By Al Colombo

The issue of the Confederate battle flag has certainly been one of significant interest to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP recently announced a tourism boycott of South Carolina because of the Confederate battle flag that has flown over its Capitol building since 1962.

For many people, both white and black, the removal of this "grand old flag," a long-standing icon from the historic record, is not all that important. For others, outlawing its display is critical to erasing historic memories involving slavery.

"Blacks have called for a new flag design because they say the flag is a reminder of slavery," said Gina Holland, Associated Press writer.[1]

The issue of slavery and the Confederate flag seems somewhat mute, since very few of us actually lived through this period. The NAACP's campaign to remove it seems more like Adolph Hitler's effort to erase German history by burning thousands and thousands of books (1933), thus altering society's historic memory.

"On May 10, students, organized by Goebbels (once a novelist himself), burned more than 20,000 'subversive' books, including those of Remarque, Mann, Brecht, Hemingway, Proust, Zola, Upton Sinclair, and H.G. Wells. 'The soul of the German people,' Goebbels told the students, 'can now express itself.'"[2]

By the end of Hitler's dictatorial rein, approximately 6 million Jewish people, as well as many others, perished in the holocaust.

In Mississippi, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Confederate flag, as currently designed, does not violate the United States Constitution. Judge Ed Pittman, Mississippi Supreme Court, said that lawmakers should decide matters regarding their own state flags and not the judicial system.

This author happens to agree, and taking this one step further, banning the Confederate flag would actually appear to be in violation of the 1st and 10th amendments if anyone outside of state government would try to force them to remove it. Even using the "insiders'" false illlusion of Democracy, the folks who live in South Carolina should be the ones who decide this matter, not the NAACP. The use of economic terrorism by the NAACP or anyone else to promote a racial agenda is not honorable, reasonable or constitutional.

A Little Bit of History

Behind the push to rid America of this historical icon are many of today's Democrats. Oddly enough, during the pre-Civil War period, it was the Democrats that agreed with slavery. The state of South Carolina actually threatened to withdraw from the Union if a Republican was elected, and Abraham Lincoln was that Republican.

"In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president as the candidate of the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery. South Carolina had threatened to secede if the Republicans won, and on December 20, 1860, it became the first state to leave the Union. Ten other Southern states followed. In March 1861 the breakaway states organized as the Confederate States of America and got ready for war."[3]

Just prior to the on-coming civil war in the United States of America, as the secessionists worked to organize the Confederate States of America in 1861, Russell of the London Times, while visiting New York, said that,

"according to the Constitution the government could not use force to prevent secession or to compel states which had seceded by the will of their people to acknowledge the Federal power." [4]

Many others of that day agreed.

"In the cross currents of public opinion the pacifism of the idealist, the merchant, and the constitutionalist was mingled with the easy acquiescence of those who thought that the south was not worth fighting for, and that a Union held together by force was not worth living in."[4]

Horace Greeley, New York Tribune, in 1860, wrote,

"If the cotton states shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we shall insist on letting them go in peace. We hope never to live in a republic where one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets."[4]

Even the ranking general of the Union Army urged the U.S. Government to let the South depart in peace. We know the rest of the story, or at least the outcome. Little is really known about the many hardships that the South suffered at the hands of the victors. After the Civil War was over, graft, corruption, and greed spread like a plague. The end result was the loss of great wealth and plantations that had been handed down through generations of families.

Therefore, the Confederate battle flag is a symbol of a proud effort to preserve the right to self-determination at the state level. It marks the South's all-out effort to retain their unique way of life. This goes far beyond the slavery issue. It represents a gallant effort on the part of the South to maintain their identity, apart from that of the Yankee North. It represents the death of a grand, slow paced, gentle way of life where men were gentlemen and the women were ladies.

The Confederate battle flag also serves as a reminder to those who, today, live there of the 600,000 to 1.5 million Southern boys who lost their lives fighting for something they believed in.[5]

In closing, perhaps it ought to be the U.S. Constitution that dictates whether South Carolina can fly the flag of their choice above their statehouse and not the NAACP. At the very worst, allow the citizens of that state to decide whether the Confederate Battle Flag goes away or stays.

Bibliography

[1] Mississippi Flag Upheld by State Supreme Court; Gina Holland, Associated Press writer; Canton Repository; Canton, Ohio; May 5, 2000.
[2] Hitler, The Pictorial Documentary of His Life, John Toland, Doubleday & Company Inc.; Garden City, N.Y.; (c)1976,1978; pg. 59
[3] Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, on CDRom
[4] American History for Colleges; David Saville Muzzey, John A. Krout; Columbia University, Ginn and Company, (c)1943.
[5] The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1997; World Almanac Books; Mahwah, N.J.; (c)1996, pg. 184.