on those ships?

The American flag.

Not the Confederacy. I believe the Confederacy banned the importation of slaves with the ratification of the CSA's constitution.

For the record, I fly the Bonnie Blue. It exhibits Southern Pride to those who love the South and looks like part of the Texas flag to those who have no knowledge of history.

Thank you! I learned something new today.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by sigmadiva

Thank you! I learned something new today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Blue_Flag



****
The most interesting thing about these types of discussions has been said before, which is that slavery, discrimination, and other forms of social exclusion were (and still are) not relegated to the south, a particular flag, or to a particular political party.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by Elephant Walk

Guess which flag was flying on those ships?

The American flag.

Not the Confederacy. I believe the Confederacy banned the importation of slaves with the ratification of the CSA's constitution.

For the record, I fly the Bonnie Blue. It exhibits Southern Pride to those who love the South and looks like part of the Texas flag to those who have no knowledge of history.

The legal importation of slaves into the United States of America was banned January 1, 1808 (voted on in 1807), it is found in this little known document called The Constitution, in the same section as some habeas corpus nonsense. People got kind of nervous after the French had some issues in Haiti, Britain had also banned the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1807, but still had slavery until 1834 (Act was in 1833) excluding anything owned/run by the East India Company and what is now Sri Lanka. Spain abolished slavery in 1811, except in Cuba, the now Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, which didn't happen until the 1880s or during and after the Civil War.


The real importation of slaves didn't stop until later, with the last known ship smuggling people in being the Clotilde in 1859 that brought slaves from Africa to Mobile, Alabama. http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/question/july05/ Slaves were still brought in through New Orleans and Texas (Jean Lafitte) and with both Spain and France still allowing their colonies in the New World to have slavery it is not impossible to believe that people were smuggled between 1808 and 1859. To move those who were born in country when all slave states were concentrated in the Southern part of the United States boats were often used and it wouldn't be unimaginable that people were picked up along the way to a larger port like New Orleans

What I find more interesting about your Bonnie Blue is you associate it with Texas, but the areas it originally represented in 1810 didn't include Texas. I also find it amusing the guy who wrote the song associated with the flag was Irish born and I can't readily find much information about him, which is odd for something so important in relation to this flag controversy.