Flag Flap

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’m curious about how widespread is this view of the American Civil War as " a rebellion to[sic] the US Army who were [sic] about money and power" and not about race.</p>

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<p>That’s a really, really complex issue that not a lot of people agree with. The thing about “money and power” is that not much of the South would have any of that without slaves. While the North was industrializing the south was not, and couldn’t keep doing what it was doing without slaves, so to take them away would take away their money and power. In that sense I suppose you could say what he’s saying is correct; it’s not that they hated black people, they just needed SOMEONE to be their slaves to keep the standards of living for the land owners down there where they were. That’s not to say that they weren’t terribly wrong and racist, just outlining one argument that I think he’s making.</p>

<p>If you go to some parts of the south the name of the war is still “The War of Northern Aggression,” if that tells you anything about their views on it.</p>

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<p>Our teachers called it “The War of Yankee Aggression”.</p>

<p>The Civil War was simply the culmination of unreconcilable differences between the agrarian South and the industrializing North – differences that had been only papered over in the drafting of the Constitution.</p>

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<p>I think it’s quite well accepted that the civil war was not about race or slavery… it was about state rights (slavery being one of the major issues in that department, but not the only one). It was the climax of an increasingly tense relationship between an agricultural (e.g. plantation) driven south at odds with an increasingly industrializing north.</p>

<p><strong>Edit</strong> Ha, interesteddad posts almost the exact same description just as I’m typing mine ;-).</p>

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<p>I respectfully disagree. While slavery was not the ONLY cause of the Civil War, it is certainly NOT “well accepted that the civil war was was not about race or slavery.” FAR from it. </p>

<p>The idea that the South was rebelling against the **US Army **is so far off-base that I’d withhold the young man’s diploma until he learned some US history. The officer corps of the antebellum US Army was dominated by Southerners and Southern sympathizers. Robert E. Lee was a West Point graduate, after all. His father served both as a major general in the army and governor of Virginia. Indeed, at the outbreak of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee was offered the position of commander in chief of the UNION forces. He turned down the job because his home state of Virginia seceded from the Union and he chose to follow it. </p>

<p>At the outbreak of the war, SHERMAN–yes, William Tecumseh Sherman–was the commandant of the Citadel. It was then a relatively new institution but it was founded to educate Southern gentlemen for the US ARMY. Sherman thought it would be a huge mistake to end slavery because he believed to his dying day that “the negro” was so inferior that he would be unable to take care of himself if freed. After the Civil War, he was very pro-South and fought tooth and nail against legislation denying former Confederate officers and soldiers the right to vote and hold public office. </p>

<p>I doubt very much that the young men were unaware of the way in which many African-Americans view the Confederate flag. I assume that someone could come up with another context in which a swaztika has been used and claimed that walking into a high school with three of them had “nothing to do with” anti-Semitism. I do not credit either explanation.</p>

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<p>And of course, the Confederate flag all of a sudden became a necessary cultural symbol (nothing to do with race) just when civil rights and integration were happening (added to many Southern state flags, and/or flown over capitol buildings, starting in the 1950s and 60s.) Just a coincidence, of course.</p>

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<p>Minnesota of all places. We had an incident a couple of years ago in our high school. Some kids started wearing Confederate flags on their t-shirts etc… and then making comments about it to some black kids.
The principal decided Confederate flags were not school appropriate because they made some students uncomfortable and provoked comments.
The outcry - it went to the school board. The kids lost and it all died down - </p>

<p>Most ironic - my daughter just spent a year in rural Alabama - she never saw one Confederate Flag displayed on a house, pickup truck or clothing while she was there.
Somehow up north - it has become a symbol of “our heritage”.</p>

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<p>“I assume that someone could come up with another context in which a swaztika has been used and claimed that walking into a high school with three of them had “nothing to do with” anti-Semitism.”</p>

<p>Right. The swastika was an ancient symbol for the sun, and is often found in religious architecture in Japan, among other places. But it was co-opted by fascist murderers, so you can’t use it for its original meaning any more; it dredges up too much of the poison it later came to symbolize.</p>

<p>Same deal with that flag. For purposes of this controversy, it doesn’t matter what the Civil War was about. Long after Appomattox, that flag was used by segregationists and Klan terrorists as a symbol of violent white supremacy. That association is now attached to it, and you simply can’t use that flag without bringing its baggage along. If you want to support states’ rights to rebel against the federal government, fly Bonnie Blue…and if you don’t know what Bonnie Blue is, then you need to go back and learn some more about the cause you supposedly support.</p>

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<p>You guys should read Jim Webb’s “Born Fighting” because it discusses the Southern perspective in fascinating detail. Not that you don’t already know that perspective, of course, but the book is interesting and insightful. Well worth a read.</p>

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<p>On a side note along this topic of the meaning of various symbols I imagine that most people in the US don’t remember, or don’t know, that prior to WWII this</p>

<p>[bellamy+salute.jpg</a> (image)](<a href=“bellamy+salute.jpg]bellamy+salute.jpg (image)”>bellamy+salute.jpg (image))</p>

<p>was the position used by Americans to show respect to the flag during the Pledge. After WWII that ‘hail’ position obviously grew out of fashion and hence the sole ‘hand on heart’ position we use today.</p>

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<p>Nope - the Civil War was about state’s rights pertaining to slavery (the whole state’s rights argument is merely an “extra step”) - or rather, whether the territories to the West would become a slave or free state (Lincoln and the Republicans were willing to let the slave states continue in their ways, but the slave states feared a future where free states would outnumber slave states).</p>

<p>Hence, the precursor to the Civil War - “Bloody Kansas” which was all about whether Kansas was going to be a free or slave state.</p>

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<p>Civil War was about “states rights?” Unfortunately, the main “right” those Confederate states were fussing about was the right of human beings to own other human beings as property. </p>

<p>There were (and still are) regional differences within the US other than slavery, but nothing remotely worth going to war for. Ask yourself this: If slavery had never been established in the US but the North and the South still had all the same differences other than slavery, would there still have been a Civil War? Not a chance. No slavery = No Civil War.</p>

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<p>zoosermom–another great book is “Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz. Fascinating read. For many people of all stripes in the South, the Cause still lives.</p>

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<p>“zoosermom–another great book is “Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz. Fascinating read. For many people of all stripes in the South, the Cause still lives”</p>

<p>Hey, thanks. I’ll look for that. The thing that impressed me about Senator Webb’s book is the rational, intelligent and historical manner in which he explained that there actually is another point of view and it’s a lot more nuanced than man of us have been taught.</p>