Should the State of S. Carolina fly Confederate flags?

[Valley Oak]

Take Down the Confederate Flag—Now
Ta-Nehisi Coates

The flag that Dylann Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, endorses the violence he committed.

Last night, Dylann Roof walked into a Charleston church, sat for an hour, and then killed nine people. Roof’s crime cannot be divorced from the ideology of white supremacy which long animated his state nor from its potent symbol—the Confederate flag. Visitors to Charleston have long been treated to South Carolina’s attempt to clean its history and depict its secession as something other than a war to guarantee the enslavement of the majority of its residents. This notion is belied by any serious interrogation of the Civil War and the primary documents of its instigators. Yet the Confederate battle flag—the flag of Dylann Roof—still flies on the Capitol grounds in Columbia.

The Confederate flag’s defenders often claim it represents “heritage not hate.” I agree—the heritage of White Supremacy was not so much birthed by hate as by the impulse toward plunder. Dylann Roof plundered nine different bodies last night, plundered nine different families of an original member, plundered nine different communities of a singular member. An entire people are poorer for his action. The flag that Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, does not stand in opposition to this act—it endorses it. That the Confederate flag is the symbol of of white supremacists is evidenced by the very words of those who birthed it:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth...

This moral truth—“that the negro is not equal to the white man”—is exactly what animated Dylann Roof. More than any individual actor, in recent history, Roof honored his flag in exactly the manner it always demanded—with human sacrifice.

Surely the flag’s defenders will proffer other, muddier, interpretations which allow them the luxury of looking away. In this way they honor their ancestors. Cowardice, too, is heritage. When white supremacist John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago, Booth’s fellow travelers did all they could to disassociate themselves. “Our disgust for the dastardly wretch can scarcely be uttered,” fumed a former governor of South Carolina, the state where secession began. Robert E. Lee’s armies took special care to enslave free blacks during their Northern campaign. But Lee claimed the assassination of the Great Emancipator was “deplorable.” Jefferson Davis believed that “it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune to the South,” and angrily denied rumors that he had greeted the news with exultation.

Villain though he was, Booth was a man who understood the logical conclusion of Confederate rhetoric:

"TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN":

Right or wrong. God judge me, not man. For be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure, the lasting condemnation of the North.

I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. God's will be done. I go to see and share the bitter end….

I have ever held the South were right. The very nomination of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, four years ago, spoke plainly, war -- war upon Southern rights and institutions….

This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And looking upon African Slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our constitution. I for one, have ever considered if one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us,) that God has ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness heretofore our wealth and power; witness their elevation and enlightenment above their race elsewhere. I have lived among it most of my life, and have seen less harsh treatment from master to man than I have beheld in the North from father to son. Yet, Heaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better their condition.

By 1865, the Civil War had morphed into a war against slavery—the “cornerstone” of Confederate society. Booth absorbed his lesson too well. He did not violate some implicit rule of Confederate chivalry or politesse. He accurately interpreted the cause of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, men who were too weak to truthfully address that cause’s natural end.

Moral cowardice requires choice and action. It demands that its adherents repeatedly look away, that they favor the fanciful over the plain, myth over history, the dream over the real. Here is another choice.

Take down the flag. Take it down now.

Put it in a museum. Inscribe beneath it the years 1861-2015. Move forward. Abandon this charlatanism. Drive out this cult of death and chains. Save your lovely souls. Move forward. Do it now.

[handy]

Go ahead and tell us. Tell us all. We are waiting.

Thanks to W.M.
See more pictures below.

[Glia]

As your photos make clear, the Confederate flag is not THE sole symbol of African-American oppression. It is one of several... including the U.S. flag and the Christian cross.

Go ahead and tell us. Tell us all. We are waiting.

[Valley Oak]

[Karen the KAT]

Yes, the "it's all about slavery" crowd forgets one simple thing that brings the whole house of cards down. Lincoln is famously quoted as saying" I will let them keep slavery in order to keep the Republic together".

But they still chose succession!!!

So I guess maybe it wasn't about slavery after all was it....

Maybe it was about all the things they said it was which can be boiled down to: "We don't want to be part of your World because we think it sucks"

Which is exactly how I feel today when I think of the Federal Government...

[gypsey]

Actually it's called "secession" and Lincoln is famously quoted for many things, but never so incredibly out of context as your post.

Yes, the "it's all about slavery" crowd forgets one simple thing that brings the whole house of cards down. Lincoln is famously quoted as saying" I will let them keep slavery in order to keep the Republic together".

But they still chose succession!!!

So I guess maybe it wasn't about slavery after all was it...

[wisewomn]

Did you happen to read the earlier article I cited that quoted from the various Confederate states' declarations that their sole intention in seceding was to preserve slavery? It's there in black and white.

Lincoln only invoked the slavery issue when it became clear he needed an emotional issue to rouse flagging support in the North. He was always for preserving the Union but he was also a practical man.

Yes, the "it's all about slavery" crowd forgets...

[Peacemaker]

Not only preserve slavery, they also wanted to expand it. When California petitioned for admission to the United States in 1849, one of the major issues was; should California be a slave or free state. As part of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state. One of the "northern" positions on slavery was that slavery should not be legal in any new states, nor in any states in which it was not already practiced. The intent was to halt the spread of slavery and, hopefully, to eliminate it over time. The slave states and those people who profited from the existence of slavery, of course, wanted it to continue and expand. This was one of the issues that contributed to the secession movement and ultimately to the Civil War.

By the way, when supporters of displaying the confederate flag talk about the "Southern Heritage", what, specifically, are they talking about?

Did you happen to read the earlier article I cited that quoted from the various Confederate states' declarations that their sole intention in seceding was to preserve slavery? It's there in black and white.

Lincoln only invoked the slavery issue when it became clear he needed an emotional issue to rouse flagging support in the North. He was always for preserving the Union but he was also a practical man.

[Valley Oak]

Watch that symbol of slavery and racism come tumbling down, 'like the walls of Jericho!'

Click on the link for the video.

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Confederate Flag Removed From South Carolina Capitol Grounds
Reuters, 07/10/2015

COLUMBIA, S.C., July 10 (Reuters) - The Confederate battle flag, a symbol of both racism and southern pride, was removed on Friday from the South Carolina state Capitol grounds after the Civil War banner fell from favor since the slaying of nine black churchgoers in June.

The rebel flag, raised on state grounds more than 50 years ago at the height of the U.S. civil rights movement, was taken down just after 10 a.m. ET.

It will be moved to the "relic room" of a military museum in the state capital of Columbia to reside with other artifacts carried by southern Confederate soldiers 150 years ago.

"It's a great day in South Carolina," the state's Republican Governor Nikki Haley said on Friday in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

As she signed the legislation to remove the Confederate flag on Thursday, Haley said: "We will bring it down with dignity."

Haley called for the flag's relocation shortly after the killing of nine black worshippers during a Bible study session on June 17 at a historic black church in Charleston.

"I'm thinking of those nine people today," Haley said on "Today."

The white man charged in the killings, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, appeared in photographs posing with a Confederate flag that surfaced on a website bearing a racist manifesto. The image spurred politicians and leading national retailers to pull the flag from display.

In South Carolina, the first state to secede during the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War, this week's debate in the state legislature brought an emotional closure to a symbol long divisive in the state.

The Confederate flag waved atop the state capitol from 1961 to 2000, when it was moved to a Confederate war memorial near the State House entrance.

"In South Carolina we honor tradition, we honor history, we honor heritage. But there's a place for that flag and that flag needs to be in a museum, where we will continue to make sure that people can honor it appropriately," Haley said on "Today."

"But the statehouse - that's an area that belongs to everyone," she added. "No one should drive by the statehouse and feel pain, no one should ever drive by the statehouse and feel like they don't belong."

Critics now hope to remove it as quietly as possible.

"What we don't want is a lot of controversy around it," said state Representative Jerry Govan, a black Democrat, who recalled during the legislative debate how he had nails thrown in his face when he was a child by white youths in a pickup truck flying the Confederate flag.

"This takes away a wedge issue that's been used for many years," he said.

The Confederate flag's days as a public symbol - a flag or a state emblem - are coming to an end with the passage of Thursday's law, said Carole Emberton, Civil War expert at the University at Buffalo.

"Will people still wear the symbol on their T-shirts or fly it from their homes? Sure they will. But as far as this flag symbolizing a state or local government, that day is over." (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington; Writing by Letitia Stein; Editing by Paul Tait and Lisa Lambert)

[Valley Oak]