Dear Editor,
Lately, I have come across more and more people waving Confederate flags or displaying them on their vehicles in the form of bumper stickers. Most of these are in the form of the well-known battle-flag which has the St. Andrew cross with the stars of the states of the confederacy placed upon them.
I do not have a problem at all with free speech or public demonstration, but what really bothers me is when something stated is only a half-truth or a total falsity. For example, the majority of the people who display these Confederate flags claim that the South fought for state rights, not slavery, but those who don’t demonstrate on behalf of the flag claim it was fought over slavery.
In this day and age, most Americans would generally come to the consensus that slavery is absolutely wrong, immoral, promotes injustice, and is unethical. With this point stated, why do people feel that state rights were the cause of the Civil War? Charles B. Dew, a professor of history, has written a book titled “Apostles of Disunion,” and through this book, Dew, a Southerner by birth, had grown up with the notion all of his life that the confederacy was fought over state rights, not slavery. However, Dew came across the facts that this was not the case at all.
Apostles of Disunion is a very well documented and researched book that includes first-person accounts through letters, transcripts and diaries. The book is mainly about the state governments, which, prior to the Civil War, elected secession commissioners that traveled across the South promoting secession for the cause of slavery, not state rights.
Either way you look at it, slavery was the major cause for the Civil War. It was the white southerner who wanted to be in control, have power, and submit the African American people to a total injustice through the bonds of slavery. Until the Civil Rights Acts were passed through Congress in the 1960’s, injustice to African Americans still occurred throughout the South in the form of Jim Crow laws.
By birth I am a Texan, by blood I am southerner, but because you were born and raised in the south does not mean that you have to fly with the notion that the Civil War was fought over state rights. Let us dispel this myth and face the facts that it was fought over slavery. We have come a long way, fighting for the rights of African Americans to be free citizens. I for one am proud to have been born and raised in the South, but I have never in my life been proud of what the South did to the African American people by being racist, bigoted, and unjust to them.
So before you even fly that flag again, think about what you are really saying. Instead, fly the flag of The United States of America, because it stands for freedom, truth, and justice. On April 6th, 1859, Abraham Lincoln said, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.”
Sincerely,
Joshua Noble Hammitt