Mississippi Flag, a Rebel Holdout, Is in a New Fight

LOUISVILLE, Miss. â€” In single strokes after the massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston in June, Confederate battle flags were taken from statehouse grounds in South Carolina and Alabama, pulled from shelves at major retailers like Walmart and declared unwelcome, if to (limited effect), at Nascar races.

What happened so swiftly elsewhere is not so simple in Mississippi. The Confederate battle flag is not simply flying in one hotly disputed spot at the State Capitol but occupying the upper left corner of the state flag, which has been flying since 1894. (And as recently as 2001), Mississippians voted by a nearly two-to-one ratio to keep it. Recent ( polling) suggests the majority have not changed their minds.

I say: "Still, I see not one crumb of a scintilla of evidence that anyone in any position of power in the South had any intention to put an end to slavery had they won the War."

And you come back with this: "Robert E. Lee (snip) wished for abolition."

Yes, he did "wish" for abolition. But you do not understand Lee's mentality. Lee felt that Slavery was not an institution that should be interfered with by mere men. While he wished, hoped and prayed that it would end, he felt that it was entirely in the hands of God and Lee was willing to live with it for as long as God was. In fact, he went so far as to fight against men who had every intention of ending slavery. This information is in the parts of Lee's letter that you left out and which I put back in. I am sorry you did not understand the words.

I do hope that you will endeavor to hone your reading comprehension skills so that I will not have to repeatedly spell things out to you. Below, please find info that I copied from wackiepedia. Perhaps it is something that you will be able to understand.

Since the end of the Civil War, it has often been suggested Lee was in some sense opposed to slavery. In the period following the war, Lee became a central figure in the Lost Cause interpretation of the war. The argument that Lee had always somehow opposed slavery helped maintain his stature as a symbol of Southern honor and national reconciliation. Freeman's analysis places Lee's attitude toward slavery and abolition in a historical context:

This [opinion] was the prevailing view among most religious people of Lee's class in the border states. They believed that slavery existed because God willed it and they thought it would end when God so ruled. The time and the means were not theirs to decide, conscious though they were of the ill-effects of Negro slavery on both races. Lee shared these convictions of his neighbors without having come in contact with the worst evils of African bondage. He spent no considerable time in any state south of Virginia from the day he left Fort Pulaski in 1831 until he went to Texas in 1856. All his reflective years had been passed in the North or in the border states. He had never been among the blacks on a cotton or rice plantation. At Arlington, the servants had been notoriously indolent, their master's master. Lee, in short, was only acquainted with slavery at its best, and he judged it accordingly. At the same time, he was under no illusion regarding the aims of the ,Abolitionists or the effect of their agitation.

A key source cited by defenders and critics is Lee's 1856 letter to his wife:

...In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.

Robert E. Lee, to Mary Anna Lee, December 27, 1856

The evidence cited in favor of the claim that Lee opposed slavery included his direct statements and his actions before and during the war, including Lee's support of the work by his wife and her mother to liberate slaves and fund their move to Liberia, the success of his wife and daughter in setting up an illegal school for slaves on the Arlington plantation, the freeing of Custis' slaves in 1862, and, as the Confederacy's position in the war became desperate, his petitioning slaveholders in 1864/65 to allow slaves to volunteer for the Army with manumission offered as a reward for outstanding service.

However, despite his stated opinions, Lee's troops under his command were allowed to actively raid settlements during major operations like the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania to freely capture Free Blacks for enslavement.

In December 1864 Lee was shown a letter by Louisiana Senator Edward Sparrow, written by General St. John R. Liddell, which noted Lee would be hard-pressed in the interior of Virginia by spring, and the need to consider Patrick Cleburne's plan to emancipate the slaves and put all men in the army who were willing to join. Lee was said to have agreed on all points and desired to get black soldiers, saying "he could make soldiers out of any human being that had arms and legs.

"You might consider reading some real history dude. Here's a start: The South lost. It hoped like hell to win the war it started but it lost."

Losing a war, you believed was just, is not a moral indictment of your leadership!

No that comment was not directed to me; but it is another example of your anger over events that took place over 150 years ago.

Robert E. Lee was a hero, not only to the South, but to us in Southern Ohio, as reflected in the way that General Grant treated Lee even in the latter's defeat.

So you disagree with the moral decision Lee made. You have not demonstrated anything that would justify your slandering him; or those Americans who revere him as one of the noblest of Americans.

Your preoccupation with slavery--as a 150 year past issue--becomes absurd when you ignore all of the ways rooted Americans are having the traditional rights of free men, stripped away by the present regime in Washington--not something six or so generations ago--but today. Consider some of the attributes of bondage--from the Federal takeover of Healthcare; Federal interference in rights of personal association, employment, education, law enforcement, housing, property, inheritance, and even the right to public recognition of Faith in God.

Does insulting those Americans who take the most pride in their heritage, help any of the rest of us in trying to preserve heritage? In any way, do those insults help us to wake up the American people to what is happening to all of our heritages, today?

“Still, I see not one crumb of a scintilla of evidence that anyone in any position of power in the South had any intention to put an end to slavery had they won the War.”

You, like most northerners, want to view the history of human bondage and racialism as a Southern problem, and not a global problem - certainly never as problem in the northern states or in post-post-modern America.

Such a view, you must think, places you on something of a higher moral plane - not just historically but in the context of today’s issues. “I am not a racist,” you say “because I identify with Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves.”

President Lincoln original justification for going to war was that it was necessary to destroy the union in order to save it. High casualties quickly made that reasoning insufficient. So the moral component was launched.

England was a long way from the battlefields of Virginia; perhaps that was why the writers at the London Spectator could see the truth of the Emancipation Proclamation so clearly.

â€œThe Union government liberates the enemyâ€™s slaves as it would the enemyâ€™s cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States.â€

Seldom has a writer stripped false morality out of a scheme in so few words.

Preserving a heritage of treason and the institution of slavery isn't a noble heritage at all. I'm not preoccupied with slavery. Fact is throughout history more whites were enslaved than other other race, look up where the word 'slave’&rsquo ; is derived from. It comes from the word ‘’Slavic’’’’. I take pride in the heritage of my ancestors who fought for the Union and in later years as union organizers in the bricklayer trade in Newark and Harrison NJ. My great grandfather organized the first all black laborers union in Newark NJ at the turn of the century. And as far of the power and over reach of the bureaucracies in Washington DC as far as I'm concerned with the exception of the five branches of military take away everything else that say â€œDepartment ofï¿½€™â€™ and do away with it. The Department of Education, Housing, the IRS, Transportation. All of it. There isn't any in the Constitution that gave any mention to such agencies other that the Post office and that thing has been a losing proposition since day one. But I believe I'm still entitled to my opinion and my opinion of Robert E. Lee is that he was a traitor and could have been hung as one. And as far as insults go sir I've had more than my share of them thrown at me here some as even go so far as to have made serious threat. I've never done that to anyone here. And as I have posed the question to others in recent days I ask you: If the South had won the war would it have ended slavery?

“But you do not understand Lee’s mentality.”

Right. Your understanding is superior.

“While he wished, hoped and prayed that it would end, he felt that it was entirely in the hands of God and Lee was willing to live with it for as long as God was.”

What insight into Christianity—and especially 19th century American Christianity—do you have?

“In fact, he went so far as to fight against men who had every intention of ending slavery.”

The “draft riots” in NY were set off by rumors that Lincoln was prosecuting the war to free the slaves. The existence of a few passionate abolitionists hardly determines what men were fighting for.

“I do hope that you will endeavor to hone your reading comprehension skills so that I will not have to repeatedly spell things out to you.”

Oh, I see. You’re smarter than I am. Yeah, sure, that’s the ticket.

“Below, please find info that I copied from wackiepedia.”

As they say, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

You offend me, sir, by applying your well-worn template of "what northerners think", to me. And "cheap grace" and such. For my part, I like to think that I don't paint anything that has to do with the CW with the proverbial "broad brush". There are points of yours that I agree with. I do believe there was most certainly a "fugitive slave clause" in the Constitution. I do believe that the "domestic insurrections" referenced in the DOC indeed refer to those very same people who are referred to as "persons held to service or labor" in the Constitution. Certainly, most of these "persons" were "slaves" (and as you like to imply, recognition by our founding fathers that slavery existed in the North). It is curious that the "fugitive slave" clause later became an article and then a Law (by Chief Justice Taney), before finally being torn up by Ammendment XIII. However, while granting that the "northerners" acknowledged and recognized that the peculiar institution existed in the North, in no way is that the same as saying that either the DOC or the Constitution promoted or endorsed it. In fact, most northern states, shortly after 1776, began the baby steps of slowly weaning themselves from the peculiar institution. I can't sit here and claim that that was all necessarily due to a higher moral ground. Climate and economics probably had a lot to do with it as well.

If you have read my posts you should see that I have been very fair to General Lee. He is close to the perfect example of an Amercan as described by Ike. Especially when viewed through the rose tinted misty veil of time. I have long admired Jackson. I feel empathy for Pickett.

Howsoever, there were some real bad guys in the South. Hate is a strong word. I hate Alexander Stephens. And the people profiting, north and south, from the peculiar institution. As pointed out by a clip from wackiepedia in a post of mine above, it is clear that human bondage in the north and south were different animals. Suppose those unfortunates were given a choice whether they would prefer to be a slave in the north or the south.

Now getting back to the subject at hand. I would like to see the Confederate flag more widespread. To me it represents the rebellious spirit of any true American. I used to hang the Stars and Stripes on my front porch all summer, starting on the Fourth of July. But my son stole it when he got his own house. He surprised me with a Father's Day gift. I peeked in the box and saw enough red white and blue to know it was an American flag. But the day that I went out to hang it, to my surprise, there weren't 50 stars on it. There was a circle of thirteen stars. So, that's the flag that flies above me.

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