Confederate Flag Question Is Not Just Black Or White

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In the last Republican debate, the first question asked was what the Confederate flag symbolized to each candidate. A symbol of slavery? A political and social ideology? Historical icon? The easy answer, and the liberal one, is that it symbolized slavery and oppression. The far more historically accurate one is that the flag and the entire secession was a fit on the South’s part because of an economically bleak future and a socially divisive philosophy.

Regionally, the South was very much headed to where it is today: fiscally secondary to the bustling northern markets. Slavery was its strongest and only crouch which abolition threatened. That’s not to say the slavetrading cream of the crop didn’t consider blacks inferior to whites, but motivation for fighting the Confederate States of America varied. Unionists had a number of reasons for refusing secession. First off, there was the question of how much power states should have versus the federal government, others saw slavery (not the rights of blacks, the grossly unfair treatment of them) as immoral and problematic to Manifest Destiny. The most little-known reason though, was that slavery made it harder for Americans to achieve the “American dream” of success. Slavemasters, that were already rich through the trade, became richer which made it harder for ambitious Americans to begin and succeed in the cotton industry.
Abraham Lincoln’s chief concern was retaining the Union and abolishing slavery, not healing society’s condescending view toward blacks. Lincoln’s famous speech where he said “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that,” reflect his priorities. He was far more interested in the Union and abolishing slavery than equality. There’s so much in history that still echoes today. It would be nice if the political leadership stopped implying and approaching conflicts as simple with a good side (in this case the Abraham’s Union) and a bad side (the Confederates). That’s not to say that many Unionists passionately deplored the mistreatment and inequality of slavery, but there were a number of reasons Unionists denied secession. Too bad even today people just look for a place to stamp “bad guy” and “good guy.”