The only Confederate flag that mattered:

[ehrnst]

[brewens]

1. I have a roll of confederate flags in my bathroom as a matter of fact! LOL n/t

[Scuba]

2. The Confederacy lasted four years. Just how much "heritage" do they have?

[Martin Eden]

4. Proud tradition: 400 years of slavery. n/t

[Scuba]

6. Yeah, I s'pose that's it.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. The Confederacy had slavery in 1465?

Who knew?

[Martin Eden]

16. You don't understand ...

... 1 year feels like 100 years to a slave. Do the math!

Actually, I was referring to the centuries of slavery in the American colonies, but in my hasty post I didn't bother doing a quick search to find that most historians cite 1619 as the start of that "proud" tradition.

[MohRokTah]

3. Then there was the Stars and Bars

What the morons call the "Confederate Flag" was actually the battle banner for the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee. It was a unit flag, not a national flag.

[Art_from_Ark]

10. I think the modern-day Johnny Rebs prefer the "Confederate Flag"

Last edited Thu May 15, 2014, 08:27 PM - Edit history (1)

precisely because it was a battle flag.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Too many people don't understand that.

The flag which you depicted represented the Confederate Government which in turn set the policies, the unit flag represented the fighting soldiers.

[JohnnyRingo]

5. My great great Uncle Henry Canfield thanks you.

He'd be appalled if he came back today and saw self described "rednecks" here in NE Ohio claiming it as their banner. I seldom pass up the opportunity to speak for him.

My dad served in WWII. He never cared much for Germans who liked to display their "heritage" flag either.

[whopis01]

7. The second national flag of the confederacy was changed because it was too often mistaken for that..

Had to go from this:


to this:



(before they went to the one you show of course...)

[William769]

8. kick & recommended.

[jimlup]

12. I dunno ...

Speaking as a Northern - maybe it would have been better had they left.

Yes slavery was an abomination and that definitely mattered but hell. In an alternative history in which Lincoln had just said to hell with you guys "the cost of war is too great." I would expect that slavery would have ended anyway. This alternative history is not where we are today so I guess we have to live with them sort of...

[calimary]

14. I find myself pondering that one, too, jimlup.

The ol' "What if..."

[ieoeja]

17. I know you're kidding. But there was no simple option to just let them secede.

Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia split (with West Virginia kicking Lee's butt before any Union troops could even get there to help them). Would the Confederacy have sat out those four state Civil Wars? No. Missouri's split was, in fact, largely initiated by outside forces from the South.

Texas claimed New Mexico, Arizon and part of California.

The Confederacy considered Maryland part of their country under Union occupation even though Maryland never seceded.

Rhode Island and Kentucky were the only two slave breeding states. The Confederacy could not have afforded to lose them.

Even with Rhode Island and Kentucky, the rest of the South was killing slaves faster than those two states could breed them. With the African slave trade cut off, they would have needed replacements. There were at least two proposals, though one sounded hyperbolic, to raid the North for Anglo-Saxons to replace dead slaves. The South was Norman/Celtic and really hated Anglo-Saxons.

That last is where the old South really had a problem. They were a military culture. And in a military culture a man who works for another is looked down upon as the lowest scum on the face of the earth. Land owners were in charge. Warriors were revered. Artisan's were respected. Workers were despised.

A peaceful secession would have been impossible.

[whopis01]

13. The second national flag of the confederacy was changed because it was too often mistaken for that..

Had to go from this:


to this:



(before they went to the one you show of course...)

[Exposethefrauds]

15. When the Stars and Bars came out in the 1950's as a protest to Segergration all over the South

is when it Officially became the Modern Symbol of Racism, Bigotry and Conservatism in America.