The Confederate Flag...

[Crysta]

... The Emancipation was penned during the Civil War.

Sometimes I wonder if we all read the same history books.

EDIT: Mind you, it's intention was primarily to just cripple the South by freeing all of their slaves (but not the North's), when he didn't technically even have the power to do that (considering it was a rogue nation at this point).

The slavery issue was a huge deal waaaaay before that, though. I call that utterly wrong. Even according to wikipedia lol.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Crysta

[I.M. Gei]

Quite possibly. Would you like it if you were told by Big Brother what to do, constantly. I will not defend the Southern view of slavery, I am simply telling you that they chose to express their democracy through their flag.

as a nonwhite american i am a-okay with "Big Brother" telling the good ol' boys that they can't tell me, "we don't serve your kind here, boy", and that they cannot threaten to lynch me if i get uppity and refuse to comply

also, that nary a prominent southerner protested the fugitive slave law of 1850 or dred scott, both of which expanded federal power in defense of slavery, is telling. does democracy only matter when southern aristocrats wanted to keep their slaves and expand the institution? or when white folks in little rock rallied to block black kids from entering the white high school?

I am a Southerner, and the Confederate flag represents the right of the people for freedom when their ability to govern themselves is taken away. "War of Northern Aggression" indeed! Just because you view the Southern Flag with paranoia doesn't mean we all have too.

you know you could easily fly the regular confederate flag, which most regular folks wouldn't even recognize, as most of us recognize the confederate battle flag as a powerful symbol of racial hatred as it was in 1962, and as it still is in 2015

additionally, many southerners opposed secession and the confederacy, and publicly did so because they believed slavery was wrong; thirty-four anti-confederate german immigrants in texas were massacred when they tried to flee the state, much of appalachia was a no-go zone for confederate officials due to widespread anti-confederate guerrilla activity, and a third of men who enlisted in north carolina joined the side that their leaders and politicians had declared an invading force

for soldiers to march on their own homes like that en masse, we're talking either an incredibly awful cause, or incredibly awful people. and i, for one, will not call those incredibly brave southerners who fought to preserve the union awful, although this seems to be the tactic most confederate battle flag defenders insist on using. and i think that the fine folks who perished at the nueces are far more praiseworthy than the likes of nathaniel bedford forrest.

"war of northern aggression"? to that, i say "war of southern treason (and aggression too)". if i count the number of stars on the flag you're defending, the CSA was planning on taking over the other border states as well, to say nothing of the designs that the southern political class had on annexing cuba as another slave state and southern filibusters who engaged in armed invasions of nicaragua and cuba.

oh right, to bring up another example, the folks in kansas territory were largely anti-slavery, but pro-slavery bands from missouri engaged in fraud in a rigged referendum on slavery's legalization to establish it in the territory. eventually, guerrilla warfare would break out after a pro-slavery militia sacked the anti-slavery town of lawrence, and when john brown responded by killing four pro-slavery settlers at pottawatomie. so much for democracy, eh?

Edited August 3, 2015 by I.M. Gei

[blah the Prussian]

Quite possibly. Would you like it if you were told by Big Brother what to do, constantly. I will not defend the Southern view of slavery, I am simply telling you that they chose to express their democracy through their flag.

And what a wonderful democracy it was. Tell me, how has the civil rights act negatively impacted you? I would have no problem obeying my government when I'm being told to treat others equally.

I am a Southerner, and the Confederate flag represents the right of the people for freedom when their ability to govern themselves is taken away. "War of Northern Aggression" indeed! Just because you view the Southern Flag with paranoia doesn't mean we all have too.

If you look at what they did with their ability to govern themselves it doesn't seem like too bad of an idea. Taking away the ability to govern themselves would mean banning the south from the senate, not telling them that they no longer have the freedom to own other human beings. Tell me, what is so tyrannical about centralization?

[Zerosabers]

... The Emancipation was penned during the Civil War.

Sometimes I wonder if we all read the same history books.

EDIT: Mind you, it's intention was primarily to just cripple the South by freeing all of their slaves (but not the North's), when he didn't technically even have the power to do that (considering it was a rogue nation at this point).

The slavery issue was a huge deal waaaaay before that, though. I call that utterly wrong. Even according to wikipedia lol.

Yes, it was made during the civil war, which cut off the south from help.

And I never said slavery wasn't a huge deal. I just said it wasn't the only reason for the south leaving, which everyone seems to think.

[blah the Prussian]

I don't actually think that. In all honesty, the war WAS about states rights. I seem to be the only one who thinks that this still makes them the bad guys, though.

[I.M. Gei]

Yes, it was made during the civil war, which cut off the south from help.

And I never said slavery wasn't a huge deal. I just said it wasn't the only reason for the south leaving, which everyone seems to think.

it certainly was the main reason, hence all those declarations of secession and confederate officials saying as much in 1860-61

[Crysta]

The other reasons are closely tied in with slavery.

Seriously. Do you think the Civil War would have occurred if we never started to practice it in the first place? Because we have had disagreements in government since the dawn of time; I suspect if people never thought they were in danger of losing their property (people) and wealth (also heavily reliant on people), they wouldn't feel compelled to kill their own countrymen.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Crysta

[Integrity]

don't have a take on this but a quick thing to say

EDIT: Mind you, it's intention was primarily to just cripple the South by freeing all of their slaves (but not the North's), when he didn't technically even have the power to do that (considering it was a rogue nation at this point).

actually, the reason lincoln could say "all slaves in the south are now free in the north" is because the south was an enemy nation - to free northern slaves he would have to push legislature through bureaucracy (which didn't happen for a few years after the war ended iirc), whereas "freeing" the southern slaves was a mostly token gesture that didn't require so much bureaucracy purely because the south was an enemy nation; he was basically providing amnesty to refugees was all

EDIT: i'm not a civil war buff so i could be wrong

Edited August 2, 2015 by Integrity

[Crysta]

Well he could say it, but they didn't really have to listen to him. :P

He could say a lot of things.

EDIT: Also not sure if they were actually free in the North, but they could be if they just fled their Southern captors. I'll have to look into that.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Crysta

[I.M. Gei]

don't have a take on this but a quick thing to say

actually, the reason lincoln could say "all slaves in the south are now free in the north" is because the south was an enemy nation - to free northern slaves he would have to push legislature through bureaucracy (which didn't happen for a few years after the war ended iirc), whereas "freeing" the southern slaves was a mostly token gesture that didn't require so much bureaucracy purely because the south was an enemy nation; he was basically providing amnesty to refugees was all

EDIT: i'm not a civil war buff so i could be wrong

no, you're right

lincoln even tried to negotiate with slaveholders in delaware, where 90% of the black population was already free by 1860, to persuade them to emancipate before he handed down the proclamation; even in a state like that, he had little success.

Edited August 2, 2015 by I.M. Gei

[Integrity]

Well he could say it, but they didn't really have to listen to him. :P

He could say a lot of things.

EDIT: Also not sure if they were actually free in the North, but they could be if they just fled their Southern captors. I'll have to look into that.

obviously the south didn't listen to him, but the proclamation was that southern slaves were free in the united states of america. he couldn't say "yeah southern slaveowners you don't own slaves now" all he could say was "bonds of slavery made by southern gentlemen are annulled in any territory i own" which is what he said

EDIT: my point is that your post made it sound like the emancipation proclamation was empty words spoken by a man who had no actual power over what he said where in reality it didn't have the power that it famously does (ALL SLAVES ARE FREE) but it did have power of a different kind

Edited August 2, 2015 by Integrity

[eclipse]

DISCLAIMER: I am probably talking out of my ass - didn't bother doing any research.

IIRC, slavery went hand-in-hand with the South's economy. Screw with one and you screw with the other. It doesn't justify slavery at all, but this is something that I think is important to consider.

I also think it's likely that if any sort of disagreement was big enough, someone would try to leave sooner or later (TEXAS). So even without slavery, a hypothetical Civil War could've happened.

[Snowy_One]

Yes, it was made during the civil war, which cut off the south from help.

And I never said slavery wasn't a huge deal. I just said it wasn't the only reason for the south leaving, which everyone seems to think.

Yea. IIRC the south knew it couldn't win a full-on war due to the industry and sheer manpower of the North and their primary hope was to get external powers involved, especially in trade, to win a battle of attrition for their victory.

*sigh* I really wish people would read their history books.

The South left because the Northern states had become disproportionately powerful compared to the southern ones due to their higher rates of immigration. To top it off the North was far more industrialized while the South contained the majority of agriculture and wealth. Effectively they were worried that the North would use it's superior numbers in voting power to oppress them and take their wealth. As slavery was a huge part of how that wealth came to be the increasingly negative view-point of slavery in the north was a sizable threat to them. In short, in their eyes, had things gone along as they were, especially with the increasing centralization of government, the North would have used its superior numbers and voting power to basically force the South to give up their coin and slavery in the name of people whom were distinctly different from them in how they functioned (large cities).

Hence why they felt the was was needed. In the North slavery, however, was still mixed in regards to how people felt about it and the increase of immigrants had been tilting people away from it due to immigrant labor being cheaper than slaves and more readily available robbing slavery of one of its primary motivations; but it was still not seen as super-evil. Hence why he had to wait till Gettysburg to issue the proclamation. The victory there gave him a strong enough boost in Northern favor to attempt the proclamation as he was scared that simply issuing it would have caused more unease and possible riots without more support.

That's just what I was taught about the war though. I don't think that makes what the South RIGHT, just that there was more too it than 'North: Slaves be bad! South: Lulz no! North: Yup! They are! South: Waaa! I'm leaving! North: Get back here!'

[Zerosabers]

Snowy summed it up nicely.

I really think the biggest reason the south even lasted as long as it did was because of Lee's tactics. The south's only hope for winning was outside help which they did not get.

[Ansem]

Snowy summed it up nicely.

I really think the biggest reason the south even lasted as long as it did was because of Lee's tactics. The south's only hope for winning was outside help which they did not get.

what no

the south had no hope of winning. the industry was in the north so weapons could be massed produced easier, and the south couldnt have hoped for help from other nations looking to sabotage america because the ports were cut off by northern ships. the south was being starved of supplies.

[Crysta]

Yeah.

The economy was one of the reasons.

And that economy was heavily reliant on slave labor.

It's not like any of that contradicts what I'm suggesting (that slavery was the primary cause - all other lesser causes were linked to it).

I'm not sure a war over Texas would have actually been a civil war. Have they actually seceded ever since becoming a state? They certainly don't like how us libs handle things now but they're not threatening war over it. Not liking/feeling threatened with how the other party does things now that they're in power is nothing new now and I don't think it was then.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Crysta

[Original Alear]

The confederate flag has been flown for years now despite that the civil war has ended. While there may be resentment for it, it's been shown that it's entirely possible for it to be presented in public without hurt feelings. After all; it's been a state flag. Yet now because of ONE person who decided to go on a killing spree people are now willing to engage in mass censorship. His actions have provoked a response and not just a minor one too.

As the saying online goes, 'Don't feed the troll'.

The confederate flag has been controversial for decades. The movement to ban it seems to have gathered much steam from the attack on the church, but it's nothing new. The way you phrase it here, it sounds to me like you think that this is something unheard of, completely out of the blue.

He's not a troll, he's a mass murderer. Simply because something is provocative does not mean it should always be ignored. The response to a mass murderer is possibly not to compare him to some ass hole on the internet and shrug your shoulders.

Moreover, "don't feed the troll" is often said in context of a domain where someone (such as a mod) can suspend or ban the troll. While I don't think that government should ban the confederate flag being displayed at some private business, I do think that private business should have the right to ban the display of the confed flag, and that citizens should be free to protest displays (and that citizens should be feel free to counter-protest and support the american flag), etc.

Quite frankly I don't think anyone who is not a southerner has a right to dictate if something is or is not part of a culture and the simple fact is that the meaning of the flag has changed.

I don't entirely understand your meaning. I agree that northerners or anyone else don't have a "right" to dictate what's part of southern culture from an immediate perspective. As someone from New Jersey I can't start acting some way and then claim that the way I'm acting is "Southern" for instance, simply by virtue of doing it.

However, an observer can certainly look at a culture from the outside and describe it and make conclusions about it. It is silly to contend that only someone from within an in-group can make valid judgments about itself. You're not Chinese: does that mean that it's impossible for you to make a valid judgment about China's history? No. You might need to do research, and it would help to speak the language, visit, interview, etc...but you don't need to BE something in order to KNOW it. This is what I think you are trying to say, and it's plain wrong. Sometimes people don't know everything about themselves. Hell, I remember you judging twitter and tumblr before even though you're not part of those communities. Everyone's a hypocrite, I grant. But haven't you considered that people who like the confederate flag would probably like to believe they aren't racist?

Also, is the african american perspective on the confederate flag irrelevant? They are the descendants of the people who suffered under slavery. According to the fairly contemporary poll below, americans in general believe the flag is associated with southern pride rather narrowly supported the confederate flag in comparison to the blacks who believe it's a symbol of racism.

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/poll-most-white-americans-view-confederate-flag-symbol-southern-pride-not-racism

In your first post you mentioned white-washing history. Don't you think that celebrating a symbol which was created to symbolize the superiority of the white race by calling it just a symbol of "southern pride" is white washing history?

IMO some southerners have come to identify the flag as a symbol of rebellion and independence; that they were willing to stand up to the union and fight against them while still being American.

Being American does not necessarily require you to hold the constitution as an excellent document. All it requires is for you to be born to American parents, be born in America, or to naturalize (well, I admit that there you are supposed to learn about the constitution, speak english, etc.). As I pointed out in my earlier post, the confederates rejected the principle that all men are created equal. That does not seem very American to me. And I think what I just posted suggests that it's incorrect to view the confederate states as standing up to the union to prove they were american.

Bury the dead, mourn the dead, remember their lives, but remember that their killer was a monster trying to provoke a response.

Killers and monsters should provoke responses. We should not ignore them. People died. This is not just internet trolling.

Look, it's very nice to say the Confederate flag represents racism, but it actually represents democracy to Southerners. It means that we can (and will) secede from an unfair government.

You mean like when the South seceded and, in their own words, proclaimed the desire to preserve slavery as I pointed out in an earlier post? It's also not "nice" to associate the confederate flag with racism. It's just that it is associated with it.

EDIT: Mind you, it's intention was primarily to just cripple the South by freeing all of their slaves (but not the North's), when he didn't technically even have the power to do that (considering it was a rogue nation at this point).

http://thomaslegion.net/totalslaveslaverypopulationinunitedstates17901860bystate.html

Check out the above link. Compare the number of the slaves in southern states to the slaves in northern states. Do you think slavery in the north was really that important to preserve given the numbers? I skimmed, but I think Maryland is the only state with a substantial slave population listed (their pop of slaves does dwarf georgia's and is dwarfed in turn by the other confederate states).

Also the aftermath of the civil war proves how stupid the outlook snowy summarized was (IMO). Much of the South was completely devastated. And once the war ended, the south was treated rather leniently (not that the all the northern senators agreed with it). Reconstruction was pretty neatly reversed by Jim Crow. Doesn't seem like there was a huge difference between slavery and sharecropping, and prisons in the South were hell.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Severian

[Crysta]

Holy shit New York went from 10k+ slaves to 75 in a decade?

I forget what was invented during the 1820's. >_>

[Original Alear]

I forget what was invented during the 1820's. >_>

Haha I am ignorant of your meaning (I swear I got good grades in history I just didn't get them in the last ~8'ish years). Was there an invention that reduced the need for slave labor akin to the cotton gin?

[I.M. Gei]

Holy shit New York went from 10k+ slaves to 75 in a decade?

I forget what was invented during the 1820's. >_>

gradual emancipation

most of the northern states in the original 13 didn't immediately abolish their slaves; laws often went like "older slaves will stay slaves, but younger slaves will be freed at age 18". new york and new jersey had relatively large populations of slaveholders which fought gradual emancipation laws for quite a while, and some slaveholders illegally sold their slaves down south before they hit 18

Edited August 2, 2015 by I.M. Gei

[Crysta]

Haha I am ignorant of your meaning (I swear I got good grades in history I just didn't get them in the last ~8'ish years). Was there an invention that reduced the need for slave labor akin to the cotton gin?

... Oh yeah.

I did a report on it/Eli Whitney in like 4th grade and I forgot all about it.

gg

Gei's explanation seems legit, too.

[blah the Prussian]

That's debatable. The North never really used its key advantage until Grant. Even then, it's possible for Grant to not get his recognition. Even in 1864, it was still possible for the South to win if McClellan had beaten Lincoln. Honestly, I find Lee as a bit overrated, because he was pretty good at defense but not so good at offense, especially in terms of campaign planning. He vast majority of his opponents were also morons. Also it's possible for the UK and France to get involved, especially France because Napoleon III wanted to secure French influence over Mexico, so it would make sense to keep the US occupied by the CSA (Monroe Doctrine and all that). In General, I've learned to distrust opinions that stipulate anything as a historical inevitability.

[Acacia Sgt]

http://thomaslegion.net/totalslaveslaverypopulationinunitedstates17901860bystate.html

Check out the above link. Compare the number of the slaves in southern states to the slaves in northern states. Do you think slavery in the north was really that important to preserve given the numbers? I skimmed, but I think Maryland is the only state with a substantial slave population listed (their pop of slaves does dwarf georgia's and is dwarfed in turn by the other confederate states).

It was because not all slave states joined the CSA. Also, to add on that, the Emancipation didn't declared freedom for all slaves in the CSA, only for the areas still in rebellion. Recaptured places like Tennessee, New Orleans, and West Virginia were exempted. Between that and the border states, around 700k-800k slaves still remained in the Union after the Proclamation. Their freedom happened gradually during and after the war.

[Ansem]

That's debatable. The North never really used its key advantage until Grant. Even then, it's possible for Grant to not get his recognition. Even in 1864, it was still possible for the South to win if McClellan had beaten Lincoln. Honestly, I find Lee as a bit overrated, because he was pretty good at defense but not so good at offense, especially in terms of campaign planning. He vast majority of his opponents were also morons. Also it's possible for the UK and France to get involved, especially France because Napoleon III wanted to secure French influence over Mexico, so it would make sense to keep the US occupied by the CSA (Monroe Doctrine and all that). In General, I've learned to distrust opinions that stipulate anything as a historical inevitability.

huh, never thought of it that way. you're probably right, i'm not gonna debate with a history major.

[Original Alear]

It was because not all slave states joined the CSA. Also, to add on that, the Emancipation didn't declared freedom for all slaves in the CSA, only for the areas still in rebellion. Recaptured places like Tennessee, New Orleans, and West Virginia were exempted. Between that and the border states, around 700k-800k slaves still remained in the Union after the Proclamation. Their freedom happened gradually during and after the war.

AH HA! I am a fool. Thanks for the information.

I've learned to distrust opinions that stipulate anything as a historical inevitability.

I think everything is a historical inevitability, but I don't think we'll ever know what outcome was inevitable until it has already happened.

I do think that private business should have the right to ban the display of the confed flag,

This was from one of my posts. Just want to make clear that I'm saying they should have the right to ban the flag on their premises.