“But smh, what does the flight, on state land, of a flag born in defense of ‘African slavery’ have to do with a racist slaying in that very same state?”
Channel your inner Einstein and figure it out for yourself.
Edit: This was anticipatory. Push’s post hadn’t appeared yet, and this is not apropos of it.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
No. The flags of those states existed before the War of Northern Aggression ( 
) and afterward.
The culture of the South certainly includes the despicable institution of slavery in its history and the culture of the North certainly includes the Yankee merchants who transported those slaves across the Atlantic in huge numbers and amassed huge profits from it. However, neither Southern nor Yankee state flags need shit-canning as a result.[/quote]
This isn’t about the state flag, it’s about the CSA battle flag, which represents only what I’ve said above. If the “Yankee merchants” had sewn a flag in specific defense of their ability to sell slaves, it would belong in the same place as the CSA battle flag – in a museum (not flying) or a garbage can.
Edit: The CSA battle for Lee’s army, originally. Which has now become a symbol of the Confederacy itself.
As for the dark chapters in the histories of the South and North, you’re certainly right. Thing is, the South’s is darker and, very importantly, being pushed to the fore by people who, today, want to fly a racist flag on state property.
Edited.
The flag represents treason more than racism.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
The flag represents treason more than racism. [/quote]
Well, I don’t want to get into a constitutional argument, but if it represents treason then it represents both: treason born of racism. The latter half, at least, in literally undeniable. They said so themselves, in plain English.
People need to understand the north was equally as racist as the south, and did not give a shit about black people. They did care about a free labor source and the resulting economic inequalities.
It reads better for history to have the north being benevolent and anti-racism.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
People need to understand the north was equally as racist as the south, and did not give a shit about black people. They did care about a free labor source and the resulting economic inequalities.
It reads better for history to have the north being benevolent and anti-racism. [/quote]
No one argued against this in this thread.
The fact remains that the southern states seceded because of slavery.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
People need to understand the north was equally as racist as the south, and did not give a shit about black people. They did care about a free labor source and the resulting economic inequalities.
It reads better for history to have the north being benevolent and anti-racism. [/quote]
No, that isn’t true. If you’d have said that the North was filled with its own share of appalling racism, then you’d be correct. But it was not “equally as racist as the south” during the time in question. Non-slave-holding states were by definition better to blacks than slave-holding states. Same with states not compliant with the FSA. The abolitionist movement was HQ’ed in the north and had some serious sympathy thereabouts. If you read secession declarations, the southern states go so far as to whine about being called sinners by northerners.
Anyway, none of this bears on the point that the flag flying before the SC State House was born for one purpose and in defense of one ideology/institution, and this disqualifies it from flight on public land. If Albany were trying to pull this shit (funny how it isn’t, though, eh?) the argument would be exactly the same.
The war was about economics, not morality.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
The war was about economics, not morality. [/quote]
The war was about a bunch of things, economics being – as it literally always is – enormously important. But here’s something else that’s true: Morality contributed to antislavery sentiment and legislation in the North, which occasioned secession.
Is this going to be your tactic? Say something wrong, get told it’s wrong, say something else that doesn’t have anything to do with the first thing and is also wrong?
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Aggv wrote:
The war was about economics, not morality. [/quote]
The war was about a bunch of things, economics being – as it literally always is – enormously important. But here’s something else that’s true: Morality contributed to antislavery sentiment and legislation in the North, which occasioned secession.
Is this going to be your tactic? Say something wrong, get told it’s wrong, say something else that doesn’t have anything to do with the first thing and is also wrong?[/quote]
At no point was anything i posted wrong. Maybe you should look into things beyond what was taught to you in high school.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]Aggv wrote:
The war was about economics, not morality. [/quote]
The war was about a bunch of things, economics being – as it literally always is – enormously important. But here’s something else that’s true: Morality contributed to antislavery sentiment and legislation in the North, which occasioned secession.
Is this going to be your tactic? Say something wrong, get told it’s wrong, say something else that doesn’t have anything to do with the first thing and is also wrong?[/quote]
At no point was anything i posted wrong. Maybe you should look into things beyond what was taught to you in high school.
[/quote]
I explained exactly why you were wrong – twice – and you responded with nothing.
This isn’t about what was taught to me in high school, and this should be clear to you by my responses. I have studied this at the graduate level and am the son of a prominent professor of Southern History with whom I have co-authored (peer-reviewed) work. If you want to get into this properly, I would love to show you what a beyond-high-school understanding of these issues is.
So you’re suggesting the civil war was based on the north’s moral opposition to slavery rather than an economic one?
Morality was part of the equation, but the heart of the issue was economics.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
So you’re suggesting the civil war was based on the north’s moral opposition to slavery rather than an economic one?
Morality was part of the equation, but the heart of the issue was economics. [/quote]
I’m suggesting exactly what I suggested:
[quote]
The war was about a bunch of things, economics being – as it literally always is – enormously important. But here’s something else that’s true: Morality contributed to antislavery sentiment and legislation in the North, which occasioned secession.
Is this going to be your tactic? Say something wrong, get told it’s wrong, say something else that doesn’t have anything to do with the first thing and is also wrong?[/quote]
(This looks something like your formulation above; it doesn’t look at all like your original formulation, which was: “The war was about economics, not morality.”)
The simple fact – and why revisionists bother lying about it is truly beyond me – is that moral opposition to slavery did inarguably figure into laws like Vermont’s “nullification” of the Fugitive Slave Act, which in turn figured explicitly into states’ decisions to secede. None of this is conjecture; all of it is explicit.
Thus, statements like “the war was about economics, not morality” and “the north was equally as racist as the south” are wrong. Yes, the high-school-level “good not-racist north v. racist south” is simplistic and incomplete. But so is what you’re pushing.
Anyway, none of the foregoing has anything to do with the fact of the battle flag’s birth circumstances, historical meaning, and subsequent disqualification as a candidate for flight on state property. It should be taken down immediately.
I think you need to go back to your “prominent” online university and read up without the rose colored history glasses on, and get better perspective.
I’m not suggesting morality was not part of the equation, but it was nowhere near the level with which you are implying.