Historical context should not be forgotten
Before debating whether the Confederate flag should be removed or allowed to fly, we must first look at the importance of the flag through a historical perspective. Did you know that the flag considered to be the Confederate flag today was not the original Confederate flag?
The first Confederate flag looked similar to the first U.S. flag. This Confederate flag contained three horizontal stripes with a blue top left corner containing seven stars in a circle. The flag that citizens have come to know as the Confederate flag was not adopted until after the battle at Manassas in 1861.
When it was adopted, it was given the title of a battle flag, which greatly differs from a national flag. A battle flag is solely used in war time and has no meaning outside of war.
However, a national flag has meaning all the time, whether in war or not. The battle flag that citizens are debating over today consist of a square blue St. Andrew’s cross with 13 white stars (representing the 11 Confederate states plus Kentucky and Missouri) on a red background.
Many citizens believe that the war began due to slavery. What both sides were fighting over was the slavery in the territories: the Arizona, New Mexico and other Union and Confederate territories. Both the North and South agreed on white supremacy. African-Americans were considered to be lesser people on both sides.
At the time of the war, abolition was not successful in the North. Northerners solely wanted slavery removed from the territories so Caucasians would not have to compete with African-Americans for labor. According to David Sarratt from the American Studies Department at the University of Virginia, Southerners believed slavery was far worse in the North because Northerners did not care for their slaves like the Southerners did.
If the North and South both agreed on white supremacy, then why do we honor the North’s flag, which is the American flag we have today, but argue that the South’s flag stands for racism? The war was not fought to end slavery; it was fought to give better advantages to Caucasians.
Neither flag should be today acknowledged as representative of slavery. The North’s flag is the flag we use today to represent our nation. The South was actually considered as a different nation from the North, having its own leaders. It had to adopt a new flag to represent its nation.
The Confederate flag should be looked upon as a representation of the South in its time of being a separate nation from the North. This flag today is not used for white supremacy or fighting for slavery. It is now a symbol of pride for those people who reside in the South. It is a piece of history. History, whether good or bad, should never be omitted from our memories. I do, however, believe that the American flag should always be flown above the Confederate flag, or any flag, in any context. But the Confederate flag should not be viewed as a symbol of racism.
Alec Whispers • Sep 19, 2015 at 6:41 am
By 1804, all Northern states had voted to abolish the institution of slavery. By the onset of the Civil War there was no de jure slavery. The war began because the south feared Lincoln would not allow the expansion of slavery into the new states. The war started because of slavery, but that is not why it was fought. However, even during the war, Blacks were treated more like men than in the south. Blacks were never given arms in the south, they were in the north. In fact, many Blacks abandoned the Confederacy and fought for the north.
As to why I support the American flag and not the Confederate flag. I’m an American, for all her faults I am a citizen of the USA. The Confederacy has existed in 150 years and it was stillborn from it’s conception. It lasted four years and it’s single accomplishment was getting over 600,000 people killed.
In what’s now known as the “Cornerstone Speech,” Stephens, the VP of the Confederacy, told a Savannah, Ga., crowd in 1861 that “our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas [as those of slavery foes]; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence of the United States of America starts as follows: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
It took us a long time to get here,but we’re still working on. A perusing of the Articles of Secession reveal no such lofty aspirations, only a desire to use Black human beings as beats of burden into perpetuity.
The outcome of the war is as important as to why it was fought. Had the south won, there’s no reason to believe African-Americans would not be enslaved today. Even for non-slave holders, there were benefits to having an entire race of people beneath you. I.E. Someone to terrorize, the KKK, and other supremacist groups and just as importantly, sexual access to Black men, and especially Black women. I.E. Strom Thurmond and the numerous African-Americans with white ancestry due to rape. The north’s victory gave us what we have today, far from perfect, but far better than millions of people in bondage.
The Nazi flag is a symbol of German history. They had the intelligence to take it down because that’s no longer who they are. The Confederate apologists who fly that flag do so because that is who they are. They are apologists for racists white supremacists who wanted to see the expansion of slavery into the west and Latin America.
The Confederacy has always been about slavery!
The white supremacist who designed the Confederacy’s flag(s), one William T. Thompson, gave the definitive reason why every Republican, KKK member, and so-called Southern heritage advocate still supports flying that symbol of treason and racism. Thompson was proud to admit that “As a people we are fighting to maintain the heavenly ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause. Such a flag would be a suitable emblem of our young confederacy, and sustained by the brave hearts and strong arms of the south, it would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN’S FLAG.”
It’s no coincidence that Confederate symbolism was absent for nearly a century after the Civil War and did not make a comeback until the 1950’s, the era signalling Blacks demanding equal rights.
If anything I’ve said is false, please let me know where I can find the correct information.