I have a question about the Confederate flag.

Question

I went on vacation with a good friend to Branson, MO. In almost all of the gift shops there were souvenir Confederate flags being sold, which I found offensive. But my friend (who is from Georgia) was upset with me for being offended by it. He kept saying that "It's about heritage, not slavery or racism," to which I repilied "Well, I'm German and I dont fly the Natzi flag simply because it's a part of my heritage." We never were able to resolve this difference. I will accept it if I am wrong, this is why I am asking this question--- There was a war a long time ago between the north (Union) and the south (Confederate). The north was against slavery and the south was fighting to keep slavery. The north won and so slavery was abolished. It has been a long time since I have taken history class so maybe I'm wrong or missing something which I will admit if true. So what, if not slavery, does this flag stand for?? Some say 'It's the fighting spirit of the Confederates.' But as I understand it, they were fighting to keep slavery. If I used this logic then I would be flying the Natzi flag (which I would never do). Please help because I don't want to lose my friend over this.

Answer 1

First of all, the Civil War was not really fought strictly over the issue of slavery. The principal issues had more to do with the right of an individual state to decide which institutions would be legal within its borders and which would not; slavery just happened to be the principal institution in question. In fact, some of the Northern states still allowed slavery during the war. Maryland, for example, was a slave state at the time of the war's beginning.

As for the Confederate flag, it never really existed. The familiar "Stars and Bars" flag was never officially adopted by the Confederate States of America as a national flag. It was, however, flown as a battle flag, which is why it has the reputation it does now.

Now, as for your actual question, whether or not displaying a "Confederate flag" is offensive or not should be a personal decision, not one decided in any courtroom or by heated debate. Some people will always use that flag as a way to display their approval of the institution of slavery, while others simply see the flag as part of American history. Before condemning someone for displaying a Confederate flag, perhaps you should consider that person's reason for doing so. Your friend is right, many people see the Confederate flag as part of their heritage and history, and nothing more.

In conclusion, the fact that your friend sees the Confederate flag as symbolizing Southern heritage should not be a reason for you to lose the friendship. However, if that same friend makes it a point to display the flag in front of someone he knows will be offended by it, perhaps that person isn't truly a friend anyway. Let him believe what he wants about the flag, but don't be afraid to make your feelings known.

(By the way, an analogy with the n**i flag is difficult to make, since most Germans prefer to have that symbol relegated to the history books. In fact, the displaying of the n**i flag in public is, I believe, illegal in Germany.)

Answer 2

You're both right. Technically the southern flag stands for states rights, not just slavery. Most people who fought for the southern revolution did not even own slaves. However there’s no denying that the south was pro slavery and that that is was wrong.

Answer 3

The Civil War was a "Rich mans war, but a poor mans fight". To tell you the truth I get really upset that people think the Civil War was over slavery, which it was clearly not. The South wanted to break away from the North. In fact five states in the Union allowed slavery (Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, West Virgina ( after 1863) and Delaware). The flag stands for the former way of Southern life, they wanted to be their own country because of miss reputation throughout of branches of government. A good slave cost around $500 in the 1860's, for that price you could live a middle class lifestyle in NYC for a year. Most people could not simply afford slaves. There where very few people who could simply sit back and watch the slaves work and make money doing it. Most slave owners were in the field's working with their slaves, and most slave owners only had between 2-4 slaves. In fact many former slaves were treated better while being slaves than after they were freed. When they were enslaved the masters had to keep them well fed and in tip top shape so they could produce for their masters. After the war their were roughly 3 million child like beings let loose in the South, most where illiterate and had only known their life at the farm they lived at. In fact thousands upon thousands of slaves after they were freed where hired by their former masters to do the same work, without the free food and shelter after the war. This made their living conditions worse but hey they were "free". O these people and their causes. ( I am in no way shape or form saying slavery was a good idea, just the people who where all gung ho about freeing them didn't do a d**n thing for them after they were free, they simply moved on to their next cause Prohibition!) If you want more about the Civil War just let me know! Thank You for reading.  

Answer 4

Sorry this is long, but here goes.

The Civil War was not fought because of slavery alone. That mainly was Yankee propaganda to help recruiting.

The Civil War was fought because of the different schools of thought on federal versus confederate forms of government. Strong centralized government versus strong state government. The confederate form of government allows for individual states to have more control over what goes on in their state. Slavery,Homosexual Marriage, Abortion, whatever. With a federal form of government, there are less differences allowed in how individual states run themselves. If one state wants to do something, and most of the people in that state agree with it, they would be allowed to do it in a confederacy. In the federal form of government today, that same state may not be allowed to do something if enough other states don't want it to. Therefore it was easy for the more prosperous states to block policies which would allow the poorer states to become more competitive economically. The more prosperous, industrialized northern states were oppressing economically the poorer, agrarian southern states. They were mad as h**l, and weren't going to take it anymore, so they seceded or left to form their own form of government. Just like in the American Revolution, the colonies here were tired of the oppression from England, got fed up, and broke away. The southern break away from the north was defeated, but the American break from England was successful.

I'm not endorsing slavery, but realize that it was Yankee owned ships that sailed down to Africa to get the slaves. It was Yankees who sold slaves to the southerners who were growing cotton for the whole country including the industrialized North. There were some northern slave owners. The North was not squeaky clean in that situation. For an analogy to todays crimes ask yourself, who is worse, the drug user or the drug dealer? Don't they both go to jail?

Most of the high school history books about the Civil War are candy coated to present the North in a favorable light. Did you ever hear that if Abraham Lincoln was not shot, he had plans to send all the blacks back to Africa? Did you ever hear that if he could have preserved the strong central government without freeing any slaves, he would have done it? Here is a description about a book about Lincoln. I am not selling it nor do I profit from it, but I am thinking about buying it.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/articl...

So to me, the confederate flag represents a more fair form of government. It gives the people in each state more freedom to change things to benefit themselves. It puts power in many hands instead of just a few hands in Washington, D.C.. Hypothetically speaking, how fair is it if 100% of the voters in Tennessee wanted a certain legislation to happen in their state, but because 51% of California, New York, and Florida was against it, then it is not allowed? Or vice versa? What if 100% of California or Massachusetts wanted to do something, but because of Mississippi, they couldn't? Kinda stinks, don't it?

Answer 5

There is a very important distinction to be made in referance to the Confederacy and that is the distinction between the government/ideologies and the Armies.

The government of the Confederate States of America were as history perseives them. They were pro-slavery, anti-immigration, anti-industrial, anti-centralisation, etc, etc. If you want to hate the Confederacy for government stances and the common ideologies of the South then that is fine, no problem at all with that.

The Armies of the Confederacy, on the other hand, fought a long war against an enemy superior in number, superior in material, superior in firepower and superior in industial might. The struggle of the Armies of the Confederacy is admirable and praiseworthy and should not be dissrepected just because the cause they were fighting for wasn't morally just.

Where the Confederate Battle Flag comes into it is in the popular perception of the Confederacy.

The Battle Flag is the most well known image of the CSA and such it has attracted all of the hate and disgust for the Confederate polocies and ideologies but the Battle Flag itself, during the life of the CSA, never stood for those thing. It represented the Armies and nothing more.

Those who hate the confederacy call the flag a symbol of racism and slavery while those who either like the CSA or want to honor the memory of the struggle of their ancestors in the Armies of the Confederacy say that the Flag is a symbol of heritage.

It is important that we acknowledge the evils of the Confederacy but also important that when doing so we do not dissregard the brave struggle of the many Armies of the Confederacy against a suerior foe.

And that is where the base of this aguement over the flag lies.

Answer 6

well, i am offended by it too, but i guess your friend is right as well.  

Answer 7

Well, as a history teacher I can tell you that the war was not fought over slavery.  The fact is the vast majority of the population accepted slavery just as people today accept things that will, no doubt in the future, be viewed as immoral and barbaric.

Slavery enters into the equation, but the war was fought over two very different cultures and economies existing in one country, often at odds with one another.  The truth is, tariffs had as much to do with it as anything else.  Lincoln, although he did not support slavery, resisted making it an issue as many northerners would have refused to fight if they thought it was about slavery.  Eventually it came to a head and slavery was a part of the war, and it's eventual end a result.  So to many today, the Confederate flag represents slavery.  To many others it represents states rights, a simpler life based on agriculture, and a willingness to stand up for principles.

Answer 8

Slavery as a civil war issue did not come into play until the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.  The war began in 1860.  The civil war was never about slavery - it was about the right of a state to be it's own governing entity.  That independence is what the Confederate flag represents today.  That issue still exists today.

Slavery is part of that symbol, but not entirely.  Slavery was the economic foundation that allowed the southern social/economic system to function.  Lincoln emancipated the slaves to deal a death blow to the entire southern economy, not just because he was a good person.

The CF is just a flag - it is a symbol that means whatever it means to each individual in different ways.  It's not worth a friendship.  

Answer 9

The North was against slavery? Really? So, why was it that the Emancipation wasn't issued until well into the war and even then never affected slavery in the border states? Why were most Union soldiers not intrested in freeing the slaves but just preserving the Union. Slaves weren't owned by everyone in the South, in fact the majority of citizens didn't even have one slave. Most Confederate soldiers were not intrested in fighting just so a few could keep their slaves, but they were far more intrested in fighting for their rights.

Slavery was never a major reason for the war when the war occured. It was a minor reason, but not one of the major reasons. Yet it was after the war that suddenly it was being taught the war was fought to free the slaves.  

Answer 10

First of all, your initial assumption is incorrect -- it's a common error, but the U.S. Civil War was not fought over slavery.  It was fought over the rights of states to govern themselves, i.e., state's rights.  The country was less than 100 years old at this point, and there had been a great deal of resentment building up between people who felt that there should be a strong central government, and those who felt that the government should be minimal and that the states should have the most control over their own governance.

Slavery was chosen as THE issue, because it was an easy one to rally people around.  The southern states were primarily agricultural, and that's where slavery was most prominent, to maintain the plantations.  However, there was also slavery in some Northern states, too.  Also, the United States Supreme Court had passed the Dred Scott decision in 1857, which basically said that blacks did not enjoy the same benefits of citizenships as non-blacks -- so the U.S. government was not exactly blameless in this issue.

South Carolina started the secession movement after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, arguing that the Federal government was not enforcing its own laws evenly, and causing economic hardship against the state.  Other states joined. They felt that they COULD secede, because they felt that the state's right to self-determination overruled what should be minimal Federal interference.  The Northern states, seeing the economic impact of losing a vast taxation base, forts and state militia, took action against the Confederacy of Southern States, and thus the Civil War was born.

There is no doubt that slavery is a despicable institution; however, at the time, it was an accepted and legal method of working large-scale agricultural holdings. The Civil War wasn't fought to free slaves -- otherwise, the Emancipation Proclamation would have been made at the beginning of the war, not near the end.  The War was fought to force the assets of the Southern states back into Federal control.  

The flag represented independence of thought and action -- it did not represent support for slavery. However, over time and history, symbols change, and it is now almost exclusively considered to be a symbol of slavery. Even though your friend may consider it a symbol of something different, it doesn't change the fact that most people now perceive it as some sort of passive-aggressive support for putting down African Americans.  

Your friend is not wrong -- but he's not right, either.  Frankly, if he's a good friend, this is probably something you are going to have to agree to disagree on.  Symbols change. For example, the Ku Klux Klan adopted the symbol of a cross on fire to inflame bigotry and racism.  Previously, a fiery cross, the crann tara, was a visible symbol to rally around the war chief in Scottish clans, but of course, very few people recognize the burning cross as a symbol of Scottish fealty any longer!

Answer 11

You know what ticks ME off?

I am a Southerner.

I am a Georgian.

That "Confererate flag" you keep seeing....?

Wasn't even THE Confederate Flag!

It was a battle flag.

It wasn't even THE Battle Flag.

Just "A" battle flag.

What the attraction of it is, I have NO clue!

And why you would find it in Missouri is completely beyond me also.

Missouri was NOT a part of the Confederate States of America.

There was NO formal secession from Missouri

And the Confederate States of America had no claim and/or control over Missouri.

That was sheer stupidity on the part of the people selling them.

YOU, my freind, are CORRECT.

It makes no sense.

But I will tell you, the same people that have one of those flags proabably have a n**i flag too.

It ticks me off that people who have no connection whatsoever to it use it for ignorance and hate mongering.

Because once upon a time, it DID mean something to some people, right or wrong, some people believed in it and was willing to die for it.

And that fact ALONE should never been turned into a symbol of hate.

There were African American men that fought under the Confederate flag. I quite recently remember a big story of the relatives of an African American man that fought for the Confederacy and the rights of a burial in a Confederate Cemetary in Virginia. I remember a relative of his saying, an African American woman, it is NOT OUR business, and we have NO right to agrue HIS decision made so long, long ago.

There are NO Confederates alive today.

Leave them AND their flags the h**l alone.

Stop pretending.

Stop posing.

And stop using things that belong to another people and another time and turning them into your own little twisted ideas.

Just like you being German.

Not all Germans were n***s.

And not all n***s did horrific things.

Most were just soldiers trying to stay alive like any other soldier.

The Confederates are DEAD.

(Let the damned n***s die too.)

The American Civil War was fought for MONEY, POWER, & CONTROL.

Just like any other damned war.

Don't ever think otherwise.

(Slavery was just a means to make money, therefore have power and control)

And that flag no longer stands for ANYTHING it once stood for.

It should be outlawed for what they have turned it into.

Answer 12

Slavery was one issue, but in fact not the main issue of the civil war.  The main issue was state's rights.  To many the flag symbolizes a rebel spirit not slavery.