I live in the south and I see the rebel flag all the time with signs saying....?

Question

The south is going to rise again and proud to be a rebel..Has anybody informed them that they lost the war. What are they proud of?

Answer 1

Pride is subjective and personal, espeically in war related matters.  Standing up to an invading force, rebelling in favor of autonomy, or the right to govern, are some of the same things  that the colonist against King George.

The South of the 1860's had been the victims of economic policies driven by Northern businessmen.  They were making money by both exporting produced finished goods from the raw materials and in some cases eeven exported the raw materials to add to Northern profits. They also sold the finished goods to the South at a large profit.

In addition to this the North objected to the Southern States establishing  foreign trade relations so that they could secure a better economy by eliminating the middlemen of the North.

Typically people do cheer for the hometeam. Commonfolk fight wars, wave flags, and echo whatever they are told without examination. Pride is illusionary and the causes or purpose of any war generally a farce with splinters of facts that point to the truth.

The usual winners of any war are the financiers, who often invest in both sides. Money is money. Profit is profit. Business is Business. Follow the money.

Ideological mind-control can span generations and influence behaviour without so much as the thought examination.

The North was about as interested in the salvery issuse as the USA is interested in true Democracy today.  Follow the money. Both issues attract the emotional attention and are side issues to incite support.

Answer 2

It is funny how everyone but the south can be proud of their roots.  We now call everyone _ _ _ _  _ American but heaven forbid if someone flies a Rebel flag.  It was nothing to do with Slavery.

Answer 3

Even though I'm from NY I've seen those flags. I guess everyone has their own belief and things that make them keep going. There fully aware that they lost the war, I guess it's white power to the extreme. You can't rationalize with people with such strong views such as there's.

Answer 4

It's pure chauvinism.  The South is great because THEY are Southern.  If they'd been born in Bulgaria, Bulgaria would be the Greatest Country in the World!

Hey, you lose the war, you don't get to fly your flag.  Traitors should hang!

Answer 5

it is hertiage..their history...

Answer 6

I think you are exaggerating... I also live in the South and while I do see alot of Rebel Flags.. most of them do not say the South will Rise Again.. those are usually Racist bigots.. Alot of people in the South were raised with pride in their in the South, because it's a part of their history- Just like pride in your Country- the flag has been apart of their lives

Edit: I saw your comment to Blue.. the Rebel Flag is not about Slavery- though that was a reason.. it's about trying to succeed from the Union... giving them their own independence- They did not agree with what the country was doing and took it upon themselves to do something about it

Answer 7

There are some that honestly are proud of their heritage. While none of them were actually in the civil war their great grand parents might have been as were mine. It is OK to be proud of your history. Mexicans celebrate Cinco de Mayo (Mexican Independence day) So that being said, I also understand that even though My great great grandfateher fought in that war, I would not want to offend anyone. Unfortunately, a lot of people are racist and have given the symbol a bad name. I hate that something that so many people were sacrificed for, has been turned into a pickup truck bumper sticker. Even though the main cause they were fighting for was wrong(slavery).

As for losing the war, Everyone loses in war. Hundreds of thousands of young men women and children on both sides died in that war. That is the saddest part of all.

Proud in the South.

Answer 8

Trying to stand up for their rights. The Civil War was when the federal government first began openly violating the Constitution.

Answer 9

Not sure, but if I were poor & black & living in the South, I would be very nervous seeing signs like that...I have seen answers on here saying they hate Lincoln, & think he was a terrible president for freeing the slaves. Scary...

Answer 10

N. Cognito THANKS for the precise and BRILLIANT answer....I have to agree wholeheartedly!!!!!!

Answer 11

Slavery was a small part of the Civil War and Southern heritage is about a LOT more than slavery and the Civil War anyways. By the time the Civil War started, slavery was already falling out of favor which is why there were a significant amount of black men fighting on the side of the Confederacy.

Answer 12

There are people in the South who fly the Confederate Flag and are not racists; they are merely people who are proud of their heritage.

However, the Confederate flag is also undoubtedly used as a symbol by some extraordinarily racist groups.

As for what they are proud of... the willingness to fight and die for a cause is one thing. Its also worth pointing out that the Confederate Army produced some of the most brilliant generals in American History -- Lee, Jackson and Longstreet in particular. They lost, but that was because they were out-numbered and out-produced, not because of any lack of skill.

Answer 13

no they don't appear to remember that they got stomped...lol

I wear a rebel battle flag too. What better way to honor the federal victory over the rebels than a black man wearing the rebel battle flag!...lol

I also wear it when I'm naked around my waist yelling the south will rise again! my girl gets a kick out of that!

lol

Answer 14

ever see a fight where they pull the one guy off and the other one says hey, i coulda taken him if you all hadn't interfered?

Answer 15

Proud of being losers, I should guess.

[Well many countries have lost a war and are still proud of their country. ... Italians are proud...]

Yeah, they always seem to end up with the winning side, eh?

Answer 16

I see it in AZ and who knows what those people are thinking , but hey Freedom Of Speech right?

Answer 17

We're Pround that our ancestors had the gumption to stand up against a tyrannical government and defend their homes from an invading Army.

“To tar the sacrifices of the Confederate soldier to simple acts of racism, and reduce the battle flag under which he fought to nothing more than a symbol of a racist heritage, is one of the greatest blasphemies of our modern age.”

James Webb, Former Secretary of the Navy and sitting US Senator (democrat) from Virginia.

People of every color, Whites, Blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, Southern Chinese all fought under that banner in the first fully integrated fighting force of American origin.

During the early 1900's, many members of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) advocated awarding former slaves rural acreage and a home. There was hope that justice could be given those slaves that were once promised "forty acres and a mule" but never received any. In the 1913 Confederate Veteran magazine published by the UCV, it was printed that this plan "If not Democratic, it is [the] Confederate" thing to do. There was much gratitude toward former slaves, which "thousands were loyal, to the last degree", now living with total poverty of the big cities. Unfortunately, their proposal fell on deaf ears on Capitol Hill.

The first military monument in the US Capitol that honors an African-American soldier is the Confederate monument at Arlington National cemetery. The monument was designed 1914 by Moses Ezekiel, a Jewish Confederate. Who wanted to correctly portray the "racial makeup" in the Confederate Army. A black Confederate soldier is depicted marching in step with white Confederate soldiers. Also shown is one "white soldier giving his child to a black woman for protection".- source: Edward Smith, African American professor at the American University, Washington DC.

For general historical information on Black Confederates, contact Dr. Edward Smith, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20016; Dean of American Studies. Dr. Smith is a black professor dedicated to clarifying the historical role of African Americans.

Why did the South secede and was subsequently forced to fight?

What They Fought For, 1861-1865, James McPherson, 1994, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press:

McPherson conluded that nearly all Confederate soldiers -- only a small fraction of whom were slave owners -- believed they "fought for liberty and independence from what they regarded as a tyrannical government." Most Unionists "fought to preserve the nation created by the founders." As one Illinois officer explained, We are fighting for the Union...a high and noble sentiment, but after all sentiment. They are fighting for independence, and are animated by passion and hatred against invaders."

"The Cousins' War," Kevin Phillips, Basic Books, 1999, pp. 378

"...most Northern goods were cheaper [than European goods - ed.] in Mobile or Chattanooga only because of high U.S. tariffs on rival foreign manufacturers. These tariffs, which financed 85 to 90 percent of the operations of the federal government, directly and indirectly fell most heavily on agricultural districts, principally in the South and West. Economists have a phrase for this: internal colonialism."

"The Cousins' War," Kevin Phillips, Basic Books, 1999, pp. 453"Compared with the weak or lackadaisical approach of the British Crown in putting down rebellion in 1642 and 1775, the Republican government of the United States was fast off the mark in 1861 -- and just as fast to suspend democratic procedures....In Maryland, which had to choose a governor and a legislature in November, 1861, federal troops were used to prohibit voting by anyone who sympathized with the South."

"The Cousins' War," Kevin Phillips, Basic Books, 1999, pp. 454

"Confederate flags were flown in San Jose, Visalia, Stockton, and a number of mining towns and pro-southern sentiment was so strong in Los Angeles and San Bernardino that northern California cavalry and infantry units had to be moved into the area to guard against a Confederate force coming from Texas and New Mexico (Tucson, for example, sent a delegate to the Confederate Congress)."

History of the American Economic System," Richard Russell, (New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1964), pp. 273-274

"In the wake of wartime devastation, moreover, southern taxpayers had to help pay the interest and principal on the $2.5 billion federal debt taken on by the North to beat the South, although nearly all of the bond payments went to Northerners. Taxpayers below the Mason-Dixon line also had to help support the huge cost of pensions to federal veterans and their widows and dependents, though no such pensions were paid to Confederate veterans. Such disbursements, obviously, were spent in the North. In these various ways, according to economic historian Robert Russell, Southerners paid approximately $1.2 billion to the rest of the Union over a period of a half century -- more than the indemnity Prussia levied on France after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871."

Report of the National Emergency Council (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1937)."Eight decades after the end of Reconstruction, the National Emergency Council created to examine the Depression of the 1930s reported its findings to President Franklin D. Roosevelt: The South, it said, had been reduced to the status of a colony."

"Battle Cry of Freedom," James McPherson, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 859-860

"The national political dominance of Southerner, in turn, ended in 1861 and never recovered until the 1930s. Between 1789 and 1861, slave-owners from a future Confederate state had occupied the presidency for forty-nine years out of seventy-two. But a century would pass after 1865 before a resident of an ex-Confederate state could win the office again. So, too, with the Supreme Court, the House Speakership, and the Presidency Pro Tem of the Senate. Half to two-thirds of the justices, speakers, and Senate presidents before 1861 had come from the South. For the next fifty years, not one speaker or Senate president would come from the former Confederacy and just five of the twenty-six Supreme Court justices."

It is in this context that the slogan, “The South Shall Rise Again”, should be taken. Not as armed “rebellion” and the re-institution of slavery but she shall overcome the policies of Reconstruction, which had more to do with the awful stigma of racism the South faces yet today, quite unfairly, as racism has always been nationwide.

Southerners, following the War were cognizant of the fact that many blacks fought for them and more importantly with them. The policies of Reconstruction which left the Southern whites destitute were left to avail themselves upon the only the only point of dignity they had left; the regrettable myth of the superiority of the whites over the blacks.  

"Missouri Under Radical Rule" (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1965), pp.252

"In 1860, New Yorkers defeated black enfranchisement in a statewide referendum, and between 1865 and 1870, when the Fifteenth Amendment secured black voting rights, a total of seven Northern states rejected what northern representatives in Washington were trying to impose below the Mason-Dixon line. In 1867 alone, four northern states -- Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio -- turned down popular referenda submitting constitutional amendments to enfranchise blacks."

"Between Two Fires - Black Soldiers in the Civil War,"Joyce Hansen, 1993, Franklin Watts, 42:

"This war between the North and the South gave enslaved men and women an opportunity to take advantage of unstable conditions created by the warring whites. This was one way for some black people to initiate their march for their own freedom. Caught between two fires, they to find a way to survive the conflict. And for some, one way to survive was to volunteer to help the Confederates.

The promise of freedom for themselves and their families was enough of an incentive to join the Confederate Army, and the Union had said that it was not fighting to end slavery"

"Negroes in the Confederate Army,"Journal of ***** History, Charles Wesle, Vol. 4, #3, (1919), 244-245:

"Seventy free blacks enlisted in the Confederate Army in Lynchburg, Virginia. Sixteen companies of free men of color marched through Augusta, Georgia on their way to fight in Virginia."

"COLORED PATRIOTISM!"

"Everybody knows Bill Rawlings, the good-natured barber on Market street. His wife, Mary, is now engaged in making up uniforms for the troops. Her brother (Jim Dunge) is raising a company of free negroes to fight Lincoln's men, and Bill says if anybody will furnish him with a good leg, he can whip any ten Abolitionists, but even with one leg, he is willing to hobble out to the battle-field, if the Governor wants his services."

So much for the first ***** company in the Rock City. The editors of the Union and American, King Isham's organ, were evidently chuckling over the prospect of seeing the bloods of the "Rock City Guards" followed by n***** Jim Dunge's Rock City--Black Guards, all bearing the Stars and Bars, playing Dixie and huzzahing for King Isham and Jeff Davis at the top of their lungs. They rather intimated that the African would do the best fighting, for while the white rebels could only whip five Abolitionists apiece, the black rebels could "whip any ten Abolitionists."

As a Southerner, I have no love of biggots!

Answer 18

First off , I am a southern Woman myself .. I do own a rebel Flag , BUT it does not say " the south will rise again" .. MY Flag is my heritage , plain an simple. Its sad that everyone gets grouped together .. cause there proud of there heritage.

Answer 19

A person should not be proud of losing  a war. Why not fly The U.N. flag instead. The U.N. may not be all chalked up to be but still the idea stands for something people could be proud of.  Incidentally I have noticed bumper stickers with words  All Hippies should be chopped in half with a chainsaw.  A picture above shows this act. Might be a joke thoughcould not be sure. This bumper sticker was on a pickup truck outside a bank.

Answer 20

this country was freed from tyranny by rebels. only a hundred years earlier they called them patriots.

Answer 21

It is just a symbol of the south. I live in the south. Northern born southern raised. I personal have witnessed racism and been a victim of it. That is what the flag means to me personally. But I also know that it is a sign of southern pride for most. You cant be mad at everyone with it. I think they should however come up with a new flag with a more innocent history.

Answer 22

Well many countries have lost a war and are still proud of their country. Germans are proud of Germany, Italians are proud, Japanese are proud, And our southern states were The Confederate States of America for a short time.

If they want to use the rebel flag as a symbol of their heritage and history I have no problem with it. But if they want to use it as a symbol of hate and racism then they haven't become true Americans yet.

By the way the war wasn't fought over slavery but  the presidential election of 1860 resulted in seven Southern states declaring their secession from the Union even before Lincoln took office.

Sore losers maybe?

Answer 23

My Kentucky ancestors were predominately Southern Unionist.  My ancestor Peter Lee Sapp died in front of Nashville from a Southern mini-ball.  

The Stars and Bars is a bullly-rag  of the un-reconstructed consciousness of a particular  human type in the south.  That consciousness is not penetrable by rationality or Christian love.  Its public face is lower class, work-a-day and wage earner.  Its buttons are pushed and its marching orders come out of board rooms where men of means and position (recently returned from honeymoons with women almost as young as their children) call the political shots and tend the tethers of economic obligation among their wage slaves.  One usually becomes what one hates most.  In this case it is that they have become <i>sneaky mean persons who take every advantage that they are able.</i>  There is a particular word for that.

Answer 24

The attitude is:

At Halftime:

North 1

South 0

Game on!

Answer 25

What they are proud of is the fact that they stood up for States rights over Federal Rights.  They also are still willing to fight for their individual and State rights if and when it is needed again.  Yes, the Civil War ended up freeing the slaves, but that is not how it started.  It all started with the Federal government trying to force new territories from deciding hot to run their State governments and to allow or not slaves.