The proper way to hang a confederate flag

9 thoughts on “The proper way to hang a confederate flag”

1. On the upside, I think it did generate my first public death threat.

   Heritage not hate, right?

   Heh. Thanks for the pointers to the Tallahassee articles. What John Sims has achieved here might be the pinnacle of art – people are thinking and talking about an idea. Pretty damn impressive, if you ask me.

2. Heritage not hate, right?
   You hit it on the nail. Lots of hate stuff over there on your blog.

3. Wow. Florida has a statute prohibiting the desecration of the CONFEDERATE flag? Pretty obviously unconstitutional, since there is a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the United States flag that says it’s political expression protected by the First Amendment.
   And someone should tell the Sons of Confederate Veterans what the outcome of the Civil War was — the guys who took up arms against the United States of America lost, and the Union, also known as the United States of America, won.
   Ironically, I’m sure these fans of the Confederate flag all consider themselves great patriots, even though a century and a half later, they are still supporting the traitors who took up arms against our country, the United States of America. This kind of illogical jingoism is the same sort of thinking that permits them to claim that the Confederate flag has nothing to do with racism, even though the flag came back into vogue during the Civil Rights movement, as a clear symbol of defiance to legally mandated segregation.
   I wonder what our former Senator George Allen would think of this particular juxtaposition of his beloved Confederate flag and his very, very funny noose? Personally, I think it’s downright poignant, if not hilarious. Really, though, the flag should have been hanging from a tree, not a gallows.

4. That is probably the most entertaining thing I’ve seen this morning. Hilarious.

5. Since he lost the election I guess that FORMER Senator George Allen doesn’t have to be a closet Confederate flag waver! Now he can even hang out his noose in his front yard. He has been outed by the voters of Virginia!

6. If a heritage of hate and racism is associated with the Confederate Battle Flag then the same can definitely be said about the American Flag of the period. We are presented with a sliver of history, incomplete and bias. If you read the events of the day you will find that freed slaves were treated with far more indignities in the Northern States then the freed slaves in the South. Alexis de Tocqueville stated even though the blacks of the South were held in slavery, they were far more “free” than the freed blacks in the North. de Tocqueville went on to say that while the former slaves in the North were called “free”, they were not allowed any integration between the races, whereas in the South the story was very, very different. Slaves and freed blacks in the South often were educated with the children of plantation owners, attended church with whites, and even breast fed the babes of their white “masters.” For a shocker, read the two volume set called the Slave Narratives compiled in the early 1930s and accounted the stories of the last remaining former slaves, it’s an eye-opener. The Black Codes were enforced long before they were ever conceived in the South. The treatment of run-away slaves and freed slaves in the North was the main reason the “underground railroad” sought to smuggle former slaves into Canada instead of the Northern States. The beatings, lynching, and mistreatment, both legal and illegal, of blacks who happened to be caught in a Northern State was just as bad as what happened later in the South as the crimes of the Radical Republican’s Reconstruction created a horrendous atmosphere where freed slaves were pitted against whites and vice versa. In a Congressional hearing during the final years of Reconstruction evidence was presented and the conclusion reached that if the Union League had not existed with free reign in the South that the KKK would have never formed. In fact, you will find that most Southern whites of the period never used the epitaph “nigger”, that was a peculiarly Northern usage. We are all victims of a very incomplete history that has been carefully crafted for political and social ends; one that has been swallowed without much question, yet the evidence points to some very different conclusions then are presented by the accepted story-line of history.

   We rarely hear that slaves who acquired freedom, and there were tens of thousands of them, in the South prior to the War were afforded most of the same privileges of white citizens. Prior to the events of the War and the aftermath of Reconstruction, freed blacks were allowed to own property and generally mingle with white society at a level that the accepted history seems to deliberately shield from view. Whereas in the Northern States they were segregated, shunned, and generally mistreated. We rarely hear of the thousands of former slaves who were also slave owners, some large holders of slaves, this fact doesn’t excuse slavery by either race, but it does set the stage of understanding that this period in our history is far more complicated than we have been led to believe.

   Far from being viewed as “liberators” by the majority of the slave population, the Union army was seen as a brutal and dangerous invader. If you read the government’s own account, called the Rebellion Record, you will find that the treatment of Southern whites, as well as slaves by the Union forces was cruel and heinous. In many cases, the Union soldiers would plunder, rape and pillage not only the white plantations, but the slave quarters too. The atrocities of the Union forces can easily be found in the Library of Congress, but that history too has been conveniently forgotten it seems. Union soldiers would “press” slaves into service and run-aways, if caught could expect hangings or beatings from the Union forces.

   We rarely hear that the first State to prohibit the slave trade was Virginia in 1820, and that most Southern States had prohibited the importation of slaves by the 1830s but due to the profitability of such trade to the Northern Shipping companies, the smuggling continued well into the 1850s. There was never a Southern owned slave shipping company, the North had that trade monopoly. It is also rarely heard that the South sought to extend the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific Ocean, but it was voted down by Northern Congressmen. We also seem to be ignorant of the fact that while Robert E. Lee was not a slave owner, U.S. Grant and William Sherman were. Robert E. Lee was an advocate of immediate emancipation, but there were those in the South who felt it would be necessary to prepare the slave population for freedom, this preparation was to include training and education. Jefferson Davis was one of those who felt it necessary to provide such training and education. Jefferson Davis also stated that no matter who won the war, that slavery would end either way. Slavery was a dying institution prior to the war; the onset of the Industrial Revolution had sounded the death nell for the institution of slavery and it was rapidly becoming economically inviable.

   We have been told, perhaps the word should be indoctrinated, into believing that the “Civil War” was caused by the institution of slavery, but nothing could be farther from the truth for either side of the conflict. If you read the actual events, the proposals given by numerous high-raking politicians of the day and editorials that plastered the newspapers of the time then it is absolutely impossible for one to come to the conclusion that slavery was the cause of the war.

   The first and perhaps the strongest evidence that the war had absolutely nothing to do with slavery was Lincoln himself. Had slavery been the primary cause of the war, or even an ancillary cause then Mr. Lincoln would have never attempted to make a deal with the Southern States to support an Amendment to the Constitution to forever protect the institution of slavery, all they had to do was agree not to Secede. It was a deal that the South could have easily accepted especially if that was the reason for the South’s Secession, but that was not even the reason the South craved disunion. The Southern People could have avoided the entire conflict and destruction of their country had they simply accepted Lincoln’s deal, but the deal did not address the real reasons behind the South’s desire to Secede from the Union.

   To reiterate, slavery could not have been the reason for Lincoln waging war on the South since he offered to save and protect slavery forever if only the South remain in the Union. On the other hand, slavery could not have been the reason for the South’s Secession since they could have easily saved and protected the institution of slavery simply by agreeing to Lincoln’s deal and remaining in the Union.

   Even the act of Secession itself was not the cause of the War, nor was Lincoln a dye-hard Unionist prior to the events that lead up to Secession. Lincoln and indeed, the entire country was well aware of the Right of Secession because it had been taught and espoused by just about every educational institution and politician from the time of the Ratification of the Constitution. In fact, every single Resolution for Constitutional Ratification included clauses declaring the Right of Secession if the federal government or a majority of the Several States did not adhere to the Articles of the Constitution. It was taught in every Military Institution in the country, including West Point, until after the War when the doctrine and all textbooks that expounded the Right were systematically purged by the Radical Republican Party.

   So, if slavery and secession were not the real reasons behind the War, what was? It appears that money was the only reason for the War; it was the only reason behind Lincoln’s actions. This fact becomes evident when reading excerpts from many of the Northern Newspapers, many expressing the view even prior to Lincoln’s Inauguration. For a few years prior to 1960, many of the Northerners, including newspapers and politicians, including Lincoln expressed that the South should Secede and the sooner the better in their minds.

   So what changed? It was one of those “eureka” moments that caused a drastic change in the hearts and minds of the Northern people when they realized that without the heavy and unequal tariff income levied on the South that the North and indeed, the federal government itself would be forced into economic ruin by the disunion of the South. So, the real reason was the utter devastating prospect that if the South left the Union that the government’s coffers would be bled dry with the lost of revenues and likewise, that the Northern economy would be decimated.

   Lincoln himself stated that if the South was allowed to secede: “What then will become of my tariff?” The heavy tariffs had been the main issue of contention between the powerful industrial Northern States and the Agricultural South for several decades. It was the cause of the nullification acts of the Southern States and eventually led to the South seceding from the Union.

   So, if you are going to hang the Confederate Flag, you need to hang the American Union Flag along side it as well.

7. To all the STUPID people out there the flag had a reason and it was to become our own nation. We did loose the war but do we not still morn the death of people in pearl harbor or even the people still dieing today in wars has America the nation of “freedom” not lost wars. The flag is our heritage it reprasents where we come from our grandfathers and family that died in the war. america faught us to preserve freedom. BUT now the are taking it from us slowlythere is a state that if your underpants show (saggin) you get a ticket. i agree learn how to wear your clothes. but where is the freedom in that. There is nothing free about this two faced power trip nation of america. To the ones who think we should not be proud of our flag that stands for our family that died in our war. think of this the flag you are so proud of is killing your sons and fathers. SOME GREAT AMERICA. fake no acount nation

8. I have to wonder if those who were “freed” by their Union “liberators” ever wondered what happen to those “angels of mercy” after the War. During the first year after the War, nearly 400,000 freed slaves died of starvation, but where were their “liberators” who cared so much about slavery that they forgot the slaves after providing them with “freedom”.

   For ten years after the War, the federal Union government totally neglected those they freed, nearly 1/4 of the entire population was estimated to have died after being “liberated”, the only thing that saved most of those freed slaves were the Southern whites who helped them just as the freed slaves helped the whites survive the horrible aftermath of a destructive War at the hands of cruel victors.

9. Republicae – this post is well over a year old. You’ve tried to post long, rambling missives (like the one above) that have nothing to do with the post. I see that you have your own blog. Perhaps that would be the better place for you to post.

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