The Confederate Flag is indeed a racist symbol and it was racist from the very first day it was used to lead Confederate troops against the Union.
“…the new [Confederate] Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.” (Alec Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, 1861) fordham.edu
Here we see the Vice President of the Confederacy flatly stating both the cause of secession and of the war. He claims the then new Confederate Constitution had settled "forever" the question of the proper status of blacks and that this issue was the cause of Southern Secession and also of the Southern effort in the Civil War. Since now we see that the Southern Constitution had settled "forever" the question of blacks, and that this was why the South was fighting, we only now need to see how the Southern Constitution settled the issue.
From the Southern Confederate Constitution
Article I: Section IX.IV
"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."
Article IV: Section III
"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 Sates; 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."
yale.edu
We see that the question Southerners had settled "forever" was that blacks would be slaves and would be transported to other regions as slaves. The notion that Southerners thought slavery was about to end is quite false. Quite a few Southerners had already moved west with their slaves to use them in agriculture and also in mining; and as the nation began to industrialize the plan was to use slaves in factories.
(continued next post...) |
