"If My Ignorance Offends You, You're The Dumb One"
- seedspeed57
- Oct 27, 2014
- 5 min read
A history lesson, huh? Well, let's see.
This is a common misrepresentation of the flag of the Confederate States of America. Since the crossed blue lines on a field of red are not featured on a larger field of white, or a field of white with a vertical red stripe, it's closest to the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia - although that flag was square. (If the blue was lighter it'd be the second Confederate Navy Jack... the Confederacy had a lot of flags.) The version on this shirt WAS proposed - and rejected - as the national flag of the Confederacy in 1861. Despite that rejection citizens (not the government or military) have over the years adopted it as the official unofficial Confederate flag.
So, to begin, you're not really wearing an actual flag. You're wearing a scrapped early draft. Not a great start to the history lesson you're trying to give me, Mr. T-shirt.
The Confederate flags (I'm just gonna lump 'em all together - like I said, there were a bunch) represent the Confederate States of America. Thirteen states, each represented by a star in the blue cross. The election of Abraham Lincoln and a large majority of northern Republicans to Congress in 1860 caused decades of secessionist threats to finally become reality. Why? Because the Southern aristocracy considered the Republican Party to be a party founded on a hatred of slavery, who would abolish the practice once in office.
Revisionists like to say the war wasn’t about slavery. They are incorrect. Perhaps the words of Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederate States of America, can clear this up. In his famous ‘Cornerstone Speech’ he said the ‘cornerstone’ of their government “rest[ed] upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” (He tried to walk these comments back after the war, but fuck that – he said it and acted upon it.)
So yeah – it was about slavery… and the economic ramifications of abolishing it… and the social ramifications of abolishing it… and the petty human ramifications of abolishing it... and the nearly countless ramifications of abolishing it. When people talk about the impact of the abolition of slavery on the Southern states it’s not a simple case of them not wanting people they considered an inferior race to be freed. The practice of slavery was so deeply entwined into Southern culture, economics and self-image that the consequences of doing away with it weren’t the equivalent of ripples in a pond when a pebble is tossed into the water, but the decimation of a puddle when struck by a boulder.
It’s these ramifications that allow revisionists to claim the war wasn’t about slavery. They generally cite other causes that ultimately led to conflict and secession, but for the most part those causes are byproducts of the main issue – maintaining the slavery of ‘negroes’ at all costs. That is the poisoned spring all further disease spread from.
So – to make a long and complex story short and simple – fearing the abolition of slavery, the thirteen states of the Confederacy left the Union.
“Left the Union.”
Maybe that phrase is the reason their actions seem reasonable to people who today consider themselves patriots. We don’t really use that term to describe the United States anymore, so saying they “left the Union” seems distant and even archaic. So let’s put it in more modern terminology…
The Confederate states didn’t like the new president – promoted to office in a lawful election – and feared he might force them to free the nearly 4 million (according to the census of 1860) human beings being used as slave labor. Keep in mind Lincoln hadn’t made concrete threats to abolish slavery – in fact his statements about it from this time period are all over the map. He WAS a politician, remember.
So because they didn’t like that the arc of history was curving away from them, these states used flimsy legal arguments to maintain secession wasn’t illegal under the Constitution and left the United States of America.
Forget this “left the Union” stuff – they left the United States of America. ‘United.’ ‘Union.’ Get the connection, Mr. T-shirt?
What this means is that the government, citizens and military of these states renounced their American citizenship. They renounced their government. They renounced the Constitution. And they took up arms against the states that remained loyal to the United States.
Many argue they took up arms only to protect themselves from the aggression of the North. This is self-serving and simplistic. Secession was illegal (Southern legal mumbo-jumbo aside). Jefferson Davis – President of the Confederacy – immediately raised an army of 100,000 men. They were backing their lawless action against the United States of America with armed force. Was the U.S. government just supposed to give them their way and wave farewell? Of course not. They understood the strength of the country lay in its unity. To become a bunch of individual nation states each pursuing their own selfish agendas would weaken everyone. So they moved to squash the treason and bring the traitors back into the fold.
Treason: In this case the act of betraying the values and laws of the Constitution of the United States of America to form an independent, rogue government.
Traitors: Those who supported, fought for and governed those rogue states.
Even removing slavery from the equation (which, as much as some would like, is impossible), the acts of the Confederacy were treasonous, and those performing those acts were traitors to the United States of America. Not some distant, ancient ‘Union.’ The United States of America.
So that (kind of) flag on your chest? That’s the flag of a treasonous, morally bankrupt, illegal government whose traitorous actions led to the deaths of over 620,000 military personnel. That was 2% of the population. As a percentage of our current population that’s the equivalent of 6 million deaths.
Not to mention they tried to dissolve and destroy the greatest country in the world. I think we can both agree this is the greatest country in the world, right, Mr. T-shirt? I sure think it is. And these bastards nearly killed it in its crib.
I’m sure you don’t agree with everything I’ve said. Probably not even very much of it. But I’m speaking from a place of historical fact, not misplaced emotion and regional pride. I’m not the one who needs a fucking history lesson.
In closing, let me be very, very clear: It’s not your shirt that offends me. It’s your rock-headed ignorance.
