Southern pride gone wrong!

[princessmom29]

Really?

"The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States"

Congressman Laurence Keitt (SC), advisor to Jefferson Davis, in a speech to the House on succession

that would be the opinion of one person. Read the documents that defined the confederacy as a nation. Then get back to me.

 

[moburg]

Of course this woman is well within her rights to do this. I personally think her behavior and actions are ignorant and vile. I have heard the "southern pride" argument on what the flag means and just don't get it. Why would anyone take pride in secession?

My thoughts on Annie(from the story)... I don't think it's southern pride. I think she's a racist. She moved to a predominately black neighborhood. We all know what the confederate flag symbolizes for black people - slavery/suppression of basic human rights. She's just "poking at a hornet's nest." Sure hope she doesn't get stung.

Her neighbors build a fence on their properties so they don't have to see the flag every time they look out their window or step outside. So, what does Miss Southern Pride do? She does what any self respecting racist would do. She gets a higher flagpole so the flag will be seen over the fence. She just wants to shove her "southern pride" in everybody's face. What a revolting piece of trash!

And if this guy moved into that neighborhood and put up the confederate flag?

The President of "Southern Heritage 411" is H.K. Edgerton, a black Confederate activist who works tirelessly to bring the real truth of our heritage to people of all races. H.K. Edgerton has walked thousands of miles carrying his large Confederate Battle Flag through cities and towns and down country roads. He speaks at venues all over the South exposing the many myths of Yankee history and setting the record straight regarding blacks role in the history of the South.

That said, I completely agree with this from the original article: "Local officials have said she has the right to fly the flag, while her neighbors have the right to protest. And build fences."

 

[bunkkinsmom]

I don't really get it either - but maybe it's because the flag represents a time that the South demonstrated their independence. It's one symbol from the time when the South was a separate entity from the rest of the country. It might also represent their belief in state's rights, which is what the South was fighting for. I can't think of another thing that would symbolize all that, though there could be something else that would.

yeah I can see that. It was a revolution. The South was underestimated and almost succeeded. They were invaded and stood their ground for State's rights. Like the history of our name:
Many believe it to be a nickname given during the U.S. Civil War, because of the state's importance on the Confederate side, and the fact that the troops "stuck to their ranks like they had tar on their heels".

What does that mean, "I make dumplins that would make you want to smack somebody"?

Now I'm hungry too! Guess it's time to eat that Bojangles meal I took home from work yesterday.....

You know what it means! And howdy neighbor! My DH swears that Bojangles is the only fast food place that makes "REAL" sweet tea. I tend to think that Chick-Fil-A does a pretty good job.

 

[Scurvy]

But why that particular flag? I haven't seen a lot of Bonnie Blue Flags or even the official Confederate States of America flag (especially the first flag) which would also symbolize the same thing without being such a hotbed issue.

Maybe because the battle flag specifically represents the fight, and the willingness to fight for state's rights is what people are proud of. I don't know, because that isn't something that I feel when I see that flag - but I can understand that other people feel differently about it than I do.

 

[princessmom29]

The bottom line is this: It's equally intellectually dishonest to say that the US Civil War was just about "State's Rights" as it is to try and say that it was just about whether Slavery should exist within the country's borders.

Why? BOTH the USA AND the CSA had plans to abloish slavery, they just didn't agree on how to do so. I think it would be more accurate to say that how the abolition of slavery was handled played a role in the War. The north wanted ot snatch it out from under the South's economy and destroy it while the CSA had a plan to phase it out withotu crippling the economy in the process. The 30 Year Plan would have gotten the job done.

 

[Golf4food]

But why that particular flag? I haven't seen a lot of Bonnie Blue Flags or even the official Confederate States of America flag (especially the first flag) which would also symbolize the same thing without being such a hotbed issue.

Like I said, I get the pride thing and am not one of the "that flag is offensive in every context" people but at the same time it does evoke a negative stereotype from many people and brings up bad feelings from other people. The people who are trying to dispel the negative stereotype I'd think are the one who would most want to find another symbol.

I think most people just are not aware of the Bonnie Blue or the Confederate National flags. Everyone knows the Battle Flag based upon the St. Andrew's Cross. (For those not aware: The Confederate Battle flag was created after early battles such as Bull Run where the Confederate National flag looked too similar to the US Stars and Stripes and resulted in battlefield confusion in all of the smoke of battle and caused some friendly fire incidents or else prevented enemy troops from firing upon attackers until too late because they couldn't clearly identify the flag.)

I've long been a proponent that true Southerners should adopt one of the Confederate national flags (there were five official Confederate national flags) as a symbol of heritage and let the racists keep the battle flag so as to differentiate between the two groups.

Also, the Bonnie Blue flag was more regional, being originally from West Florida in 1810 and is more prevalent in the old Florida pieces of Louisiana and Mississippi, etc. The song it influenced was more important than the flag itself.

Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Southern Rights, Hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bears a Single Star!

 

[Geoff_M]

But why that particular flag?

My guess is that's because it was the flag of the most popular Southern "heroes" of the war: Lee & Jackson... along with the fact it was the flag that most of the veterans fought beneath as the official "Stars & Bars" was too often confused with the US Flag in the field.

 

[bunkkinsmom]

Why is the War of Northern Aggression such a big deal in the South?

Anyone who has driven "off the beaten path" in any Southern state should be able to answer that question if they open their eyes and look around.

Only one Southern capital east of the Mississippi River was not captured by Federals during the war (Tallahassee, FL). Of the rest most of them were severly damaged or nearly completely destroyed. Most other major cities were heavily damaged. Many smaller towns were completely destroyed. Many individual farms were damaged or destroyed. A very high percentage of the entire white male population of the South was killed or wounded during the war, directly impacting families after the fighting had long ended. Cities and towns that do survive today took years or decades to rebuild and even then most never fully recovered. The politics of Reconstruction was so restrictive that the economy in the South languished until after the invention of Air Conditioning and even today still lags behind much the rest of the country. (Thank God for air conditioning!)

There was no damage to northern cities. A smaller percentage of the population was impacted by the death and wounds. For the north the war was fought "down there". For the south it was fought on our front steps. Even in relatively unimportant Florida I grew up just minutes away from a battlefield where over 3,000 people where killed or wounded in just a few hours of fighting. In Virginia you can't throw a rock without it landing on a place where there's a high chance someone died during fighting at some point in the war.

People look back on the history of WWII and clearly see that the overly oppressive terms laid down at the end of WWI directly led to the rise of the Nazi regime and resulted in WWII. The Reconstruction politics in the south were just as bad and directly led to the creation of the KKK, which then evolved into the racial organization we all know today.

Why do the New England Patriots have Minute Men as mascots? The Revolution was fought in their front yards. It impacted them directly in a very real way. Why do Southerners hold a high place of honor upon the sacrifices of Confederate soldiers? The Civil War was fought in our front yards. It impacted us directly in a very real way and continued to do so for 100 years or more.

It is easy to ignore a war fought thousands of miles away. But when that war destroys everything around you and keeps it that way for multiple generations is has a way of sticking with you. Why did America turn against Vietnam? Because television brought it into their homes on a daily basis and made it real. The Civil War was very "real" in the south in much the same way, only on a much broader scale, and stayed that way will past the middle of the 20th century.

Amazing post, thank you. I live very close to a battlefield as well, and I think that maybe people don't realize how recent this was. My Great Grandmother who I was very close to was born in 1899 and told us stories of her mother as a girl in a post war south. I am going to Disney soon with 4 generations, and the Civil War is only 2 generations from that.

The bottom line is this: It's equally intellectually dishonest to say that the US Civil War was just about "State's Rights" as it is to try and say that it was just about whether Slavery should exist within the country's borders.

I agree to an extent. I don't think that I ever said that it was "just" about State's Rights. My point was more of a pot meet kettle kind of thing.
The North profited from slavery as much if not more so than the South.

 

[princessmom29]

But why that particular flag? I haven't seen a lot of Bonnie Blue Flags or even the official Confederate States of America flag (especially the first flag) which would also symbolize the same thing without being such a hotbed issue.

Like I said, I get the pride thing and am not one of the "that flag is offensive in every context" people but at the same time it does evoke a negative stereotype from many people and brings up bad feelings from other people. The people who are trying to dispel the negative stereotype I'd think are the one who would most want to find another symbol.

because nither of those flags stuck through the fighting, hardship, and heartbreak that was the civil war in the South. No one's son, brother, or husband died under them. No one's farm was burned and pillaged or occupied by troops who took everything the family had and left the m to starve, cities were not razed and crippled.

 

[FireDancer]

I've long been a proponent that true Southerners should adopt one of the Confederate national flags (there were five official Confederate national flags) as a symbol of heritage and let the racists keep the battle flag so as to differentiate between the two groups.

Makes perfect sense to me.

 

[LuvsDragonflies]

It's all well and good to tell someone what flag they should choose to honor, but in reality THEY are the people who's families lived thru it and were directly affected by it. They'll fly what they want. Wouldn't it make just as much sense to educate people to what the flag really represents instead of letting a falsehood perpetuate? What, exactly, would change? People would still be up in arms because the flag represents the Civil War.

Why would it make any difference which Civil War flag it is if people don't understand that the flag isn't "against black people" or "for slavery"?

If you can't get people to understand it about one flag, what makes you think any other Civil War flag would not also bother them?

 

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

that would be the opinion of one person. Read the documents that defined the confederacy as a nation. Then get back to me.

Can you post a link to those documents? I'm genuinely interested in reading them, because I don't think that I ever have in full detail and it would be an interesting learning experience. I did find a reference in Jefferson Davis' Secession Speech asserting that the right to own slaves derives from the nation's founding and that it is established in the Constitution, and no reference to a plan to have that right be dissolved in the Confederacy. The salient paragraph is quoted here:

"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races. That Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were declaring their independence; the people of those communities were asserting that no man was born - to use the language of Mr. Jefferson - booted and spurred to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal - meaning the men of the political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended to families, but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they announced; these were the end to which their enunciation was directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how happened it that among the items of arraignment made against George III was that he endeavored to do just what the North had been endeavoring of late to do - to stir up insurrection among our slaves? Had the declaration announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the prince to be arraigned for stirring up insurrection among them? And how was this to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the colonies to sever their connection with the mother country? When our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find provision made for the very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men - not even upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be represented in the numerical proportion of three-fifths."

Can you also post a link to documents about the reference you made to the South's plan to end slavery on its own, because I have certainly never heard of that before and I read a lot of history. It seems Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, was unaware of those plans, as well (don't forget, he wanted the USA to take over Cuba to "increase the number of slave-holding constituencies.").

Having attended private schools in the North my entire life, we were always taught that the war was fought over states' rights and economic control, but that the issue of slavery was one of those states' rights that were in dispute. It was not solely about slavery, but to dispute that it had nothing to do with slavery seems rather disingenuous to me.

 

[FireDancer]

It's all well and good to tell someone what flag they should choose to honor, but in reality THEY are the people who's families lived thru it and were directly affected by it. They'll fly what they want. Wouldn't it make just as much sense to educate people to what the flag really represents instead of letting a falsehood perpetuate? What, exactly, would change? People would still be up in arms because the flag represents the Civil War.

Why would it make any difference which Civil War flag it is if people don't understand that the flag isn't "against black people" or "for slavery"?

If you can't get people to understand it about one flag, what makes you think any other Civil War flag would not also bother them?

I'm not telling anyone to do anything, I don't care. I'm asking why it is that people have chosen a symbol that has such a negative connotation to so many. I would think the people who are trying to break a stereotype would be the ones who would want to compromise.

I have no dog in this fight. I see that flag and think Dukes of Hazzard...isn't that adorable, not southern pride or racism.

 

[LuvsDragonflies]

I have no dog in this fight. I see that flag and think Dukes of Hazzard...isn't that adorable, not southern pride or racism.

 

[LIDisneyFan]

that would be the opinion of one person. Read the documents that defined the confederacy as a nation. Then get back to me.

Would be facsinated if you could post a link to them-especially the part about ending slavery.

 

[princessmom29]

Would be facsinated if you could post a link to them-especially the part about ending slavery.

here is the original confederate consitiution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/csa.html

I cannot find a free link to the information, but this is a great book that discusses, amoung other things, Lee's plan to phase out slavery by halting the import of new slaves, and stopping its expansion:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101599.Guns_of_the_South

The plan never got a chance to be emplemented becuase they were busy fighting a war that they eventually lost, but not everyone in the South shared the opinions of a vocal few, and most knew why they were really fighting. You have to remember also that slave owners were a small minority in the south.

 

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

that would be the opinion of one person. Read the documents that defined the confederacy as a nation. Then get back to me.

OK, I just read the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, and it explicitly states the following in Article 1, Section 9:

"4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

and the following from Article 4, Section 3:

"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states."


I'm not sure how to reconcile this with your statements and am hoping you can provide some guidance as to how the super-secret plan to end slavery would mesh with the fact that such a plan would be explicitly unconstitutional?

 

[LIDisneyFan]

OK, I just read the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, and it explicitly states the following in Article 1, Section 9:

"4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

and the following from Article 4, Section 3:

"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states."


I'm not sure how to reconcile this with your statements and am hoping you can provide some guidance as to how the super-secret plan to end slavery would mesh with the fact that such a plan would be explicitly unconstitutional?

And, in searching the document, it is the only reference to slavery.

 

[NY Disney fan]

Let's stop pretending the Confederate Flag is about southern pride and admit what it truly is about: Jefferson Davis' (failed) utopia.

 

[princessmom29]

OK, I just read the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, and it explicitly states the following in Article 1, Section 9:

"4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

and the following from Article 4, Section 3:

"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states."


I'm not sure how to reconcile this with your statements and am hoping you can provide some guidance as to how the super-secret plan to end slavery would mesh with the fact that such a plan would be explicitly unconstitutional?

The same way prohibiton was enacted and abolished, through constitutional amendment. In this case proposed by Robert E. Lee, but never encated becuase the war ended. It isn't "super secret". Every kid that goes through 5th grade history learns about it, at least at our schools.

here is a link to another book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Confederate-Emancipation-Southern-Slaves-during/dp/0195147626#_