Im explaining the historical context of the symbol that is the rebel flag and why it is controversial. Im not telling anyone how to feel about it.

I think he's just explaining why people have problems with the flag... which you don't seem to agree with. Just like you can explain why you like the flag... which others don't have to agree with.

http://members.tripod.com/~txscv/csa.htm

I enjoyed looking at this site. it has a lot of different confederate flags & a little history on each. The music playing is "The Bonnie Blue Flag"

I had a tour of Ulysses S. Grant's home today. It included a movie. He was born and raised in the free state of Ohio and married a woman raised in the slave state of Missouri. Grant's father-in-law had 30 slaves at his home in St. Louis County.

Grant became a General in the Union army before he became a two term president.

I found the movie about him interesting. See, Grant sometimes lived with his slave owning father-in-law. They argued alot about the slavery issues.

The movie had Grant telling the father-in-law that the Union was going to be divided because the North didn't want slavery spreading into their states. They didn't want a war and
they didn't want the Union to get divided. The South was fighting to protect their property - the slaves. These are Grant's words from his memoirs which later became a book.

The following is a conversation between Otto von Bismarck (the founder and first chancellor of the German Empire) and General Grant that occurred in June, 1878.

"You are so happily placed," replied the prince, "in America that you need fear no wars. What always seemed so sad to me about your last great war was that you were fighting your own people. That is always so terrible in wars, so very hard."

"But it had to be done." said the General.

"Yes," said the prince, "you had to save the Union just as we had to save Germany."

"Not only save the Union, but destroy slavery," answered the General.

"I suppose, however, the Union was the real sentiment, the dominant sentiment," said the prince.

"In the beginning, yes," said the General; "but as soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle."

http://www.granthomepage.com/grantslavery.htm

As you can see Grant even knew that the war was not started because of slavery. He offers that fact and also an opinion.
The South did not go to war for slavery although it did play a small part in the political battle that caused some states to originally secede from the Union.
How could the war have been over slavery?
5 Northern States were slave States, and others still allowed the practice. Plus there was no Federal law against slavery!
It was still legal and people still owned slaves in the North until a few months from the wars end in 1865!
When the 13th Amendment was added to the Constitution it was only added as a weapon in hopes of making the slaves turn against the South from within their own borders!

It was legal for a State to secede from the Union, but the Federal Government did not want to allow it!
Some of the Southern States didn't even secede until Union troops threatened to invade across their Sovereign borders!

Grant didn't want the Union to be divided due to a war. And the Northerners didn't want slavery in their states. We had the Dred Scott case here in St. Louis, btw.

You quote him as saying, "Not only save the Union, but destroy slavery."

To me he is saying what I heard today, "He didn't want the Union divided."

I don't see how that explains that he knew that it didn't start with slavery. It doesn't.

Missouri was split in two by the civil war.
5 Northern States were slave States until the war was almost over. Slavery was not outlawed until 1865!
Had the South been as intent on going to war they could have won within the first 6 months or so.
Almost all the Military leaders went to the CSA. All the really good and experienced ones. Grant even admits this to the German Chancellor during the same conversation.

"I suppose if you had had a large army at the beginning of the war it would have ended in a much shorter time."

"We might have had no war at all," said the General; "but we cannot tell. Our war had many strange features – there were many things which seemed odd enough at the time, but which now seem Providential. If we had had a large regular army, as it was then constituted, it might have gone with the South. In fact, the Southern feeling in the army among high officers was so strong that when the war broke out the army dissolved. We had no army – then we had to organize one. A great commander like Sherman or Sheridan even then might have organized an army and put down the rebellion in six months or a year, or, at the farthest, two years. But that would have saved slavery, perhaps, and slavery meant the germs of a new rebellion. There had to be an end of slavery. Then we were fighting an enemy with whom we could not make a peace. We had to destroy him. No convention, no treaty was possible – only destruction."

The North attacked the South and it wasnt over slavery!

Yes, 15% owned that many slaves.
The South was an Agricultural economy with large Cotton, Sugar Cane, and Tobacco Plantations!

Most Southerners did not own slaves!
The institution of slavery was more a necessity in the South. It was no more accepted than it was in the North where slavery was also legal in most states.

It was not just a southern institution, it was an American Institution protected by the Constitution everywhere except North and west of the Ohio River.

What wasn't protected was the raids by anti-slavery parties who came into the Southern territories and murdered southerners while aiding slaves to escape!

Dark Dark Days.
It could have been prevented but for a few on both sides.

4 States held out until Lincoln called up 75,000 troops to march across VA and NC to take back Ft Sumter!!

Those 4 states in order were VA, Ark, Tenn, and lastly NC!!
If Lincoln had just removed the Federal Troops from Ft Sumter they would have talked the other States back into the Union.

They were not about to let Union troops march across their land to attack their southern neighbors!!

"Whether in the United States the citizen owed allegiance to the Federal Government as against his State Government was a question upon which men had divided since the birth of the Republic. The men of the North responded to the call of the sovereign to whose allegiance they acknowledged fealty--the men of the South did the same. It was a battle between rival conceptions of sovereignty rather than one between a sovereign and its acknowledged citizens."

Henry Carter Stuart, Governor of Virginia,
Dedication of the Virginia Memorial at Gettysburg, Friday, June 8, 1917

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Not for fame or reward,
Not for place or for rank,
Not lured by ambition,
Or goaded by necessity,
But in Simple
Obedience to Duty
As they understood it,
These men suffered all,
Sacrificed all,
Dared all--and died.

(Inscription on the monument to the dead of the Confederate States Army, Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C.)

No you dont understand. I merely said, "logical falacies, got to love them"

I never said whether I agree or disagree with you, just your logic.

heritage people not hate

Heritage not hate thats what it is about to most people heritage............

if this whole world would develope an attitude to judge someone for who they are inside and not the color of there skin and what ha happened years and years ago things none of us ever had any control over wow think about what a wonderful world it could be

truely the only people i hear crying racism over anything is aferican americans
when and if they ever sit down and read a book and check into the history the war was not about slaves it was about state rights and the right to govern them self's
there are many many races who have been wronged in the past and i am sure each one is offended by something or looks at something as a symbol of hate
but that all could stop to if people would find the true meaning of things and stop teaching there children there verison of how and why things went on .. when in reality none of us was there and dont know anything more then what we read in a book or what we have been told by our family or taught in school.
when will people stand up and over things from the past that none of us had control over when will aferican americans say hey this was nothing to do with our generation let it go? it won't happen and why because right now our government is making state apoligies and no doubt there will be some sort of pay out to them all who had a family member who was a slave
just like they are doing with the holicost families. are they owed that ? no more so then are any other race that has been screwed .... i just had an simiular arguement with someone else on another site over the confederate flag and wanting to know why i am cherokee and proud but yet have a confederate flag flying on my page then proceeded to tell me the cicil war was over indians and there rights and that we as native americans should not be proud of that flag and what was done to our people.
my reply to her was
i know my history really well, i have never heard of any confederates killing any native cherokees. the federal gov is the one who made them move to the reservations because the cherokees were a rich tribe and had a lot of land. the federal gov made them march down the trail of tears. the native cherokees were long gone before the civil war even happened.
so again i ask you should i be mad should i be out there crying look what they have done to us?

grow up america and lets all just get along love people for who they are not what race color creed they are.

Found this today thought it was an interesting bit to add to this thread.

Battle over Confederate flag hits highways
Huge displays along interstates raise old debates over the history of war and slavery.

TAMPA, Fla. - Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket.

Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-10 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte.

Despite years of boycotts, schoolyard bans, and banishment from capitol domes, the Southern battle colors are flying, higher than ever.

Indeed, the Tampa Confederate Veterans Memorial and its 139-foot flagpole features one of at least four giant "soldier's flags" flying over bumper-to-bumper interstates in Florida and Alabama. With more planned in Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, and possibly South Carolina, the interstate show of force, experts say, highlights the potential backlash from banning nostalgic symbols from the public square.

Moreover, the giant flags are also the outward sign of a deeper struggle within the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a century-old organization historically more likely to hold battlefield reenactments than to stage political warfare.

What effect the flags will have on public perceptions and even tourism intensifies the issue as a political force here in the only part of the country to suffer the humiliation of total defeat.

"The battle flag "is a profound statement ... and the targets of our nerve-getting are the business community, the tourist community and the political community," says Marion Lambert, the Brandon, Fla., beekeeper who spearheaded the Tampa flag monument.

Unlike the flags that were taken down from the capitol domes in Columbia, S.C. and Tallahassee, Fla., these new auto dealer-sized flags – sewn in China – may be legally untouchable. Raised on private property, the Tampa flag was OK'd by county zoning officials and the Federal Aviation Administration.

"It's not going to go away," says Jim Farmer, a history professor at the University of South Carolina at Aiken. "There is a subculture within the white Southern population, of which the SCV is the most visible voice, that feels besieged by modern culture in general, and they identify the Old South and Confederacy as a way of life and a period of time before the siege began to really hit the South."

To Confederate sympathizers, opposition to the flag is misguided. They say the "soldier's flag" represents not slavery, but the valor of Southern men in their lost cause.

As proof of the flag's universality, SCV officials point to a tableau at the June 1 flag-raising ceremony in Tampa. As several older white men huffed trying to raise the 72-pound flag, two black men stepped in to finish the job.

"We have Indian, Hispanic, black, and white members of our camps, and if anyone espouses anything hateful or racewise, you're gone [from the SCV]," says group historian Robert Gates.

Flag opponents say the real offense is that Southern governors raised the flags during the Civil Rights era as a provocative gesture against attempts to desegregate Southern schools.

"I consider myself a Southern gentleman, but I just feel bringing this up now, it represents a painful and a hurtful time, and I don't think it's necessary to hurt people to make a point," says Hillsborough County Commissioner Al Higginbotham.

Partly in response to the beleaguered battle flag, the SCV has indeed become more politically active. A contingent of members called "the lunatics," including Aryan Nation holdovers, have for the past six years vied for power against the old-guard "grannies," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which investigates hate groups.

Yet under the current leadership of former Southern Partisan editor Chris Sullivan, who is widely considered a moderate, the SCV can't be considered a hate group, the SPLC has found.

"I think this is very likely to come back to bite them in the behind," says Mark Potok, editor of the SPLC's Intelligence Project in Montgomery, Ala.

"I don't think seeing some gigantic Confederate flag convinces anyone that the Civil War was not about slavery and that the antebellum South was really a wonderful place where everybody got along," says Mr. Potok.

But there's some evidence that flag proponents have the wind at their back. An attempt last week to reenergize the flag boycott in South Carolina faltered at the NAACP, with one member concluding the effort had lost its steam. Moreover, the NCAA recently got flak from some newspapers for banning championship games in South Carolina and Mississippi, but not in Alabama, which also has Confederate regalia as part of its official symbols.

"A flag may be a simple piece of cloth, but it's much more powerful than that," says John Clark, a political science professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. "[And] if you start turning people away, you're talking about a substantial investment in the local economy that's going to disappear."

Still, it's not clear whether the flag is actually that sensitive a topic. The economic effect of NAACP and NCAA boycotts in South Carolina has been minimal, according to state officials.

More recently, a Florida newspaper poll revealed that few drivers found the Tampa flag offensive, which surprised many officials.

In Arlington National Cemetary lie men who died under that Flag!!

Here is the US government allowing Confederate flags to be placed on their tombstones in the National Cemetary!

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/csa-mem.htm

AND THE CONSENSUS TO THE ANSWER TO MY QUESTION OF WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP THE REBEL FLAG ALIVE AND WEAR IT LIKE A BADGE IS? ..... NOW THAT WE'VE HAD OUR HISTORY LESSONS?

Lady I think there are different reasons. I myself do not display it.

I have just one simple question for every single person in here.
first of all put all your beliefs on the subject aside for the moment, and look at the facts.

Fact one, there is not a single person in this discussion who is old enough to have lived through this time frame.

Fact two, the ONLY thing we have to tell us about htis time frame is history books, and stories passed down from generation to generation through families.

Fact three, above-mentioined history books were written by human beings, who, no matter who they are, always bias what they state at least a little bit towards what they believe, no matter how careful they are not to do so.

With those three facts, how can any single one of us sy without a doubt, what the American Civil War was truly about? We can hem and haw all we want, we can state all of our opinions, but in the end we will never truly know.

Good points Daniel, I think this is true of war in general. The people fighting have given the reasons that will inspire them to fight, but the real reasons are hidden in the politics & economics of the ruling classes, sometimes maybe just a few individuals who stand to profit somehow.

People, however, should be able to verbalize what it means to them today if they are displaying this flag. Thier reasons may not be based on the lost truths of the 19th century, even if the believe they are, but it symbolizes something to them.

same reason people put up other flags, there is nothing wrong with it to me although I don't happen to have one up, mine is the Jolly Roger. The bad image came from all the idiot racist that used them in there little meetings and rallies, hate the skin heads, klan, white supremecist etc, not the flag, it's harmless, if you want to take it away, then take away the mexican one people like, the X one people like, the arab one, the jewish one, pick one, a lot of people get bent out of shape over that and I don't understand it.