Beat The Retreat

I understand the “Heritage” rationale for displaying the Confederate flag.  Southerners wish to commemorate the sacrifice if their fighting men, many of whom died fighting for what they believed was a just cause.

I understand that. I understand the First Amendment protects that view.  And I believe the move to suppress the Confederate flag over “racism” is yet another example of our society – or an intensely privileged, and overprivileged, part of it – seizing on trite, surface- y symbolism to “send a message” about a big, complicated issue.

“Messages” are easy; changing hearts and minds is hard, time-consuming, and usually fruitless in the short term.

So I get why people want to fly the Confederate flag.  And as far as it goes, I support them.

But I’m not going to fly it myself.

Still Smell The Gunpowder:  I’ve heard a few Minnesotans point out that they’d eschew the Confederate flag because of the many Minnesotans who died fighting against the Confederacy – most notably the First Minnesota at Gettysburg.  That’s fine – and not my reason; of my eight great-grandparents’ families, only two had arrived in the US before 1865, and they were from Ohio.  And the war is, in fact, over.

Squandered:  I choose to eschew the Confederate flag because they squandered a vital right and power in defending an evil institution.

The bloody war fought to defend slavery [1] served as the lead-in to the gutting of the 10th amendment, and trashing of one of the most important rights of a civil society – the right to free association. It led to the elevation of the idea that preserving the union was the single most supreme virtue.

Think about it; if the power and intrusiveness of the federal government were at one time  limited by the knowledge that states could pack up and go away, Do  you think the feds would be a lot more restrained than they are? Absolutely – and that would be A very good thing.

For staking these vital – and irreplaceable – liberties on the defense of slavery, alone, it’s time to junk the Confederate flag.

[1] Yes, it was all about slavery.  All the proximate causes of the war traced back to slavery.  The economic war was a war between industrialism and slavery.  The constitutional issue was over the treatment of…slavery.  Lincoln sought to preserve the union, which was splitting up over…causes that all traced back to slavery.  It’s really not even an argument.

14 thoughts on “Beat The Retreat

  1. Not only that, the States that tried to secede from the Union were pretty explicit in saying that they were doing so because of slavery. So trying to deny it 150 years later is a little bit when Austin Powers tried to pretend that a certain item found in his personal effects was really not his thing.

  2. I have to wonder, though whether the 10th Amendment would have survived Lincoln even without the war. Lincoln noted, after all, that he’d do all to preserve the Union before the war ever started. No?

  3. Lincoln’s argument was that secession was tacitly forbidden by the constitution, because otherwise states would join and quit the union as the interests of its citizens varied (c.f. Greece & the EU).
    The period of 1860-1870 is a constitutional mess. If the secession of the states was never recognized by the Federal government, how could they later “readmit” the rebellious states to the Union?
    The problem of slavery could only have been solved a civil war. Lincoln had no authority to free the slaves of states that were not in a state of rebellion (5th amendment). If the Southern states had not seceded, they would have seen their political influence in DC inevitably decline as more territories and states were added to the Union, and Lincoln and the Republicans would make certain that they were free states and territories. The backbone of free states was the small farmer, and the small farmer and slavery were not compatible. There was no chance that slavery would be adopted by a free state or territory.

  4. “All the proximate causes of the war traced back to slavery.”

    Yeah, except for those that didn’t

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis

    Slavery was the biggest reason among several South Carolina seceded from the union. The pot had been boiling for years.

    The proximate cause of the war was Lincoln’s successful campaign to force a casus belli by repeatedly attempting to reinforce the Ft. Moultry garrison, which had sneaked into Sumter under cover of darkness, after having agreed not to.

    Lincoln HAD to have a war; he had no legal recourse to the secession of a sovereign state.

    I’m surprised at you Mitch….

  5. That being said. It is time to retire the battle flag from the capital lawn. I recommended it be replaced with the Bonnie Blue since it was flying over the South Carolina militia when they ran the soldiers of an aggressor nation out of Ft. Sumter.

    I flew the Bonnie Blue along side of the Gadson on the 4th, to the applause of my neighbors. I won’t dishonor the Stars and Stripes, but I can’t fly it right now in good conscience.

  6. As far as which flag a state government decides to fly over state government land, they can do what they like: not my circus, not my monkeys.

    As far as shaming, shunning, doxxing, SWATting, boycotting and firing people who support unpopular ideas, well, their ideas are unpopular so they’re fair game. After all, when they came for the Jews, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Why should I stand up for any other socially unacceptable group’s right to think differently from the herd?

    When they come for the gun-owners, though, then I’ll stand up. Probably alone, because everybody else will already have been carried off while I wasn’t standing up for them.

  7. THE people of Switzerland were not always free and happy as they are to-day. Many years ago a proud tyrant, whose name was Gessler, ruled over them, and made their lot a bitter one indeed.

    One day this tyrant set up a tall pole in the public square, and put his own cap on the top of it; and then he gave orders that every man who came into the town should bow down before it. But there was one man, named William Tell, who would not do this. He stood up straight with folded arms, and laughed at the swinging cap. He would not bow down to Gessler himself.

    If the Stars and bars are offensive, what about he stars and stripes? Who decides what symbols mean?

  8. Walter Hudson said it best:
    “To the extent the Confederate flag inspires some toward a spirit of independence, it retains value. However, we should remember that such independence must be daily purchased with universal respect for the rights of others. The moment we trespass against a neighbor, we lose our sovereign claim. That’s the warning which the flag should herald today.”

  9. Lincoln didn’t have to have a war, South Carolina did.

    The pro-slavery radicals had assumed, when they began the secession movement, that all of the slave states would secede.

    In 1860, there were 15 slave states. Only seven of them seceded. Most importantly, Virginia and North Carolina did not. A Virginia not only had the largest population of the slave states, it had almost all of the industry in the South. A Confederacy lacking Virginia would be a poor backwater.

    South Carolina forced the war in order to force Virginia into seceding. Which it did, along with North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, resulting in a Confederacy of 11 states, instead of 7.

    Lincoln wanted to hold the Union together. But had South Carolina not precipitated the war, he very well may have found Congress recognizing the secession and taking the option away from him.

  10. I have no direct Southern Heritage, but I know enough people that do to know that there are large cultural differences between them and us Damned Yankees. Those differences are starkly shown by the different views of anything Confederate. In this case, I try to live up the Liberal Ideal of not judging other cultures.

    Related to all this, I just read a Thomas Sowell piece. It’s good.
    http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2015/07/07/a-legacy-of-cliches-n2021930/page/full

  11. I have ancestors who fought on both sides (no, not the same ancestors, silly!).
    An uncomfortable truth: the Confederate states and the Confederate army were more “American” than the Northern states and army. The North had more new states and more recent immigrants and non-citizens fighting for it. Deal with it.

  12. One possible reason for furling the Southern Cross is that, per Sowell’s article, it takes away one more excuse for the tragedies occurring in black communities. That said, the so-called “advocates” for the poor and minorities make so many excuses that have nothing to do with reality, I’m not sure it would make a difference.

    One other thought is that Emery’s comment reveals a second valid reason people fly the Southern Cross; it is a symbol to them of resistance to arbitrary authority.

    A final thought: I’ve read Carl Sandburg’s appraisal of Lincoln, at least in part, and it strikes me that he shares basically the same information as Tom DiLorenzo. It’s just the interpretation we argue about. There are serious Constitutional and moral questions on both sides.

  13. Dedge, that’s an interesting re-write, but it makes no sense.

    Why would SC care if any other states followed it into secession? You may not be aware, but the vast majority of the US exports in 1860 came from Southern cotton and tobacco fields. South Carolina had a strong economy (yes, slave based) that could have sustained it without help for a long time.

    All they had to do was wait, just a little while longer, while the federal government squeezed other Southern states, they didn’t need a war.

    The Governor of South Carolina went out of his way to try and get the federal troops to leave through diplomacy. President James Buchanan had promised to leave Sumter unoccupied.

    After John B. Floyd, acting on his own authority, moved the garrison from Ft. Moultrie, Buchanan send a merchant ship to resupply; it was turned back. It was Lincoln that sent the first convoy of warships to try and reinforce and resupply Sumter; it was a blatantly provocative move. At that point, South Carolina was out of options.

  14. One other point. In 1860, like many other Southern states, there were three distinct populations in South Carolina.

    There was the wealthy planters and merchants, their slaves and everyone else.

    The vast majority of South Carolinians survived as yeoman farmers. They didn’t have any idea what was happening in Charleston or Columbia day-to-day, much less Washington DC.

    Most of the state was a backwater already; for the elite, Charleston was one of the most important, wealthy and influential cities on the Continent . What did they have to gain from a war with the US? Nothing.

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