Originally Posted by from another forum I frequent
the one thing i wish is that, with everyone covering this, that someone (and i'm really disappointed in PBS here) would make reference to the _original_ documents from the beginning of the civil war. because all this nonsense about "it's not about racism, it's just that some people have chosen to misappropriate it, it's just about our history and culture."
bull
****.
the history and culture that flag represents is all _about_ racism. the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union - it was about slavery:
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These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
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the only state's right they cared about was their right to own slaves. they didn't even like the idea that _other_ states "permitted establishment of societies" opposed to slavery - what, other states allow people to exercise their rights of free speech and assembly, if they did so to criticize the south?
and of course, there is the "cornerstone speech", in which the vice-president of the newly-formed CSA, Alexander Stephens, went on about how much better the CSA was than the USA: (sorry, long quote but it's truly amazing - i bolded the most important bits)
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The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone 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.
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there it is, in all it's glory - the core of the confederacy. they, alone, got it right, that blacks were inferior to whites and it was _natural_ for them to be slaves.
if you want to insist that you want to use the flag that represented that government as a critical part of your heritage and history, fine - but then you own all of that. you are owning that your heritage and history is, indeed, founded on racism, celebrates racism, was created solely for the furtherance of racism.
you are right, Sen. Graham - that _is_ who you are.
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