"CSA Pride", History and Ignorance

From the news:

Confederate flag causes race war

“We’re just standing up for what we believe in,” Wayne Matthews said.  He’s one of the students who helped pass out t-shirts before school Wednesday morning. His mother made 32 Confederate flag t-shirts and stacked them up in the back of her trunk.

...
Matthews said this has nothing to do with race; it’s about his right to freely express himself. To him, the Confederate flag does not represent any one race. “It stands for people that believe in what the Civil War is about and it stands for Southern pride,” Matthews said.

The t-shirts bear a large image of the Confederate States of America (CSA) "Rebel Flag" with accompanying text:  "If this Shirt Offends You, You Need to Learn History".



OK, let's look at history:


A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery

So Mississippi "wins", by getting straight to the point.  The other seceding southern states take a little more time to get to the point - but it is the same point.

See:

 Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

South Carolina self-righteously invokes the Declaration of Independence:

 We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence;

That would be the same Declaration of Independence that states

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

But South Carolina conveniently skips that part, instead invoking the parts of the Constitition dealing with "rights" of slaveholders:

But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution....Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

Georgia and Texas take similar paths.

So they make a "legal" case for their secession, but it is all about slavery.


The secession of the southern states, and the subsequent creation of the CSA was about slavery.  Period. 

But slavery is the alleged "right" of people to own human beings.

There can be no such right.

No piece of paper, nor any other legalism, can create such a right.  It is a nullity. 

Since the owners were almost entirely white, and the slaves were almost entirely black - and the universal assertion was to the effect that this was correct due to the natures of the peoples involved - this is about race.


Matthews and his mother are both ignorant fools.

The South has many things to be proud of.  The CSA and the ensuing war shouldn't be among them.  The CSA flag has no place in polite - or sane - society.
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