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PeaRidge: "You asked about the meaning of flags.
What flags were flying over the ships from Rhode Island that were trading guns and rum for slaves in 1806?"

Sorry, FRiend, but your argument here is ludicrous.
In fact, by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 most northerners had already begun to abolish slavery in their own states.
By 1804 all Northern states had begun abolition and by 1840 that process was essentially complete in the North.

But in 1787 constitutional recognition of slavery was the price imposed by Southern states as their pre-condition for joining the United States, and so Northerners accepted it, in the South and continued to accept right up through the election of 1860.

What Northerners did not accept was the continued expansion of slavery into western territories or, via the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, into their own states.
That's just what the election of 1860 was all about, and it drove Deep South Fire Eaters insanely berserk, first declaring their secessions and then war on the United States.

So the United States flag is the flag under which slavery was first abolished peacefully in the North and then after bloody war, also in the South.

The Confederate battle flag lead those forces opposed to abolition and Union.

Nevertheless, in the North we love our rebels and sometimes fly their flags side-by-side with our own.
Here, for example:

By 1804 all Northern states had begun abolition and by 1840 that process was essentially complete in the North.

Except for Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia. Also you ignore the game playing they did while "abolishing" slavery. Northerners would take their slaves south and sell them so as to get their money back.

You also ignore the fact that the need for unskilled labor was waning in the North, and slaves were becoming increasingly worthless there anyways. It isn't such a hard moral decision to let go of something that was no longer valuable to you anyways.

What Northerners did not accept was the continued expansion of slavery into western territories or, via the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, into their own states.

Well first of all, the Constitution pretty much makes it impossible to ban slavery without a constitutional amendment, and all those states that declared themselves "Free" states, were instantly in contradiction to an article of the constitution which said slaves would be returned to the person to whom their labor was due. If states pass laws preventing this, they are DEFYING THE CONSTITUTION AND ARE THEREFORE IN REBELLION!

Try to spin it, but it still comes back to meaning that the constitution protected slavery in *ALL* the states.

Secondly, I have recently read of a new way of looking at northern opposition to slavery in the territories. It is an idea I hadn't previously considered, but dovetails quite nicely with my theory that the Power Barons of New York were pretty much running things on a basis of enriching themselves and increasing their power.

"I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it, in any kind of association with any generous or chivalrous sentiment on the part of the North. But the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily to recover it's old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs.
Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."
"As to Secession being Rebellion, it is distinctly provable by State papers that Washington, considered it no such thing – that Massachusetts, now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede, again and again – and that years ago, when the two Carolinas began to train their militia expressly for Secession, commissioners sent to treat with them and to represent the disastrous policy of such secession, never hinted it would be rebellion."

On this point I respectfully disagree BroJoeK. As a item of relevance concerning an important and tragic period of American history I can abide the Confederate flag as displayed in a museum or certainly if an individual wants to display it on their private property, fine. But not on public property , no. Speaking for myself I don't believe Confederate dead deserve veneration. Imagine for a moment had they won the war. What kind of a nation would America be? For that matter what kind of a world would there be?