Oh, right, of course!
I was aware of the current furore over the Confederate Flag, just not that it is known as 'The Stars and Bars'.
Yup, sorry. My brain crossed some wires.
I am considerably more patriotic on a local level than I am on a national one. I am DAMN proud of being a Montanan and especially proud of being a Bozemanite. Being an American is okay, I guess. It was pretty good yesterday.
Wales has a lot of nationalists of the wrong kind. It's fairly turned me off the whole patriotism thing. I like the history and culture.
The Civil War was not fought over slavery. It was simply state rights and taxation. The South was being ignored by the North for a long time on a lot of issues and the South got ignored for the last time and the Civil War happened. Yes, slavery was a part of it but it wasn't the main reason why it was fought. Check your history books.
No, the secession was based tariffs and taxes, in addition preserving slavery, states’ rights (exercising slavery), and political liberty for whites. Then the Civil War came, which was based on the south wanting to continue operating in ways that were no longer conducive to the nation, with many of their ways were directly centralized by the slave operations and labor that they relied on as a confederacy. Check your own history books.
And that's why it's state rights. It wasn't fought over pure slavery. It may have been to exercise the right of using them but it was not slavery. The South didn't have much of a voice in politics in the Union. Every other president before Lincoln didn't condemn slavery and immediately order the South to get rid of them. They talked about it and at least gave the South that right to voice their opinion on political matters instead of ordering them to get rid of it. Lincoln and the Republican party condemned it so they knew once he got into office they weren't going to get a say in the matter of slavery, taxation, industrialization, or other politics. Slavery was a part of the reason it was fought but it wasn't the reason why it was fought. It was fought over state rights and representation. I still say check your history books. Taxes may have been on reason for succession. But loss of representation is the big one.