Confederate Flag Opposers, Supposedly Uneducated

Alfonzo Rachel ^ | 06/30/2015 | Alfonzo Rachel

[celmak]

The inner democrat really comes out when it comes to the confederate battle flag. Those who wave it say they support your right to free speech as long as it agrees with us. Because if you disagree with us then you’re just uneducated. I’d expect that from democrats. It’s sad to hear that from republicans defending a flag born by democrats waved in battle against them and the United States. And I agree that democrat voters who oppose said flag are uneducated about it because their party created it in the 1st place, but republican voters who oppose it know why we do.

[Partisan Gunslinger]

The urban centers chose the latter, and implememted tariffs that damaged the south’s export economy.

You need to check your history on that. The South controlled the tariff issue in the Congress during the 1850s. No tariff could pass without the southern states consent. The South got everything they wanted on the tariff issue.

Secession was for slavery, pure and simple, as all four Declarations of Secession say.

[BroJoeK]

celmak: "The Demorat Party has NEVER apologized for slavery!
If we are going to ban anything meaningful because of slavery - BAN THE DEMORAT PARTY!!!"

Well, now there's an idea. ;-)
Ain't goin' t'happen, but might explain why Dems are forever changing their name -- are they "liberals" or "progressives" or now something else, anything but just plain Dems?

P-Marlowe: "The Rebel Flag represents rebellion.
It is the symbol of the non-conformist.
It is a statement of protest against centralized big government."

Which is ironic, since as the Confederate Armies' battle flag, it represented the Confederate central government, or such "Big Government" as the Confederacy could muster.
And however brilliantly such armies performed in the field, it was never-ever about "non-conformity" or protest against it's own slave-power government.

But I certainly agree that Dems are driving themselves nuts over this, and worse than that, they seem to be driving us nuts too, and that's pretty serious.

So we are arguing about symbolism -- in this case an unfortunate noble symbol of Southern courage, devotion and resourcefulness -- corrupted perhaps irreparably by (apparently) one lone insane moron (literally, never finished school) who found there inspiration to go murder some blacks, but which blacks?
Revolutionary blacks? No.
Rioting, burning, destroyer blacks? No.
Louis Farrakahn follower blacks? No.
Shoot-'em-up gangsta blacks? No.

The lunatic went after arguably some of the nicest people in the world -- Christians, in church, praying and studying their bibles.
Honest to God... what's up with that?

Of course, we don't know, but in the mean time the Confederate Army's battle flag is trashed, burned and consigned to history's rubbish heap... or so it seems.

And just so we're clear about what that flag truly represents to all of us, remember this: who was arguably our greatest fighting general of the Second World War?
Was it not General George S. Patton, Jr.?
And does everybody forget that Patton was the grandson of Confederate General George S. Patton Sr.?
So America's outstanding military traditions owe as much to our Southern & Confederate ancestors as it does to anyone else.

So I say, let's not cut off our noses to spite our faces.
That makes no sense, and does nobody any good, except our enemies, of which we're seeing more & more these days.

celmak: "Yeppers, we should ignore that demorats ever flew it, and what they were defending."

I certainly "get" your point, celmak.
Without exception, leaders of the Confederacy were Democrats before starting the Civil War, and most went back to being Democrats after losing their war (Longstreet comes to mind as an exception).
Along with their Northern Dough-faced Democrat allies, they were the Slave-Power which dominated Federal government from the Founding until the Civil war, and again from the Great Depression until the 1960s civil rights and conservative revolutions.
So Democrats are responsible for slavery, secession, Civil War and afterwards, for Jim Crow, the Ku-Klux-Klan, lynchings and every other such wickedness.
So, if we are going to be banning all such symbols, let's start with the real source of it: Democrats.

Fine. Ridiculous, but, well, this is a silly season, isn't it?

P-Marlowe: "Read your history, Yankee scum.
The North did not raise the idea of freeing the slaves until the war was half over.
90% or more of the Rebel Soldiers were not slave owners and were not fighting for the right to own them."

Sorry FRiend, but it seems you have no real idea of what was going on.
First of all, going back to the time of our Declaration of Independence (1776), most Founders understood that slavery was an evil (perhaps necessary, but still evil) that should eventually be abolished.
By the time of our Constitutional Convention in 1787, many Northern states had already begun to slowly abolish slavery, and Southern leaders like Thomas Jefferson were proposing solutions which would purchase freedom for slaves, and transport them back to Africa.
Indeed, that was the whole idea behind the country of Liberia.
It was the idea which later leaders like Lincoln inherited and held.

All such ideas were rejected by Southern slave-owners who began looking as slavery not as a necessary-evil, but rather as a positive good thing, to be cherished and never abandoned.
And until the 1850s Republicans, there was never an anti-slavery political party, or an openly anti-slavery president.
Every voter of the time understood that slavery was a necessary pre-condition for Union, and that to openly oppose it was to invite Southern secession.

Indeed, even 1860 Republicans were not outright abolitionists.
Instead what they wanted was to prevent the expansion of slavery into their own states (via Dred-Scott) or into western territories which didn't want it.
But that was enough opposition to drive Southern Fire-Eater Democrats to declare 1) secession, then 2) Confederacy, then 3) war on the USA.

Civil War changed everything.
Now there was a huge military advantage to freeing slaves in territory under US Army control, and so Lincoln ordered it.
In January 1863 that effected only about 25,000 slaves, but by war's end in 1865 the US Army had freed over three million slaves.

Smokin' Joe: "Actually, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in states which were at war with the Union."

That was all Lincoln had the constitutional authority, as commander in chief, to free.
It originally effected only around 25,000 slaves, but by war's end, over three million.
In December 1865 the 13th Amendment freed all remaining US slaves.

lacrew: "Today I learned that a TV network just banned Dukes of Hazard re-runs.
Political ideology aside, I can spot mass hysteria when I see it....and point out how absurd it."

It's just one spot where their "political correctness" crosses the line into serious political insanity.
The Left is simultaneously vicious and trivial in exercising their domineering political controls.
Everybody loves the good ol' boys and their General Lee, generally speaking, their flag is and should be no problem.

RushIsMyTeddyBear: "You don’t live in the South or fly-over country do you?"

Nearly everybody posting here has lived in the South at one time or another, has some family in the South and visits there whenever possible.
My mother was born in North Carolina and her family is all over the South, my Dad in Pennsylvania, his family mostly northern.
So we are not your "enemies", we are you, and you are us, FRiend.

UnwashedPeasant: "The flag represents Rebellion against Tyranny.
People who love Tyranny hate the flag."

FRiend, we are debating symbols here, and symbols mean whatever people say they mean.
Right now we are being bamboozled by a bums-rush of Leftie propagandists telling us the Confederate Battle Flag is the symbol of racists who murder Christians in cold blood in their church!!

So how do you argue against such nonsense?
Well, for one thing, we must, must stand in total unity and love, with the Christians who were murdered in their church.
For another, we can remind people that the CBF has a proud tradition which belongs to everyone with ancestors from that time, not just the looney-toons.

RushIsMyTeddyBear: "Then you would understand that the rebel flag has morphed through the years as being a symbol of rebellion against big gov or authoritarianism."

Surely, FRiend, you understand that all symbolism, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholders.
And in our culture, sadly, "main-stream" symbolism is under strict control of our Leftist media, academia & politicians (but I repeat myself), and they are coming down super-hard now on the old Confederate battle-flag.
So we are making (as my old CO used to say) like Texas jack-rabbits in a hail storm -- all we can do is hunker and take it.
Still, it's worth remembering that the Civil War was fought predominately by disciplined Christian soldiers, on both sides, and so any attack on Christians has nothing to do with rebellion or opposition to Big Government.

Army of Tennessee battle flag:

Battle of Franklin, 1864:

[celmak]

So Democrats are responsible for slavery, secession, Civil War and afterwards, for Jim Crow, the Ku-Klux-Klan, lynchings and every other such wickedness. So, if we are going to be banning all such symbols, let's start with the real source of it: Democrats.

Fine. Ridiculous, but, well, this is a silly season, isn't it?

Excellent! See post number 1.

[celmak]

Ain't goin' t'happen

True, but just think if we had people in leadership that actually asked for this apology when ever conservatives are labeled racists.

It's not a matter of them apologizing, it's a matter of us asking for it so that every time they bring up racism everyone will know that the DemoRAT Party won't apologize for it.

[BroJoeK]

P - Marlowe: "90% or more of the Rebel Soldiers were not slave owners and were not fighting for the right to own them."

Sorry I missed this one.

Your 90% figure may be accurate, but is misleading for several reasons:

First, 100% of the Confederate leadership were slave holders and protecting their "peculiar institution" was the strongest factor motivating their actions.

Second, slave ownership varied greatly from the Deep South, at nearly 50% of families owning slaves to border states with 10% or fewer.
But most regions with fewer than 20% slave owning families (i.e., western Virginia) voted against secession, and supported the Union army.

Third, most soldiers of both armies were single young men and teenagers who didn't own anything of value, much less slaves.
In today's terms, a slave in 1860 cost about what a top of the line luxury car does today.
So what percent of today's young men drive a new Porsche?
Same thing.

However, the vast majority of those young men did have fathers, uncles, brothers or cousins who owned expensive slaves, and 100% understood that losing the war meant losing all such "property".

Finally, the reason we know that's all true is because huge numbers of Southerners who did NOT own slaves, and had no commitment to that institution, they served the Union Army -- From Western Virginia, Maryland, Eastern Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri & others.

Or, we could put it this way: in areas where 90% of Southern families did NOT own slaves, those troops were not Confederates, they were part of the Union Army.

[BroJoeK]

Jim from C-Town: "Without the Cotton Gin, a northerners invention, slavery would have probably been eliminated in the South as it had been in the North.
It was the economic viability brought about by technological advancement that gave it longer life."

No, don't think so, and the reason is we can go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson to find a slave-owner who "theoretically" opposed slavery, even proposed government buy-outs of slaves for transportation back to Africa, but in practical reality found that abolition was just impossible in Virginia, even in the late 1700s.

Biographies of Jefferson point out that he "did the math" on slaves and found that, especially considering the increase in slave values, the "peculiar institution" was very profitable, in Virginia, in his day.

And that helps to explain why both population and prices for slaves increased, albeit unevenly, during the period from 1790 through 1860, while public calls by Southerners for abolition of slavery totally disappeared:

• The slave population doubled about every 25 years.

• Average slave prices also rose, unevenly but long term, from $300 average in 1804 to $600 in 1834 to more than $800 in 1860.
  In New Orleans, prime males brought $1,400 in 1861, a price equivalent in today's unskilled wages to $245,000.

• Cotton gins helped increase production from 725,000 bales in 1830 to five million bales in 1860.
  This made US cotton the most competitive in the world, fueling insatiable European demand.

By 1860 in the South, only Delaware and Maryland were slowly losing slave populations, and that was largely because slave prices had grown so high in the Deep South, that Border State slaves were being sold and shipped further south.

Point is: yes the cotton gin made slavery more profitable, but the "peculiar institution" had always been highly profitable, and that explains both the rising prices and population of US slaves from 1790 through 1860.

Estimated overall average slave prices:

[BroJoeK]

P-Marlowe: "But most of them had little mountain homes and, be it ever so humble, there is no place like home...but when the Federal army occupied East Tennessee and threatened North Carolina...” "

All those "little mountain homes" were hotbeds of Southern Unionism -- from western Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina to eastern Tennessee and Kentucky.
They supplied the Union with over 100,000 troops and welcomed the Union Army as liberators and protectors against the Confederate slave-power.

Throughout the South, even in the Deep South, regions which had very few slaves refused to secede and supported the Union Army.
In places like western North Carolina they were subject to persecution and even massacre by Confederate authorities.

[BroJoeK]

lacrew: "But no matter how immoral, the correct remedy under the constitution for a state that leaves the Union in.....nothing.
Nothing at all.
Not miltary force.
So the Republicans of the era got it wrong.
Their high minded ends did not justify the means, from a constitutional perspective."

But the truth of this matter is that the Federal Government under both outgoing Democrat President Buchanan and incoming President Lincoln did do... precisely... exactly... nothing to stop Southern Fire Eaters from declaring their secession (beginning December 1860) and forming a new Confederacy (February 4, 1861).
The Union continued to do... precisely... nothing to stop Confederates from dozens of provocations of war in seizing major Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints.

The Union only responded with military force after the Confederacy first launched war against Union forces in Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861) and then formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.

The first Confederate soldier killed in battle came at Big Bethel, June 10, 1861.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Slavery in the United States is older than any political party.
George Washington was perhaps the largest slave owner of his day.
You want to ‘ban’ him, too?"

It's important to remember that our Founders were opposed to slavery, "in principle".
Washington himself said that if he had to chose slavery versus Union, he would chose Union.
All considered slavery an evil, necessary perhaps, but still evil, and Southern Founders like Thomas Jefferson proposed government buy-outs of slaves and returns to Africa.
That's what Liberia was all about.

Northern states began outlawing slavery in 1776, but most quite gradually such that, for example, Pennsylvania still recorded a few slaves as late as 1840.
However, all such proposals were rejected by Southern slave-owners who began calling slavery not a "necessary evil" but a positive good, and outlawed any discussion of abolition, both in their states and in Congress.

Point is: there was a huge difference between our Founders' views on slavery (necessary evil to be abolished eventually) versus those of 1860 era secessionists (slavery a positive good to be enforced forever).

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: ". Lincoln wasn’t the first to wage a war to force rebels to remain in a union that they wanted out of, and he wasn’t the first to emancipate slaves.
Slavery in America would have been over 90 years earlier if we had lost the fight for independence."

Here is a timeline showing who abolished slavery where & when.
What it shows is:

1. Britain's American colonies began banning the Atlantic slave trade during their Revolutionary War.

2. The US Congress passed the first law against the international slave trade in 1794.

3. Both the US and Britain passed laws making international slave trading felonies in 1807.

4. Britain abolished slavery in its empire in 1834, gradually, completed in 1838.

Like some US northern states, the British colony of Canada abolished slavery before 1800, but other British colonies (i.e., West Indies, Mauritius, South Africa) did not fully abolish slavery until forced to in 1838.

So, it's reasonable to suppose that had the US lost our Revolutionary War, Britain would have abolished slavery in the South by 1838, or just about the time that the international demand for cotton, and the cotton gin's production began to sky-rocket.

On the other hand in Mauritius: "Slavery was abolished in 1835, and the planters finally received two million pounds sterling in compensation for the loss of their slaves who had been imported from Africa and Madagascar during the French occupation"

Two million British pounds for just 20,000 slaves is 100 pounds per slave, at a time when US slaves averaged $500 each, times 3,000,000 slaves would certainly break the bank in Britain, and perhaps cause them to rethink abolition.

Bottom: not fair to just assume the Brits would have an easier time abolishing US Southern slavery than Americans did.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "Ideologically the two parties have flipped since the mid 19th century.
The original Republicans were wild eyed agitators and secessionists.
Very radical.
The Democrats of the mid 19th century represented the status quo and Constitutional conservatism."

And you know very well that's exactly backwards.
In fact, Democrats in 1860 were just like Democrats today, insisting that Federal Government enforce laws which force one class of people (slaves) working to support the easy life-styles of a politically powerful class.

And Republicans then were just as timid as we are today -- Republicans in 1860 never said Southerners had to give up slavery in the South, only that they couldn't export their slaves to Northern states, or western territories which didn't want it.

But that was plenty enough for Southern Democrats to throw a hissy-fit, declare secession, a new Confederacy and war on the United States.
Which got the North's attention, made them mad and turned timid, conservative Republicans into a serious military force which eventually destroyed the Confederacy and the slavery on which it was based.

Today? Nobody accuses the Left of total stupidity, but they have grown arrogant enough to throw hissy-fits whenever they don't get their way.
So who knows where that may lead?

In the mean time, conservative-timid Republicans will continue to "take it" until "taking it" is no longer possible...

[BroJoeK]

rockrr: "The following represents a list of federal properties which fell to the rebels outside of any negotiations:"

Great post!

[BroJoeK]

FirstFlaBn: "Cellmate also fails to appreciate the almost total reversal of party labeling.
Lincoln won 17 states in 1860.
In 2000, GW Bush only won one of those states (NH) - that's about a 94% turnaround"

In fact, most of the states Lincoln won in 1860 had often previously voted for Southern Democrat presidents, and often again voted for Democrats in years following the Civil War.
But 1860 was what we today call a "wave election", where the vast majority of Northerners suddenly awoke to the fact that the Southern dominated Federal Government was getting ready to impose slavery on western territories that didn't want it, and potentially even on their own states via the Supreme Court's Dred-Scott decision.

After the Civil War national voting patterns settled back to what they had been before: the Solid South allied with Northern big city immigrant voters.
This alliance won important elections in 1912, 1932, 1960 and led to today's welfare state as we know it.

The 1960s changed everything, especially 1964 when the Solid South first voted for a conservative, Mr. Conservative, Barry Goldwater, and Democrats took every other state, giving us President Johnson's "Great Society".

Today Dems have lost the conservative South, but they've gained even stronger holds on their traditional big city immigrant and other minority (especially blacks) voters.

Bottom line: in 1860 Lincoln's conservative party was based in rural and small town America, while Democrats were based on southern privilege-seekers and northern immigrants, just as they are, somewhat morphed, today.
Replacing the old Southern slave-holders we have today's huge "governing class" and liberal elites, but otherwise, pretty much the same idea.

[BroJoeK]

lacrew: "The confederacy did not immediately go out and seize forts.
Rather, they immediately sent a peace delegation to Washington DC, and offered:"

Confederate President Davis well knew that only Congress could deal with such issues, and yet he never dealt with Congress.
Instead he sent emissaries to negotiate with President Buchanan, who had no such authority and so refused to deal directly with them.

But in no case was Davis serious, when you consider that our Founder Benjamin Franklin spent many years in Britain attempting to negotiate a better deal for Americans before reluctantly giving it up in 1776.

By contrast, Davis' emissaries spent a few weeks talking to the wrong people, then gave it up and went home so Davis could launch his Civil War.

[BroJoeK]

DoodleDawg: "The sovereign state of South Carolina, through an act of her legislature, did '...cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory...' "

Thanks, that's a key point.
Is there a source I could link to?

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Lord Dunmore, issued 'Dunmore’s Proclamation'....
...The Philipsburg Proclamation of June 30, 1779 went beyond this..."

These proclamations sound to me as exactly equivalent to Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

But there is no evidence that Brits contemplated anything like universal abolition in 1779, or anything like it for another 50+ years.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "The seven deep south slave states seceded because they believed that the Republican party was a hostile, sectional anti-slavery party and would use the resources of the national government against them the expansion of slavery into western territories which didn't want it."

There, fixed it for you.

[rockrr]

I assume that CivilWarHome.com is neutral enough ground for all concerned. If not there is a reference to obtaining a hard copy from the state archives at the end...

        In the specific case of Fort Sumter, in 1827, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun had approved the construction of a new fort in the harbor. The first appropriations were made by Congress in 1828 and construction started on the harbor shoal. In November, 1834, after the United States had expended roughly $200,000, one Major William Laval, Esq., claimed title to the "land" which included the under-construction fort.
        A South Carolina statute passed in 1791 established a method by which the state disposed of its vacant lands (we tend to forget that much of the territory of the states was empty in the Nineteenth Century: in the original thirteen states, this land was held by the states; in the remaining part of the country, it was held by the Federal government, except in Texas, where the public lands were retained by the state when it was admitted). Laval used the law to claim title to the land - but he described it in a vague manner and given the lack of decent maps of any of the country, his vagueness hid the exact location of the tract he claimed.
        When Laval appeared on the scene, the Corps of Engineers stopped work and asked for instructions. It appeared that Laval had filed a proper claim for the land - except that the "land" was below low tide and therefore exempt from purchase.
        Well South Carolina was aghast! They did not want to lose the fort to protect themselves, nor the payrolls that would come with the completed fort.
        The result was a state law:

Committee on Federal Relations
In the House of Representatives, December 31^st, 1836

        "The Committee on Federal relations, to which was referred the Governor's message, relating to the site of Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, and the report of the Committee on Federal Relations from the Senate on the same subject, beg leave to Report by Resolution:

        "Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory, Provided, That all processes, civil and criminal issued under the authority of this State, or any officer thereof, shall and may be served and executed upon the same, and any person there being who may be implicated by law; and that the said land, site and structures enumerated, shall be forever exempt from liability to pay any tax to this state.

        "Also resolved: That the State shall extinguish the claim, if any valid claim there be, of any individuals under the authority of this State, to the land hereby ceded.

        "Also resolved, That the Attorney-General be instructed to investigate the claims of Wm. Laval and others to the site of Fort Sumter, and adjacent land contiguous thereto; and if he shall be of the opinion that these parties have a legal title to the said land, that Generals Hamilton and Hayne and James L. Pringle, Thomas Bennett and Ker. Boyce, Esquires, be appointed Commissioners on behalf of the State, to appraise the value thereof. If the Attorney-General should be of the opinion that the said title is not legal and valid, that he proceed by seire facius of other proper legal proceedings to have the same avoided; and that the Attorney-General and the said Commissioners report to the Legislature at its next session.

        "Resolved, That this House to agree. Ordered that it be sent to the Senate for concurrence. By order of the House:

"T. W. Glover, C. H. R."
"In Senate, December 21^st, 1836

"Resolved, that the Senate do concur. Ordered that it be returned to the House of Representatives, By order:

Jacob Warly, C. S.

        Poor Maj. Laval lost his scheme to blackmail the United States!
        For those wishing to further pursue the ownership of Fort Sumter, et. al, most major libraries will have American State Papers: Documents Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, Military Affairs, vol. 5, Twenty-third Congress, Second Session, No. 591, "The Construction of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina," pp. 463-472.
        The War Department became concerned in the 1890s that they might not have clear title to all of their various installations, so they had a civilian attorney in the Judge Advocate General's office research the chain of title. Fortunately for us, not only were the various National Cemeteries still War Department properties, but so were most of the forts used in the early Republic, the Civil War and the Indian Wars.
        The result was James B. McCrellis, Military Reservations, National Military Parks, and National Cemeteries. Title and Jurisdiction, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1898. If you can not locate a hard copy, CIS has copied McCrellis on microfiche: U.S. Executive Branch Documents, 1789-1909: War Department, W 1002.8.

From: http://civilwarhome.com/sumterownership.html

[DoodleDawg]

Is there a source I could link to?

Link

[BroJoeK]

lacrew: "What rights does congress have in a sovereign nation."

The Constitution gives Congress authority over Federal properties, period.

lacrew: "The southern states backed out of the compact...a divorce, if you will.
The US Congress meant nothing at that point."

Because, like all Democrats, they cared nothing for the Constitution except when it served their own purposes.

lacrew: "Take a read of era immediately prior to the civil war...and ask yourself which side was beating the war drums, and which side just wanted to be left the heck alone."

In fact, every provocation for war came from secessionist states, the military assault on Fort Sumter was ordered by the Confederate President, and a formal declaration of war was passed by the Confederate Congress and signed on May 6, 1861.

War was provoked, launched and formally declared by the Confederacy.

lacrew: "Do you really think the southern states signed up for this?
A system in which they we held in a compact at the point of a gun?"

But there were no guns -- zero, zip, nada -- pointed at Deep South states when they began declaring secession (December 1860).
And there were no guns -- zero, zip, nada -- pointed at the Deep South states when they formed their new Confederacy (February 1861).
And there were no guns -- zero, zip, nada -- pointed at the Confederacy when they provoked, launched and then formally declared war on the United States (May 6, 1861).

The first Union Army guns to kill a Confederate soldier came at the Battle of Big Bethel, June 10, 1861.