Civil War Confederacy Essay

Most understand that America was built largely on the backs of African slaves and that a civil war was fought over the right of white people to own slaves. This war began when the southern states decided to secede from the rest of the United States in order to keep their slaves; these formed their own country, the Confederate States of America, and created two flags of their own. This is one of the darker parts of American history that many would like to gloss over. The end of the civil war led to both the abolishment of slavery, and the end of the Confederacy as the involved states returned to the union. At the time the war ended, the flags of the Confederacy were mostly retired, but some of the men who had fought for the Confederacy refused

In an interview with NPR, two Iowa residents stated that they see the flag as such and that they identify with the plight of the Confederacy. The perceived “plight” here being that the rights of the southern states were being threatened by the federal government and they had to fight for their independence from that tyranny (NPR 2017). These two men belong to a far more dangerous part of the confederate flag holding population, a part that denies the idea that the secession that lead to the Civil War based in the loss of slaves rather than any other “infringement” of the south’s rights. By dismissing this aspect of the flag’s history and making the white people the into the victims, people like the interviewees can empathize guiltlessly with the flag’s creators. This is a dangerous mindset because it relies on a rewriting of history akin to Holocaust denial. People who did not face the evils of slavery, and its long lasting after effects, absolve the Confederacy of guilt because they need to feel validated as victims. This willing ignorance of the history behind symbols reflects negatively on those that choose it, proving that they are more interested in feeling victimized than in they are in bettering the country. In this they also reveal just how truly similar they are to the Confederacy, to free the Confederacy of guilt they ignore voices and legacies of those who suffered at its