Confederate flag a national issue?

WND ^ | February 3, 2004 | Les Kinsolving

[stainlessbanner]

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Following Thursday night's Democratic Candidates' debate in Greenville's Peace Center, South Carolina's U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, when asked about the issue of the Confederate flag, replied: "Don't worry about it. It's not an issue anymore."

But it was indeed an issue, in that NBC's debate moderator Tom Brokaw raised this issue during the presidential candidates' debates.

Candidate and Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich replied that because of the NAACP boycott of the entire state of South Carolina (due to one Confederate flag flying on the state capitol grounds at a Confederate war memorial) he was spending the nights outside South Carolina.

Candidate Al Sharpton denounced the Confederate flag as representing a movement built on slavery.

After the debate, I was able to interview Sharpton.

WND: Are you going to campaign in Mississippi?

SHARPTON: I'm going to campaign in Mississippi.

WND: And you're going to condemn their state flag?

SHARPTON: Absolutely! Unequivocally!

WND: It was voted by a huge majority including a lot of blacks.

SHARPTON: It was still wrong. You had some blacks in the Confederate army.

WND: That's right! I'm delighted you recognized that.

SHARPTON: They were wrong. Absolutely.

Sen. Lieberman held a similar view, while being surprised at the fact there were black soldiers in the Confederate army.

WND: Senator, do you agree with your fellow candidates Sharpton and Edwards that the Confederate flag should be banned from any public display, even on courthouse memorials in every town in the South?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: The Confederate flag is a symbol that is offensive to people. It's not just African-Americans -- because it represents slavery.

WND: You would ban it?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I've said this very clearly. I'd certainly take it off the statehouse grounds. The Confederate flag is part of history. It's not part we're proud of. The only place it would belong in my opinion would be in a museum case. Otherwise, to give it any public honor is offensive and divisive. It takes us backward and not forward. And frankly it does not represent the kind of coming together that I see here in South Carolina across racial lines.

WND: How about the black Confederate soldiers? There were a lot of them.

SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well you'd have to ask somebody else about that!

So, we asked somebody else: Gen. Wesley Clark.

WND: General, do you believe it's wrong for the people of Mississippi to have in their state flag the Confederate battle flag for which they voted overwhelmingly -- including blacks.

GEN. CLARK: I'd like to see the American flag.

WND: I'm asking you about.

GEN. CLARK: I'm telling you about the American flag! That's what I like to see.

WND: But you don't want to comment on that. Are you going to go to Mississippi?

Gen. Clark declined to answer and went to another reporter.

By very notable contrast to Sharpton and his fellow presidential Confederate flag-bashers, South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn (whose endorsement of Sen. John Kerry was regarded by the front-runner as significant enough for a special news conference) had the following to say about this issue.

WND: Congressman, do you feel that I have violated the NAACP's boycott of South Carolina because I'm going to spend the night here?

REP. CLYBURN: Oh, I don't know. You'll have to ask the NAACP people. I've made it very clear what my position is on that. And my position has been stated out there for a long time. Because I believe the compromise that was reached by the black legislators and the white legislators over the current position of that flag, gives us an interim solution that we ought to live with for a while. And maybe at some point in the future revisit it. As it stands now, that was a compromise voted for by every single black legislator, save one who did not vote, but abstained from voting. Everybody else supported it, and therefore I support it.

On the other side of the South Carolina capitol building there is a new monument to African-American history -- including blacks in Union army uniforms. Around the building is a marker noting the site of South Carolina's first capitol building: "Burned by Sherman's troops" in 1865.

One of Congressman Clyburn's staff told me that in Darlington, S.C., there is a Confederate War memorial to one of that army who was black.

Would Democratic candidates Edwards, Lieberman and Sharpton all be in favor of tearing down this memorial to a brave Confederate soldier who was black?

[bourbon]

(((MS PING)))

WND: Are you going to campaign in Mississippi?

SHARPTON: I'm going to campaign in Mississippi.

WND: And you're going to condemn their state flag?

SHARPTON: Absolutely! Unequivocally!

[azhenfud]

Here are those numbers:

Population of the North: est. 31.4 million
Free Blacks of the North: est. 225,967
Population percentage: 0.72% free Blacks in North

Population of the South: est. 12.3 million
Free Blacks of the North: est. 262,003
Population percentage: 2.13% free Blacks in South

2.13 divided by 0.72 equals 2.96 times, but the low estimate is abt 2.5 times, equalling roughly an average 2.75 times more free Blacks in the South than the North.

Also, how about the fact that of those free Blacks, some had slaves of Blacks and American Indian races combined. The Black race isn't the ONLY race affected by slavery - the Creek, Blackfoot, Cherokee, and other tribes of Red man were also placed in bondage by the White and Black man. Yet, it's seldom heard of American Indian descendents to remove the CBF. Why? Because they are an independent people...

[Rebeleye]

These candidates will long be history before the Confederate flag stops flying at the Confederate Memorial in Columbia, SC. It would take a 2/3rds majority of the SC House and Senate to remove it, so these candidates are groveling for liberal votes with their asinine statements.

[G.Mason]

"If there was no Confederacy, there could never have been slavery, nor was there a Civil War."

And there would not have been 623,026 Americans killed in that "Civil War".

May God not forgive you, Abraham Lincoln.

[Texas Federalist]

The north also had over 100,000 slaves at the time, a lot less that the 3 million in the south, but not insignificant.

[PeaRidge]

"If we abolish every vestige of the Confederacy, we eliminate every and all evidence of slavery"

I think, of course, that you do not really believe that. You do know that slavery predated the Confederacy by several thousand years in other parts of the world.

The practice of slavery in this hemisphere predated the Confederacy by 240 years.

Slavery as a legal practice was first made colonial law in Massachusetts, predating all other American colonies.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, officials in the Colonies of Georgia and Virginia were trying to close down the slave trade.

I could go on, but just maybe do you see how what you are saying does not comport with fact?

[PeaRidge]

I hope I did not misread your post.

[azhenfud]

Oops!

The statement, "Free Blacks of the North: est. 262,003" should be "Free Blacks of the South: est. 262,003"

Sorry....

[CurlyBill]

Union General William T. Sherman in a letter to his brother: "I would not if I could abolish or modify slavery.... Niggers won't work unless they are owned."

Yeah, the north was just so clean when it comes to this issue....

[onyx]

It's always Mississippi singled-out isn't it? Really makes me mad since Mississippi is the most integrated state in the so-called Union.

[DustyMoment]

You only took it too far. I don't care about slavery in other countries and the slavery that goes back to before the day when Jesus walked the earth. So far, none of those slaves' descendants have demanded reparations from the US government. That's all may post was concerned with; that and the nut jobs who go berserk over the symbolism of colored cloth.

[DustyMoment]

Exactly!! It never happaend.

[PeaRidge]

An excellent post on your part, and sorry for the misunderstanding. I live in a state that flies the Stainless banner, and am often too quick to defend it.

[ZULU]

"Candidate and Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich replied that because of the NAACP boycott of the entire state of South Carolina (due to one Confederate flag flying on the state capitol grounds at a Confederate war memorial) he was spending the nights outside South Carolina."

I don't live in a southern state. But will flying the Confederate Flag keep Democrats out?

Interesting, the guys who originally flew that flag - the slave-owners you know, were all DEMOCRATS!

What does Henry (Grand Kleagle) Hyde have to say about all this??

[ZULU]

You are wrong. Once the racialists purge the south of all vestiges of the Confederate Flag, they will start on Old Glory, which flew over a slave nation longer than the Confederate Flag did. They will chnage the names of all the Washingtons, Lees, Jefffersons, and Columbuses in the United States to something less "offensive".

[aomagrat]

REP. CLYBURN: Oh, I don't know. You'll have to ask the NAACP people. I've made it very clear what my position is on that. And my position has been stated out there for a long time. Because I believe the compromise that was reached by the black legislators and the white legislators over the current position of that flag, gives us an interim solution that we ought to live with for a while. And maybe at some point in the future revisit it. As it stands now, that was a compromise voted for by every single black legislator, save one who did not vote, but abstained from voting. Everybody else supported it, and therefore I support it.

Even South Carolina's most prominent black politician is against the NAACP's boycott.

[DustyMoment]

Well, you may have a point, but that's a different battle. My whole point is that we should let them "win" this one. As soon as they do, they will find that they have hoist themselves by their own petards and they will have destroyed their credibility for the reparations argument. When they lose that credibility, they lose the credibility for anything else they might decide is "racist", and that, in itself, could resolve a potential issue about the Stars and Stripes. Besides, there are a lot of blacks and other minorities who fought and died for this flag. I don't think that the racists will find much of an audience for this issue if they decided to pursue it.

[Polybius]

If we abolish every vestige of the Confederacy, we eliminate every and all evidence of slavery. If there was no Confederacy, there could never have been slavery, nor was there a Civil War. ........History, no matter how hard the revisionists try to change it, is immutable.

Yes, indeed. History no matter how hard the revisionists try to change it, is immutable.

The Confederate States of America was a political entity founded on February 8, 1861.

Slavery was an integral part of American colonial life before 1776 and was an insitution specifically recognized in the Constitution of the United States submitted for ratification in 1787.

By what revisionist hallucination can you possibly claim that "If there was no Confederacy, there could never have been slavery"?

[DustyMoment]

Ok, pretend that you actually read my post and see if you can follow the thread of logic. What I said was that we should let the race baiters "win" this by abolishing every vestige (shred of evidence) of the Confederacy. IF (see, IF) they abolish every vestige of the Confederacy, it means that the Confederacy NEVER existed. If the Confederacy NEVER existed (because we allowed the race baiters to abolish EVERY vestige of it) then, by logical extension, SLAVERY never existed. If SLAVERY never existed (because we allowed the race baiters to abolish every vestige of the Confederacy), then the Civil War NEVER happened (because there was no slavery and no Confederacy to fight the Civil War with). And, if the Civil War NEVER happened (because we allowed the race baiters to abolish every vestige of the Confederacy so that there could not have been slavery and, therefore, no Civil War), then there is NO basis for claims for reparations.

Did you follow that, or do I need to repeat it?

Now, go read the last paragraph of my original post again, or do I need to repeat THAT one for you as well?

[Polybius]

Ok, pretend that you actually read my post and see if you can follow the thread of logic. What I said was that we should let the race baiters "win" this by abolishing every vestige (shred of evidence) of the Confederacy. IF (see, IF) they abolish every vestige of the Confederacy, it means that the Confederacy NEVER existed. If the Confederacy NEVER existed (because we allowed the race baiters to abolish EVERY vestige of it) then, by logical extension, SLAVERY never existed. If SLAVERY never existed (because we allowed the race baiters to abolish every vestige of the Confederacy), then the Civil War NEVER happened (because there was no slavery and no Confederacy to fight the Civil War with). And, if the Civil War NEVER happened (because we allowed the race baiters to abolish every vestige of the Confederacy so that there could not have been slavery and, therefore, no Civil War), then there is NO basis for claims for reparations.

Did you follow that, or do I need to repeat it?

I read your post and I have read your reply.

Your statement claiming that if the Confederacy had not existed then slavery would not have existed is a non sequitur.

When the train of logic hits a non sequitur, the train of logic is derailed.

In my post, I pointed out that slavery in America existed long before the founders of the Confederate States of America were ever born.

Yet, you again make the claim:

If the Confederacy NEVER existed (because we allowed the race baiters to abolish EVERY vestige of it) then, by logical extension, SLAVERY never existed.

Slavery existed in the United States of America long before the Confederate States of America ever existed. If the Confederacy had not been founded in 1861, slavery would still have existed in the United States of America in 1791 and the race baiters would still be demanding their reparations money and they would be claiming that Old Glory was the flag of slavery.....as some of them already do.

No matter how many times you repeat a non sequitur, it will remain a non sequitur.