The reality of the Confederate flag

It is truly amazing how little people actually know about the Civil War. You hear people talk and the North was the savior of mankind racing into the evil South who simply wanted to sell everybody and their grandmother into slavery. Neither is true. Yes there was slavery but slavery had also been going on in other countries for centuries prior to the Civil War. Yes there were atrocities that occurred during slavery but there were also many aspects of slavery that was basically no different than many employment aspects of today. Some people got paid a wage; many got their housing and food. Many ‘slave owners’ knew that their ‘slaves’ were what kept them in business and made them money so they took care of their slaves. After the Emancipation Proclamation many slaves wanted to remain with their owners because their owner protected them, took care of them and provided food and housing. Additionally not every ‘black’ person in the South was a slave. There were also some highly well to do black people in the South.



People who say that the Confederate flag is a symbol of hatred need to learn the history of the Confederate flag. The Confederate Flag has roots in the ‘jolly roger’ which was a naval flag, it carries to England and the colonies, it is a prototype of the first American flag, and it goes even further back to the St. Andrew’s cross and the flag of Scotland. Also, if you review history there was a major aspect of the Confederacy that was a direct response to what they saw as an invasion of the central government into State’s rights. The Confederacy was for the South a fight not for the protection of slavery, but the protection of what they viewed as a direct attack upon the Constitution. The flag represented martyrs and soldiers who were willing to die for a belief. It still represents a rebel spirit that says they will not be toyed with when it comes to the Constitution and State and personal rights.
If the South was so anti-black as the media and modern historians have tried to portray then a valid question would be why directly after the Civil War there were so many blacks in politics and holding office in Congress. In additional to this question would be another puzzle as to why they were all Republicans if the Republicans were the one’s seeking their enslavement. Modern historians love to twist the past into what is beneficial to their cause. In reality it was the Democrats who brought about the ‘Old South’ in reaction to the freed black man.
Instead of condemning a ‘thing’ as being either good or evil I would question the people who are raising the issue. History shows that the Confederacy was not a bunch of anti-black racists who wanted to put a price tag on the head of every non-white. History also shows that the black race did very well after the Civil War and many even during the time up to and including the Civil War.
History also shows that in so many areas that those who sought evil upon mankind during the period of and after the Civil War are those who are being raised as the heroes of the oppressed while those who actually raised the oppressed are being presented as the villain.
I would call for our elected officials to study history and to learn the realities of the South before making statements, but then again I think of many of the statements that our elected officials have been making lately and just hope it is not too late for the rest who actually want to learn from history.