Bulldoze the Jefferson memorial!

That was the Democrats and their elites who owned slaves the other 96% wouldnt have cared less about fighting to maintain their business monopolies. But lets face it "smaller Federal Government, more states' rights. Government closer to the people" is more offensive to leftists as its diametrically opposed to their socialist utopia.

 

What a load of crap. It flew in direct response to the Civil Rights movement. 1961...sound familiar with Jim Crow laws and such? If they wanted a flag to represent their disdain for Federal intrusion then why didn't they just create a new one like Texas did with the Don't Tread on Me flag. Why exactly did they just have to use the Confederate flag as their symbol? Did they have no one capable of designing and sewing a new flag?

The flag was associated with the Confederacy as you just stated and the war was fought over owership of slaves.

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The Confederate flag does not represent "rights". The Confederacy was built on denying an entire race their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech, right to bare arms and right to vote and of course that niggling slavery issue. The Confederate flag represents slavery and oppression, not freedom as those who defend it claim.

 

Does anyone else see the inconsistency between the two sentences in the above post?

 

Think how hurtful and insulting it is for African Americans to look down on their dollar bills and see the picture of slave owning George Washington. Clearly he must be replaced. How about with Susan Sonntag?

 

Why don't we bulldoze the Presidential Library of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson as well? He was a racist. Destroy his statues.

Let's get rid of all evidence that the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson, ever existed. Down he goes into the Memory Hole.

 

By that token, you could call the US traitors to Great Britain. The south had problems with the North, and a war was fought over it, and reconciliation was made. We should not demonize those who gave so much for a cause they thought was so important that they were willing to die for it. It could be argued that ISIS is the same way, but in reality with Sherman's burning of the south, the US government acted more as terrorists than the Confederacy. Though it should never fly higher than the US flag, the confederate flag should be flown in places of great honor in those states that lost so many of their citizens in the Civil War.

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LOL, i was just thinking the same thing. So many lives lost, but, nothing to see here of historical significance!

 

It represents slavery to YOU. that is fine. Whatever. But to millions upon millions it is honoring their ancestors, and the sacrafices they made in theirwar against what they viewed as the tyranny of the Union. removing that flag will do nothing but further the divide between races. It would be like forcing all cities across the country to remove the name Martin Luther King from street signs and public buildings. It is THAT important to many many people. If people truly wanted equality among races, they would not try to destroy all of the symbols of our past.

 

Mechanical buckin' bulls, 10-gallon hats for insurance adjusters, and line dances.

 

Did you know the Union, the north had four slave states, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. Then in 1863 West Virginia was admitted to the Union as a slave state. 18,000 slaves to be exact. That the Emancipation Proclamation exempted those 5 states from freeing their slaves. Did you know after all the slaves were freed in the south, it took an additional 8 months to abolish slavery from the North or Union by the 13th amendment which took effect 1 Jan 1866.

 

You can't expect them to know facts. Just the propaganda spewed to them by the PC police and race baiters.

 

When erasing symbols of slavery, don't forget the Democratic Party.

 

Or all Blacks for that matter, since they sold their own people. And pictures of jews, as well since they owned the slave ships that brought the Negroes over here.

 

The battle at the beginning for Lincoln was not slavery, it was the preservation of the union. Abraham Lincoln, 22 August, 1962: If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

Also dealing with the emancipation proclamation:

Fact #6: The Emancipation Proclamation changed the focus of the war. Up until September 1862, the main focus of the war had been to preserve the Union. With the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation freedom for slaves now became a legitimate war aim.

Fact #7: The Emancipation Proclamation helped prevent the involvement of foreign nations in the Civil War.

Britain and France had considered supporting the Confederacy in order to expand their influence in the Western Hemisphere. However, many Europeans were against slavery. Although some in the United Kingdom saw the Emancipation Proclamation as overly limited and reckless, Lincoln's directive reinforced the shift of the international political mood against intervention while the Union victory at Antietam further disturbed those who didn't want to intervene on the side of a lost cause.

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/emancipation-150/10-facts.html

 

I dont think the flag should be banned or removed from anything. It doesnt offend me in the slightest, but...I think its dishonest to claim the flag has nothing to do with slavery. What other meaning could it have to those flying it at the time?

 

This is debated among historians. Many think Lincoln didnt include slavery as his main arguement in the first half of the war due to his desire to keep the border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri from feeling obligated to joining the Confederacy.

Lincoln made his feelings well known on the slavery issue during the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

 

Slavery was indeed one of the causes of the civil. But slavery existed in the north, the union during and after the civil war. Four union states Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware were slave holding states fighting for the north. The reason for them was to preserve the Union, not abolition of slavery. Then to top it off, West Virginia was admitted to the Union in 1863 as a slave holding state, it had 18,000 slaves. Although the Willey amendment freed all children born of slaves. It did nothing to free any adult slaves whatsoever.

The Emancipation Proclamation exempted those 5 states, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware by name along with Tennessee and the 48 counties that would become the state of West Virginia.

with all this talk about the confederate flag and slavery, slavery also existed under the union flag and existed 8 months after all the slaves were freed in the south. Those 4 states that never left the union and the new state of West Virginia didn't free their slaves until 1 Jan 1866 as a result of the 13th amendment. The 13th amendment was passed by the senate in April of 1864, but failed in the House in June of 1864. Keep in mind congress and the house was made up of only northerners. It wasn't until 31 Jan 1865 that the House finally passed the 13th amendment and sent it to the states. It was ratified in December of 1865 by the required 3/4th of the states and on 1 jan 1866, became part of the constitution. That forced Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia to free their slaves. All Union states and the last states to do so.

 

Despite the history lesson, some of which is incorrect, you failed to answer my original question.

 

Still as of 22 August 1862 it was the preservation of the union that came first and probably foremost. Abraham Lincoln, 22 August, 1962: If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

I think it is safe to say that at the beginning of the Civil War it was being fought to preserve the union. Freeing the slaves came later which is what today, everyone remembers. But there were plenty of other grievances.

Real reasons for the Civil War:
This is well-reasoned document concerning the reasons the Civil War occurred.

Many people think the Civil War of 1860-1865 was fought over one issue alone, slavery. Nothing could actually be further from the truth. TheWar Between the States began because the South demanded States' rights and were not getting them.

The Congress at that time heavily favored the industrialized northern states to the point of demanding that the South sell is cotton and other raw materials only to the factories in the north, rather than to other countries. The Congress also taxed the finished materials that the northern industries produced heavily, making finished products that the South wanted, unaffordable. The Civil War should not have occurred. If the Northern States and their representatives in Congress had only listened to the problems of the South, and stopped these practices that were almost like the taxation without representation of Great Britain, then the Southern states would not have seceded and the war would not have occurred.

I know for many years, we have been taught that the Civil War was all about the abolition of slavery, but this truly did not become a major issue, with the exception of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, until after the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, when Abraham Lincoln decided to free the slaves in the Confederate States in order to punish those states for continuing the war effort. The war had been in progress for two years by that time.

Most southerners did not even own slaves nor did they own plantations. Most of them were small farmers who worked their farms with their families. They were fighting for their rights. They were fighting to maintain their lifestyle and their independence the way they wanted to without the United States Government dictating to them how they should behave.

Why are we frequently taught then, that the Civil War, War of Northern Aggression, War Between the States, or whatever you want to call it, was solely about slavery? That is because the history books are usually written by the winners of a war and this war was won by the Union. However, after following my family around since I was just a year old to Civil War Living History scenarios in Gettysburg and elsewhere, I have listened to both sides of the story, from those portraying historical figures, both Union and Confederate. Through listening to these people and also reading many different books, including some of the volumes of The Official Records of the Civil War, Death in September, The Insanity of It All, Every Day Life During the Civil War, and many others, I have come to the conclusion that the Civil War was about much more than abolishing the institution of slavery.

It was more about preserving the United States and protecting the rights of the individual, the very tenets upon which this country was founded. I personally think that the people who profess that the Civil War was only fought about slavery have not read their history books. I really am glad that slavery was abolished, but I don't think it should be glorified as being the sole reason the Civil War was fought. There are so many more issues that people were intensely passionate about at the time. Slavery was one of them, but it was not the primary cause of the war. The primary causes of the war were economics and states' rights.

Slavery was a part of those greater issues, but it was not the reason the Southern States seceded from the Union, nor fought the Civil War. It certainly was a Southern institution that was part of the economic system of the plantations, and because of that, it was part and parcel of the economic reasons that the South formed the Confederacy. The economic issue was one of taxation and being able to sell cotton and other raw materials where the producers wanted to, rather than where they were forced to, and at under inflated prices. Funny, it sounds very much like the reason we broke from Great Britain to begin with. The South was within their rights, but there should have been another way to solve the problem. If they had been willing to listen to Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the war could have been avoided. Lincoln had a plan to gradually free the slaves without it further hurting the plantation owners. He also had a plan to allow them to sell their products anywhere they wanted to and at a fair price. They did not choose to listen to the President, however, so they formed the Confederacy and the Civil War began.

 

Preservation of the union was the end of slavery hence the Emancipation.

I keep hearing this was also about property and states rights. What states rights and what property was the south specifically refering to?

 

I do not think in all my posting I ever mention property. But since you brought it up, the property you refer to was the same type of property 4 northern states possessed along with the new state of West Virginia. Which was not effected by the Emancipation Proclamation. As for states rights, it was more of what I as a state choose to voluntarily to join, I should as a state be voluntarily able to leave.

 

I'm sure you have heard others say the Civil War was about property AND states rights not just slavery.

So you claim that the right that southern states felt was under attack by the federal governement was their right to leave the Union and that is what prompted them to leave the Union? The fact that they couldn't leave the Union was the reason for succession? Am I understanding you correctly?

 

Perhaps you could call it self determination. The second war for independence and the right of Georgia to determine their own fate. This union at the time was a union of several states. Each state thought they could and do what is right for their state. Not necessarily what the federal government thought is right for their state. Back in those days the people thought of themselves as Georgians, New Yorkers, Virginians and most people, at least in the south had more loyalty to their state than the federal government. The term Americans really didn't apply back then. That probably is impossible for most folks today to understand.

If doing right by Georgia meant leaving the union, then Georgia would leave the union. Several New England States had held a convention to do just this back during the war of 1812. So it was not a new concept. Things were completely different back then, one must put events, happenings, grievances and actions to those thing in the context of the 1850's and 1860's. Using today's standards gives one a very misrepresentation of what went on and why.

Most people today believe the civil war was just about slavery and slavery alone. Sure slavery played a big part in its cause. But in the beginning the war was more about preservation of the union than slavery. It was the north that invaded the south to preserve the union. The south did not invade the north so they could leave. Like FDR who wanted the U.S. involved in WWII and the Japanese provided the reason with its attack on Pearl harbor, FDR was going to get us involved one way or the other even without Pearl Harbor. Lincoln was in the same mindset, he was not going to let the south go peaceably, the south gave him his Pearl Harbor in Ft. Sumter. But Lincoln paid no heed when the south asked for all Federal troops to withdraw from Confederate territory. In the minds of the south, those federal troops were an occupying army and the south wanted to drive them out. Lincoln had his war.

 

Ok. So the Federal government grows. It now has it's eyes on the South and the South says no way man we are doing it our way. That's the theory? Can you back yours up to the level I can my theory that slavery was the root cause of the Civil War?

AT what point was slavery NOT the issue?

Was it when the Underground Railroad was formed in 1938? (All about slavery)

Was it when Lincoln declares "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free..."?

Was it when the 1840 1840 census had shown a total population of 16,987,946 including 2,482,546 slaves or 15% of the population in the South, and slaves virtually non-existent in northern states and as high as 55% in South Carolina and 52% in Mississippi?

Or how about when Uncle Toms Cabin was written and to become one the countries most influencial novels? (All about slavery)

The Dred Scott case?

The Lincoln-Douglas debates? (All about slavery)

The Transcendental movement?

The Compromise of 1850! (All about slavery)

The South repeatedly threatening succession over and over again? (Every time was about slavery)

Oh wait I know, it was when John Brown attacked Harpers Ferry and became a national hero. The song written about John Brown would become the most popular song during Union marches, and the prerequisite to the Battle Hymm of the Republic. Oh and...John Brown hated slavery. It was his defining characteristic.

Oh let me try the most popular one among historians. When new territories began joining the Union as free states as opposed to slave states. That has to be it. Maybe this is why the South tried to take over sections of Latin America and expand slavery? I think most historians would say yes.

How about when the South finally commited to seccession?

That is their declaration of seccession bro. (South Carolina I think)

I mean come on man. Just admit it and move on. Everything that lead up to the war was about slavery. Everything that kicked the war off was about slavery. Literally. Everything. I agree protecting states rights was something the South was interested in, but the right they were talking about was the institution of slavery.

 

I'm all for it if it helps KILL Wall Street.

 

First of all, the TEA Party is closer to ideology to the Taliban than liberalism is, secondly, Marxism and the Taliban are fundamentally different in so so many ways it's insane that you would try and link the two together.

It's obvious you have absolutely no idea what either of those two ideologies represent.

Probably just repeating what Hannity wants you to think.

And no, we don't need to be bulldozing down the Jefferson Memorial, or renaming Washington because they owned slaves, the reason that people are against the Confederate flag is because what it has come to represent and that's hate and intolerance.