[AzaleaCity5691]

First of all, the majority of Southerners did not hold slaves. More than that, the war was not about slavery at all, and unlike the union, the Confederacy had no problem commissioning officers who were of African descent, and then having them command units made up of people who were of African descent.

But more important then this, is the fact that the Republican Party is now reliant on the Southland for it's victories. Think about this one before the South-bashing commences.

[orionblamblam]

> First of all, the majority of Southerners did not hold slaves.

And neither did the majority of Germans in the Nazi era.

> the war was not about slavery at all

Utter hogwash. Take a read of the Alabama state constitution of 1861:
http://www.legislature.state.al.us/misc/history/constitutions/1861/1861ord1_20.html

Do a search on the word "slave." See how many times it comes up.

* Be it ordained by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention assembled , That an ordinance adopted by the people of this State, in Convention at Huntsville, on the second day of August, one thousand eight hundred and nineteen, disclaiming forever all right to the waste or unappropriated lands lying withing this State, is hereby repealed; but the navigable waters of this State shall remain forever highways, free to the citizens of this State, and of such States as may unite with the State of Alabama in a Southern Slaveholding Confederacy.

A "Southern Slaveholding Confederacy." Ponder that a while.

> the Republican Party is now reliant on the Southland for it's victories.

Ah. Moral reletivism, then, is it? What's wrong is only wrong when it doesn't hurt your political party for it to be wrong?

[Non-Sequitur]

... the Confederacy had no problem commissioning officers who were of African descent, and then having them command units made up of people who were of African descent.

Name one.

[Tokra]

More than that, the war was not about slavery at all, and unlike the union, the Confederacy had no problem commissioning officers, buying and selling those who were of African descent

There, fixed your spelling errors.

[Hawk1976]

Don't challenge the anti-southerners here with such things as the Confederacy commissioning blacks and indians or union troops engaging in massacres of the same during the Civil War. It's all black and white to them.

Of course they will vehemently deny how much yankee industry of the time was dependent on those same slaves. Or how the South was being taxed for public works projects in the North prior to the civil war.

And don't even start on yankee colonization of the South and West after the War of Northern Aggression.

[Old_Mil]

Imagine, for a moment, the nation splitting along the Mississippi, and the western states going to war with the east over the right of people to own third vacation homes. Can't quite see that? Well, that's exactly what you're proposing when you say that the South sent its sons to die for the rights of plantation owners to own slaves. The idea that the civil war was about slavery, that the south was somehow evil, and that Lincoln was somehow a saint is one of the great myths of our modern educational system. As for Lincoln, consider the following: Bennett suggests that as a young politician in Illinois, Lincoln regularly used racial slurs in speeches, told racial jokes to his black servants, and vocally opposed any new laws that would have bettered the lives of black Americans.

Key to Bennett's thesis is the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation which, Bennett argues, Lincoln was forced into issuing by the powerful abolitionist wing of his own party. Bennett asserts that Lincoln carefully worded the document to apply only to the rebel Southern states, which were not under Union control at the time, thus resulting in an Emancipation Proclamation that did not in itself free a single slave.

At one point, Bennett quotes William Henry Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, who referred to the proclamation as a hollow, meaningless document showing no more than, "our sympathy with the slaves by emancipating the slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."

The stars and bars are a symbol of states rights - the sort of thing that would prevent a gay marriage from Massachusetts being forced down the throats of Mississippians. As such it is a symbol of freedom and self determination and should be appreciated by all people, regardless of their background.