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by Nathaniel Whitley

Created on: April 13, 2008   Last Updated: June 24, 2011

As a Southerner myself, I am both tickled and a bit irritated every time I hear parents or teachers telling kids the Civil War was fought over slavery. These days people are up in arms over the displaying of a Confederate flag as if it were intended for some racial purpose. This is plainly convoluted and ill-informed. The rest of the country seems to view the South as full of inbred yokels that speak in a slow drawl, embittered over the loss of a war a full century-and-a-half gone. But I can assure you that, whatever else, no Southerner who still harbors any sense of pride in his country is anything but glad at the defeat.

You see, the war itself was over freedom, but not the freedom of black slaves from oppressive, white owners. It was about the Southern states' desire to secede from the United States entirely. They wanted freedom from a government whose interests were not with them, but with the more industrialized North. Few may realize, but at the onset of the Civil War slaves were still owned in many Northern States.

The reasons this desire for secession escalated into all-out war are many. First of all, though the North prospered in industry, it relied largely on Southern plantations for raw materials. If those materials were suddenly to become property of another country entirely, prices on imports would rise and the US government would have significantly fewer tax payers to draw on to pay for the added expense. Furthermore, the secession would have created a new possible threat to the United States. No one ever feared Canadian attack, and Mexico's border was small enough to bottleneck any advance. But a new country sharing a border that stretched across the entire southern United States was a far bolder threat.

Though slavery was indeed one of the initial concerns of the war to come, it was not a major one. It wasn't until part of the way in that the Union decided it needed a rallying point - something for the troops to get behind. They made this issue the American issue, the issue of freedom. Only then did Abraham Lincoln actually abolish slavery, making the North a haven for escaped slaves. And even then there were many times a slave crossed the border to freedom only to be sent back, either to his or her old master or by being forcefully drafted into the Union military.

As for the flag itself, what is now recognized as the Confederate Flag was not the actual flag of the Confederacy. The actually Confederate flag bore a close resemblance to the American flag at the time, with fewer stars of course. The Rebel Flag, as the one we see today is sometimes called, was actually General Robert E. Lee's battle flag.

Few may realize this, but at the beginning of the war letters were sent out on both sides requesting top military personnel to join sides. Lee was given the choice to lead in the North as well as the South. In letters sent from Lee to his family and friends, he was actually torn over the decision. He did not approve of slavery, he said, but the South was his home and he would fight for her.

As a Georgia native, I watched closely as they debated the State Flag, which bore the so-called Confederate flag upon it. I thought it ridiculous when the state was forced to modify the flag because people were misinformed over its symbolic meaning. Ignorance wins again, I thought.

You see, when a Southerner displays the flag, they aren't promoting racism or hate. The flag isn't about the color of people's skin. For us it stands for rebellion. We, as Americans, are taught that we live in a free country because our forefathers had the courage to fight for that freedom. In the very words of the Constitution of these United States, we are encouraged to be rebellious if our government does not uphold the rights of its people. Rebellion is instilled in us as a moral virtue, and when a Southerner flies this flag he is celebrating that rebellious nature.

Any perceived racism attached to it is the product of people with hate in their hearts, both white and black, and suppressing a symbol does not eradicate hate. We must instead be sensible an enlighten those who would hate on either side, for it is enlightenment, not suppression, that reaches to the core of humanity and dispels all prejudice.

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