No, it doesn't come from a place of hate.
The Confederate Flag comes from a group of states who rebelled against the over-reach of Federal authority. Ironically - just what is happening, now.
It was a symbol of their decision to part ways with the Union.
Remember - it was the Union that declared war upon the Confederacy. The states wanted to leave and do their own thing. The North said "No" and struck out in order to impose tax collections and various fees from the South that had declared itself independent.
The only reason there was a war is because the Union refused to let go of its revenue stream.
Little Banshee, have they so thoroughly brainwashed you that you have no idea what a fact is?
Define: "Place of hate"
What is it?
Where is this place? What makes it hateful?
Can you not THINK anymore!?
You must be registered for see images
That guy is a hero, right?
Fought for liberation?
You must be registered for see images
This guy is an internet celebrity and cultural icon who just goes around killing people and destroying things for no reason.
You must be registered for see images
Oh, don't they look so happy?
The Confederate Flag was born as a symbol of a collection of states attempting to become a separate nation because they wished to self-govern once again. It does not come from "hate."
You must be registered for see links
"Plenty of contemporary Southern leaders and pundits pointed out the contradiction, with one Confederate officer raging that arming slaves would “contravene the principles upon which we fight,” and the Charleston Mercury warning on January 13, 1865, “We want no Confederate government without our institutions.” Even after the bill passed, Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs (top, right) wrote in a private letter to a friend on March 24, 1865:
In my opinion, the worst calamity that could befall us would be to gain our independence by the valor of our slaves, instead of our own… The day the army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers, they will be degraded, ruined, and disgraced. But if you put our negroes and white men into the army together, you must and will put them on an equality; they must be under the same code, the same pay, allowances and clothing… Therefore, it is a surrender of the entire slavery question.
However, the question was finally settled by the intervention of general in chief Robert E. Lee (top, left), who had already attained mythic status in the South. After President Lincoln rejected offers of a negotiated peace and Congress freed the slaves with the Thirteenth Amendment, Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis (top, center) were at last able to persuade the Confederate Congress to take the fateful step, with Lee arguing that it was “not only expedient but necessary,” adding, “We must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves.” "
While the concept of slavery was part of the cause of the war - racism, and hate, certainly wasn't a large part. Many whites were slaves within the South, as well (Union soldiers commented as much:
You must be registered for see links
). The concept of slavery was necessarily a master-servant relationship.
By voiding that relationship - it was logical that these people would become equal members of society. Freedom of slaves was nothing new to the South:
You must be registered for see links
"Blacks in Mississippi, and elsewhere in the South, became free in several ways. Prior to 1825, it was common and legal for slaves to become free either by purchasing their freedom or by slaveholders freeing them. Beginning in the mid-1820s, both forms of emancipation became increasingly less common and even illegal. The primary pathways to free status for blacks were blocked."
Note that this was following Federal action to close down the international slave trade. While I am not advocating for the slave trade - it is an observation that the State placed limitations upon the ability to free slaves out of concerns that they would not be able to replace the labor demand left behind by freed slaves.
You must be registered for see links
"In a fascinating essay reviewing this controversy, R. Halliburton shows that free black people have owned slaves “in each of the thirteen original states and later in every state that countenanced slavery,” at least since Anthony Johnson and his wife Mary went to court in Virginia in 1654 to obtain the services of their indentured servant, a black man, John Castor, for life.
And for a time, free black people could even “own” the services of white indentured servants in Virginia as well. Free blacks owned slaves in Boston by 1724 and in Connecticut by 1783; by 1790, 48 black people in Maryland owned 143 slaves. One particularly notorious black Maryland farmer named Nat Butler “regularly purchased and sold Negroes for the Southern trade,” Halliburton wrote.
Perhaps the most insidious or desperate attempt to defend the right of black people to own slaves was the statement made on the eve of the Civil War by a group of free people of color in New Orleans, offering their services to the Confederacy, in part because they were fearful for their own enslavement: “The free colored population [native] of Louisiana … own slaves, and they are dearly attached to their native land … and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana … They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought [to defend New Orleans from the British] in 1814-1815.”"
Free blacks owned slaves.
He didn't think it was motivated by hatred.
He didn't have a problem with displaying it.
Where do you get off using his death to justify your hatred for an image?
So a State can't fly the flag as a display of freedom?
Here:
You must be registered for see links
Read through that.
They cite their claims and historical examples.
It's an interesting read, even if you do believe it is, perhaps, a view through tinted glasses.
For example:
"Reading twenty-first century histories of the antebellum period War between the States and talking to the historians who write them, we expect to see two processes in race relations in the antebellum South. First, we expect to see people of color in the South eager to escape the clutches of a violently racist South. We also expect to see white southerners eager to be rid of all black people whom they cannot control. What we, in fact, see in these Mississippi legislative petitions are two unexpected trends. We see white men going well out of their way to ask that free people of color be allowed to remain in their communities because they were well-behaved, industrious and simply because it would be just to allow them to stay. Next, we see free people of color asking to be allowed to stay in Mississippi to be near their families, and even, in many cases, expressing a willingness to become slaves in exchange for the privilege of remaining in the state. In some cases, these free people of color valued their home and families more than their freedom."
This was in regard to laws being passed in Mississippi that would require free blacks to leave the State.
Another interesting point:
"Some slaves who were manumitted and left for the north found freedom to be not as advantageous as they had supposed. In February, the Memphis Appeal reported that six negroes had returned to the South. Six years prior, these slaves had been “set at liberty” and had moved to New York. After six years of freedom, they had “returned to slavery in Helena Arkansas.” The free blacks told the whites in Helena that they “preferred Southern slavery to Northern liberty.”[10] White southerners loved this type of story because it “proved” their notions that slavery was natural for black people, and some blacks preferred it to freedom in the North. The fact remains, however, that, assuming the story is true,[11] these free black people came back to Arkansas, preferring life in the South to that in the North, even if life in the South meant returning to slavery."
There is much, much more to the issue of slavery and race relations in the South than what you have been taught, Little Banshee.
While there were certainly injustices - and, I would argue - slavery itself is an injustice; the depiction of the South as being cruel and hateful during these times is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors to agitate pliable minds.
