Why the Confederate flag still flies in South Carolina

It ended in the South before the north where it was still legal after the Civil War. It had existed under the Stars and Stripes for all the years before the Civil War. Every slave that there was from the founding of the country saw the Stars and Stripes.

Not until after the Civil War.

T

So has the Stars and Stripes.

So has the Stars and Stripes.

It stood for the law and the Constitution as those states viewed which meant they could succeed from the Union where slavery was still legal at the time.

I assure you we are not asking for any from you.

You mean that vileness that existed under the Stars and Stripes?

Who made you the judge of that?

 

I know them well and also the history of the time which apparently you lack.

And this is not 1960 when the segregationist Democrats were in control.

So you wanted to go to Klan meetings but they left you out? And that's a pretty selective group since the Klan is almost out of existence anymore.

 

Wrong. The constitution did not provide rights to PEOPLE. It provided rights to the citizens of this country and their posterity. Black people were not considered citizens of this country, ergo they had no rights. This was even reiterated in the Dred Scott decision when the SCOTUS declared that Dred Scott had no standing to sue because he had no rights as a slave.

But regardless, even IF the constitution did contain a contradiction, the North and the Federal Government had a responsibility to go through the proper channels and process to change the constitution. They can't simply change it because they declare that it's wrong or immoral. That sets an EXTREMELY dangerous precedent. At that point what stops the federal government from coming in and changing the constitution as they see fit? They think freedom of speech is danger... they can just remove it. They think the right to bear arms is dangerous, they can just remove it.

That's not acceptable... and yet you people support it. That's (*)(*)(*)(*)ing absurd.

 

No more so than the USA should be flying the Nazi flag or the Imperial Japanese flag. But then if ISIS wins and retains control for 150 years what flag do you believe will be flying?

 

If Daish wins, and continues to fly any flag of the defeated forces, they are idiots. A war isn't over until the vanquished side's ideas are defeated. The ideas are only defeated after it is obvious to all that continued resistance is futile. Flying the flag of the defeated does not contribute to the development of that sense of futility; it inspires hope that one day hostilities will be renewed.

 

Mitt Romney says take that evil flag down!! Well he didn't add evil. Jeb Bush follows Obama's lead and says to put that symbol of hate and racism in a museum! Well said, this isn't just a left wing thing, it's a good hearted people thing! Good against evil! I'll take Good every time. No matter what your interpretation of the Constitution is.

 

So you equate the South with al Queada?

 

Since the UN has not really done much to curb slavery worldwide today, I propose we make THAT flag illegal as well.

 

Typical. Someone shoots someone who values a symbol so we need to go out and BAN that symbol. Fine, lets go ban Rap music. Want to guess how many people have been raped and murdered after being influenced by all the vile messages it produces?

 

Several parts of the Constitution speak of the rights of persons/people, not just citizens. The idea that only citizens have rights flights in the face of the very concept of inherent rights, on which our country is founded. The courts have, historically, honored rights for "persons", not just citizens.

If it contains contradictions, then it is well within the power of the courts to exercise their power of Constitutional interpretation, no different than they would if a new law violated the Constitution.

That is not what I'm supporting. So I must not be part of "you people". We have a separation of powers for a reason. Respecting the fact that black people are, in fact, people who are just as deserving of certain inalienable rights as the rest of us is a sound Constitutional, and ethical, call.

 

Getting back to what I was discussing before. I'm talking about secession. Your average Southern Joe Blow sitting at home and not expressing his political views had nothing to do with the decision to seceded. The political leaders of the South decided to secede. If you want to know why the South seceded, just look to the people who called the shot and the reasons they gave. Besides, we are specifically talking about South Carolina right now. When South Carolina seceded from the Union, this is what they had to say:

"The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue . . .

But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution . . .

Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation . . .

The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy."

According to the South Carolinians that made the decision to secede, the seceded because of slavery. Hang the flag in your own home if you want, or off of your truck, or in your front lawn, but let's keep the symbol of an organization whose primary purpose was the defense of slavery out of our government buildings.

 

Nonsense. Had the Framers wanted 5A to apply to citizens only, they'd have written it that way.

Obviously they weren't in the slave states, but before 14A citizenship by birth was determined by the state of birth.

 

But they didn't use the courts to declare that portion of the constitution was interpreted incorrectly. In fact the courts stated that it WAS interpreted correctly and that blacks did NOT have rights.

The federal government not only ignored the constitution but also the SCOTUS. The north was engaging in unconstitutional behavior... the south was attempting to stop them.

 

You're wrong.

It is written that way:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

They tell you who is writing it and who it's for. The people of the United States (ie citizens) are writing it and they're writing it for themselves and their posterity or those citizens who come after them.

 

Actually, with the Dred Scoot decision, all blacks, free or slave, in every state, was not considered a citizen --

They "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect"


That's why the DS horrid decision loomed so large in the preelection debates, and helped toss gasoline on the fires of war.

 

“[T]he contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation.”
London Times, November 7, 1861

“All that the South has ever desired was that the Union as established by our forefathers should be preserved and that the government as originally organized should be administered in purity and truth.”
Robert E. Lee

“Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late… It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision… It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”
Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA, January 1864

“The Union government liberates the enemy’s slaves as it would the enemy’s cattle, simply to weaken them in the conflict. The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States.”
London Spectator in reference to the Emancipation Proclamation

“The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states.”
Charles Dickens, 1862

“It is stated in books and papers that Southern children read and study that all the blood shedding and destruction of property of that conflict was because the South rebelled without cause against the best government the world ever saw; that although Southern soldiers were heroes in the field, skillfully massed and led, they and their leaders were rebels and traitors who fought to overthrow the Union, and to preserve human slavery, and that their defeat was necessary for free government and the welfare of the human family. As a Confederate soldier and as a citizen of Virginia, I deny the charge, and denounce it as a calumny. We were not rebels; we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes.”
Colonel Richard Henry Lee, C.S.A.

“As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty per cent. of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union.”
Major General John B. Gordon, from his book, Causes of the Civil War.

“The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing… it is very clear that the South gains by this process and we lose. No…we must not let the South go”.
Union Democrat Manchester, New Hampshire. 19 February, 1861

“The real issue involved in the relations between the North and the South of the American States, is the great principle of self-government. Shall a dominant party of the North rule the South, or shall the people of the South rule themselves. This is the great matter in controversy.”
Robert Barnwell Rhett (Montgomery, Alabama, 1860)

“I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.”
Confederate President Jefferson Davis

They are now fighting the battle of despotism. They have put their Constitution under their feet; they have annulled its most sacred provisions; The future fortunes of our children, and of this continent, would then be determined by a tyranny which has no parallel in history.”
Dr. James Henly Thornwell of South Carolina, in Our Danger and our Duty, 1862

“Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world”.
Abraham Lincoln – U.S. Congress, 1847

A little over 10 years later after the South attempted precisely that, Lincoln, when asked, “Why not let the South go in peace”? replied; “I can’t let them go. Who would pay for the government”? “And, what then will become of my tariff”?
Abraham Lincoln to Virginia Compromise Delegation March 1861

 

Yes, the majority of slaveholding Justices, led by the slaveholder Taney wrote one of the most horrible decisions in our nation's history -- one that the raping slavers in the south loved...the decision these "States' Rights" advocates wanted - only they wanted States Rights for themselves, not the Northern States who did not wish to take part in the slave trade, but the Fugitive Slave Laws forced them to...

Southern slavers talked out of both sides of thier mouths about so called "States' Rights."

& If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're getting perilously close to defending slavery.

 

Okay so if the SCOTUS gives a decision as something being unconstitutional that the federal government doesn't agree with, they can just ignore it?

And if I didn't know any better I'd say you're defending the government's right to unilaterally change/ignore the constitution along with the SCOTUS.

 

Not in the least.

None of which means they intended to deny any rights to resident non-citizens. Just consider the naturalization clause and think what a tough sell it would have been to get people to live here for years to earn citizenship if they had no rights as non-citizens.

 

Nothing you give below gave what I asked for: something specific. And none of them answered by question. In fact, many of them are perfectly in keeping with the way other Southerners were talking about slavery -- for example, the whole issue of the North supposedly violating the Constitution was all about slavery.

Vague. What was this "empire" forcing the South to do, and what independences were the South looking for? Can you find a source that, when going into specifics, does not place slavery as number 1?

Again, no specifics.

No specifics. Which rights and which liberties?

I don't understand where you are going with this one. It has nothing to do with giving the reason for the secession, just bad behavior by the Union.

So he saw slavery as essential to the South's economy . . . which I've already said. And this isn't what I asked for. It mentions nothing about the motivation of the South.

The closest we've come so far! But still not specific. Which rights and privileges? You might want to look more into Lee. He seemed to quite value his "property rights" to slaves.

 

Lincoln must be laughing from the pits of Hell, 150 years after he was sent there, at the useful idiots that still do the bidding of an ever-expansionist federal government. The icing on the cake is that the Confederacy still serves as a damn fine scapegoat for all the evils of the country.

Nine people dead in Carolina? Blame the Confederacy!!!!!!! Take that flag down and everything will be all better!!!

SMH/LMAO. Such a tragi-comedy has never before been foisted on a people with such staying power.

 

You're definitely not making peoples opinion of the Confederacy any better.

 

I don't believe it necessarily represents YOU.

But, I'm just saying that when I see that flag, what I see is the same flag KKKers carry. And, that's really not the only example. I see it used in opposition to the US flag, too.

So, if you fly that flag, I'm sorry, but It's going to take us a few more beers. And, I think it reflects badly on SC as a whole that the state house flies that flag.

 

Sometimes you just gotta love America. This idiot thought he could spark a revolution and all he did was make America stronger and more united and people more tolerant. Even white southern christian leaders are speaking about maybe taking the flag down because of the evil it represents to people like these Roof guys. Great job Roof... I'm pretty sure killing old ladies in a church was not the best way to push your racist agenda. Of course there will be psychos out there that change their avatars to Confederate flags or continue to support this racist cause, but watching people come together on this and understand what others see in these guys is awesome to watch!!

#takeitdownSC

 

Like I really care what a bunch of useful idiots that wouldn't recognize liberty if it bit them on the ass thinks. No minds are being changed and I'm certainly not going to waste my time in a futile attempt to do so.