I am a student of history. I don't follow the history we are told existed based on the political ramblings of the leftists in the education system, but the history that existed according to the words of the people that were there. I own thousands of books, and many of the historical books were printed in the nineteenth century, or very early twentieth century. Speaking the truth has become a radical act, and learning the truth has become more difficult with each passing year.
The image you see in the top left corner of this post is of a confederate battle flag, and a replica of a confederate soldiers military cap, on one of the walls of my office. I purchased these items at a civil war reenactment a while back. The confederate battle flag is above the door of my office, opposite the Stars and Stripes, and a copy of the original Constitution of the United States. Below the Constitution is a replica of an early map of the world. Looking at the map you can see how out of scale the New World is, but then again, it had been newly discovered and the distances had not yet been figured out. On the wall to my left is a Gadsen Flag, with the curled rattlesnake and the words "Don't Tread On Me." Below that is a large framed logo for the American Militia, established 1791 (date of the ratification of the 2nd Amendment). To my right is an image of the United States Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima. On my desk is a similar image, this one of the firemen raising the American Flag at Ground Zero. An American Bald Eagle is perched, or flying, on each of my four walls. It is a small office, but it is where I spend most of my time, so symbols of liberty and history that are important to me surround me in that office.
President Barack Obama, in an effort to extend racial division, create crisis, and erase the history that does not agree with his agenda has compared the confederate battle flag to the flag of Nazi Germany. He has proclaimed that all symbols of the confederacy should be eliminated from the public eye. This includes not only the confederate flag, but statues, memorials, parks, and even school mascots. There is no doubt that eventually the effort to strip the world of the icons that remind us of the American Civil War, or at least the South's part in it, will lead to the politically correct banning of the world "rebel," or "confederate."
Are we going to see confederate symbol burnings, reminiscent of the book burnings the leftists swear conservative Christians want to partake in?
The issue of slavery was definitely an ingredient that led to the War Between the States, but a deep research of the true nature of the war, and the history before the war, reveals that slavery was but a minor part of what the confederacy was all about. The confederate flag does not represent racism as much as Obama, or any of the foaming at the mouth race-baiters would like to think, but actually represents State's rights, liberty, and a rebellion against the federal government as it became a consolidated national government as we see the liberal left pushing for today.
The Obama administration's policies, and this ridiculous push to ban all things confederate, are at considerable odds with the vision the Founding Fathers had for this nation. They wrote the Constitution to protect State Sovereignty, and the federal government was created to preserve that sovereignty, not control the States as we see today. The federal government rules with an absolute fist, using the tyranny of the majority to wield its control. The War Between the States questioned the move by the federal government to control the States, and rejected the unconstitutional actions of the federal government to the point that they were willing to secede from the union. Washington had breached the contract called the United States Constitution, and the southern states no longer desired to be a part of the rising tyranny they saw in action.
The American Civil War did not begin over slavery. It was not fought to end slavery. Slavery was a worldwide problem, but in other countries it did not take bloodshed to end it. The Founding Fathers believed that the States would abolish slavery one by one, and that it would happen within their lifetimes.
Abraham Lincoln did not become a candidate for President to abolish slavery, but to contain it. He made direct statements defending slave owner's right to own their property when he indicated his support for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. His reason for using military force to challenge the sovereignty of the southern states was not to abolish slavery, but to force the states into compliance with federal dictates. It wasn't until the Emancipation Proclamation, a political gimmick that got Europe out of the war, and only applied to slaves in States in rebellion, that the war's identity became one about slavery.
The union is a voluntary membership by States that voluntarily created the federal government so that it may handle external issues that the States may not individually be able to handle. The States did not forfeit their identity, sovereignty, or unique cultures by becoming a part of the union. In no way was the federal government created to control the States. The right of secession was legal, and still remains a tool available to the States if they feel the necessity to wield it.
In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Stephen Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to "impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government" that would "place at defiance the intentions of the republic's founders."
Douglas was right.
Lincoln set out to force the southern states back into the union by military force, and to outlaw secession. The federal government, then, after the war, militarily occupied the South, and forced them into compliance. Abraham Lincoln was a progressive that believed in a big government that controlled the States, and the Southern States seceded for reasons of State Sovereignty and individual liberty for the States. The symbols of the confederacy, though linked to slavery, more accurately depict a struggle in the United States against those that would use nationalism to force the States into submission, an act that stood in direct opposition to the principles of limited government established by the United States Constitution.
Abraham Lincoln thought of himself as the heir to the Hamiltonian political tradition, which sought a more centralized government. Alexander Hamilton was a statist, and his curse continues to fester in American politics. The confederate battle flag represents a rebellion against such unconstitutional attitudes, and tyrannical governmental philosophies. To erase all signs of the confederacy is to erase the one time in history when States stood up to the tyranny of an expanding federal government and said "we will not participate in this kind of statism," and then were militarily punished for daring to question the federal government.
Eliminate the confederacy's legacy, and you erase an important part of history. The Democrats don't want you to remember "rebellion," for under the watch of the liberal left, rebellion will not be tolerated.
I own a confederate battle flag because it represents State Sovereignty, and because, when it comes to the slavery part of the whole argument, "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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