The Confederacy was Evil. And Confederate Flags & Monuments are Emblems of Evil.
I grew up in Alabama, in the “Heart of Dixie”. Although there are many things about the South and Southern culture that I love, through careful thought and honest reflection, I have been able to recognize that a huge part of my Southern heritage was evil and something to be repudiated. For this realization, I am thankful.
For the position I have taken on this issue, I have been called (by former friends): (i) “a traitor”; (ii) “divisive”; (iii) “ignorant”; (iv) “a liberal”; (v) “inflammatory”; (vi) “dishonest”; (vii) a “pig”; (viii) “confused”; (ix) “stupid”; and (x) “hypocritical”. And those are only the ones I can remember! But truth is truth. It is not negotiable. I must stand on the side of truth. And thus I stand firm. My position is in accordance with truth. The Confederacy was evil.
To add a bit more context, two of my great-great-grandfathers were Confederate officers in the Civil War. My last name is from one of them, and my middle name is from the other one. One of them, with my last name, is listed on a Confederate monument in a town in Northwest Georgia, where he lived. One of my great-grandmothers was a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. From the time I was born, I was trained to revere and love the Confederacy. Thus, I have not come to my current position lightly.
Here is the factual, historical evidence. (And there is much more evidence than this little bit!)
POINT 1: The Confederate States of America held white supremacy, slavery and subjugation of black people as fundamental core principles and values. The Constitution of the Confederate States of American went so far as to MANDATE slavery, in a totalitarian fashion.
EVIDENCE 1.1:
Robert E. Lee, in a letter dated December 27, 1856:
“The painful discipline they (black people) are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things.”
(If only General Lee could have imagined the “painful discipline” that was about to be unleashed on the Confederacy.)
(In many ways, Robert E. Lee was a very admirable man. However, in his view of “race,” he was sorely mistaken. It is a sign of the magnitude of the evil of the Confederacy that men of otherwise noble character, like General Lee, were swept up in this hypocrisy.)
EVIDENCE 1.2 -
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of its Constitution prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way:
“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”
EVIDENCE 1.3 -
Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America also prohibited states from interfering with slavery:
“The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”
EVIDENCE 1.4 -
Perhaps the most menacing provision of the Confederate States Constitution was the explicit protection Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3 offered to slavery in all future territories conquered or acquired by the Confederacy:
“The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
This provision ensured the perpetuation of slavery as long and as far as the Confederate States could extend it’s political reach, and more than a few Confederates had their eyes fixed on Cuba and Central and South America as objects of future conquest.
Unlike the Confederate States Constitution, the United States Constitution freely permitted states to abolish slavery. If the day ever came when slavery was eliminated voluntarily throughout the United States of America, not one word of the United States Constitution would have needed to be changed, whereas slavery could never lawfully be abolished under the Confederate States Constitution.
If ever there was an evil, totalitarian government, it was the Confederacy.
POINT 2:
The Confederate flags — all of them — are emblems of the Confederacy, and they represent its evil.
EVIDENCE 2.1
Savannah Daily Morning News, April 23, 1863:
“During the first session of the Provisional Congress the subject of a flag occupied much of the attention of that body. Designs were invited and numerous model flags were received from all portions of the Confederacy and submitted to the Committee on the Flag and Seal, but for various reasons the Committee were unable to adopt any of the designs presented, and Congress was on the eve of adjourning without a Confederate flag when necessity compelled them, almost impromptu, to adopt our present flag. Since then the subject has been frequently discussed in Congress and by the press, but neither have been able to agree upon a substitute for the flag to which all object on account of its resemblance to that of the abolition despotism against which we are fighting.
“To avoid the evil consequences growing out of a confusion of flags on the battlefield, Gen. Beauregard adopted the Southern cross or battle flag, which has so grown to favor with the army as to be now almost universally substituted in the field for the ‘stars and bars’.
“ ‘… Our idea is simply to combine the present battle flag with a pure white standard sheet, our Southern cross, blue, on a red field, to take the place in the white flag that is occupied by the blue union in the old United States flag or the St. George’s cross in the British flag. As a people, we are fighting to maintain the heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race. A white flag, would thus be emblematical of our cause.’ “
CONCLUSION: All Christians — especially those of us from the former Confederate States — should repudiate the Confederacy and its flags. The former Confederate States, instead of proudly waving an emblem of evil, should issue public proclamations of repentance and remorse.
