I read about the recent Charlotte Frontier Days Parade and the young lady on horseback who was carrying a Confederate battle flag. Your comment was, “We consider the Confederate flag a symbol of racism, regardless of its history. It is associated with hate," said Lewis. "It's not a reflection of the people and their beliefs." As erroneous as that statement is, yet it is understandable due to the plague of historical ignorance flooding this country. Just because some people have hijacked a flag, that does not define its’ meaning. The KKK commonly used the U.S. flag through the 1950s, yet we hear nothing of this flag being “associated with hate” or “a symbol of racism”. Only the people to whom a flag belongs have the right to define it. Were you aware that it was Old Glory that flew on the New England slave ships carrying their cargoes of slaves? No Confederate flag ever flew on a slave ship. If people actually knew the truth about our history we would not be seeing all this hate for everything Southern and Confederate. The truth is not taught in our schools and universities. Too many people have swallowed the rewritten version of history and not bothered with researching the truth about The War of Northern Aggression, and the South is shackled with the blame for slavery, and the war.
Slavery had nothing to do with it. If the war was “all about freeing the slaves” why did the North not first free the more than 429,000 slaves still in the Union AFTER the South seceded? (1860 census) Look up the Corwin Amendment and the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution which prove the war was not about slavery. Why did Lincoln countermand General Freemont’s order in Missouri and have emancipated slaves returned to their masters? No, it was not about slavery, but money, power, and greed. The South was illegally invaded and forced back into a tyrannical Union it wanted no part of because Lincoln could not bear to lose the revenues being extracted from the South, since it was paying 85% of the federal revenues. We call that “wealth redistribution”. Lincoln squashed States’ rights and sovereignty and established a strong, centralized government which we are still shackled with today.
The Confederate battle flag, Confederate monuments, and the names of streets, parks and schools (which have been changed and removed) represent brave people who were defending their homes and families from invaders, looters, arsonists, and rapists and wanted only to be left alone and live as the Founding Fathers intended, with the type of government established by the Founders. Lies, myths, and propaganda have slandered the good name of the Confederate soldier and what he was fighting for.
I hope that you may take this as an opportunity to learn the truth about our history, and learn that the South was not the evil, slave-beating, backward people they have been portrayed, and that it was the New England Yankees who got rich from the slave trade, yet receive no blame whatsoever for their part of slavery in America.
