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True-— being a libertarian rather than a conservative, Walter Williams tends to reduce all politics, if not all human behavior, to economics. Therefore he sees Lincoln as many (although by no means all) libertarians do, as simply the tyrant who raised taxes and increased the size and power of the federal government.

However, even Walter Williams might-- I say might--- take note of context as important in this issue. What I mean by that, is that, while the Confederate flag represents martial courage of the South and its general kickass attitude to many, it was in fact at one time a rebel flag.

There's a big difference between a patriotic American who salutes said flag along with the stars and stripes at a statehouse and someone who not only embraces the "Lost Cause" but hopes someday to revive it. Yes, some great patriots say they hope for the latter, but I don't think they really mean that--- if they did, they would be taking concrete steps to that effect.

So, that the words "The South Will Rise Again" are the context in which the Confederate flag is placed would therefore be reasonably disturbing to anyone who believes in the present Union, but for the fact that the person bearing it isn't making likely making that sort of serious ideological statement anymore than a black guy with an "x" on his cap is. Rather, both are expressing pride of place and probably not thinking much about what that pride entails or its proper limits.

Both Williams and other writers for "Southern Partisan" are incorrect when they claim slavery was not the cause of the South, however-— or at least the government representing South Carolina seemed to think it was:

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The statements of Mississippi, Texas and Georgia are even stronger in this regard.

I'll take Thomas Sowell over Walter Williams any day on this issue (or on any issue upon which they disagree). As Sowell puts it, "We all need to leave the past in the past. We have the present and the future to deal with, and wholly different problems to confront."