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The passage of 150 years tends to blur the lines; people tend to go for the broad brush summary of events, and by doing so they risk losing the instructive value of history. This might be a contributing factor in the rise of modern liberalism, now that I think of it.

While the Republican party had a growing Abolitionist element, the party platform itself, which Lincoln supported, was only to prevent the expansion of slavery into the territories, not to abolish it. People in the South naturally considered this restriction a step on the road to Abolition. After all, the British Empire didn't abolish slavery all at once either.

It was going to come down eventually to either two nations, one slave and one free, or no slavery at all. The war just forced the decision. Sometimes, that's just what it takes. Reminds me of the Protest Warriors' banner "War Has Never Solved Anything (except for ending slavery, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism!)

But, as some have observed, every solution breeds new problems; so it was with this one. The federal government emerged from the conflict with new power which it gradually began using over the next several generations to give us the world we live in today, a world where a gaggle of liberals in DC can tell us how much water our toilets can flush because somebody at the dinner table brought a fork across the state line.

People who wave the Confederate flag are reminding us of the last time the states stood up against the federal government. The one thing they certainly are not doing is agitating to bring back chattel slavery; rather, they are protesting against the slavery that now exists.

I know that the Civil War was about more than slavery, and that Lincoln was not the great civil rights crusader he's painted as today. However, as you yourself admitted, slavery was still a key factor. The Confederacy was fighting for, among other things, the right to keep legalized slavery, and they lost that fight.

People who wave the Confederate flag are reminding us of the last time the states stood up against the federal government. The one thing they certainly are not doing is agitating to bring back chattel slavery; rather, they are protesting against the slavery that now exists.

This is laughable. Do you really think every person displaying the Confederate flag is waging a thought-out protest against the power of the Federal Government? If so, I've got some bridges you can buy.

It seems to me there are mainly three types of people who display the Confederate flag: 1) people from the South who see it as a symbol of regional pride, 2) white supremacists, and 3) teenagers or immature adults who think it's "rebellious" or who use it for shock value, as was the case with these kids in Bloomington.