I don’t post here very often anymore, but I feel compelled to comment on Tom’s equating of the Confederate flag with the swastika.
1) That’s offensive and crazy. It actually plays into the hands of the David Dukes of the world — and I know this, having been at the forefront of the fight against Duke for three years — because it allows neo-Nazis to claim for their own a symbol that has many other meanings, some of them defensible and many of them romantic. Robert E. Lee, a good man, did not fight on behalf of genocide. Period.
2) Nevertheless, I’ve always been a bit baffled by those who still proudly wave the Confederate flag. What are they trying to say? That it would have been a good thing, historically, if the union had broken up? That if the union had broken up, it would have been good to serve under a flag that, whatever else it ALSO symbolized that might have been worthy of celebrating, did indeed still countenance slavery? That secession without agreement from the rest of the union is a good, or constitutional, thing? As I read histories of the civil war, I find myself far more moved by the valor of the Confederate armies and generals than I do by those of the Yankees. I find their dedication, divorced from the precise nature of their cause, more ennobling. I find the successful union generals such as Sherman and Sheridan to be irredeemably brutal. I am in awe of much of what Stonewall Jackson accomplished militarily, and I admire greatly the utterly unappreciated James Longstreet. But I do not, in the end, pine for a different outcome in which the union was split, slavery continued in the South, and the ideals of the Declaration of Independence left unrealized. The fact remains that if the Confederacy had won, slavery would have continued there for many years. Slavery is indefensible and inhuman. Period.
3) Yes, the flag also stood for a belief in federalism — yes, in “states’ rights” — that, when not taken to the extremes that Calhoun advocated, is not just defensible but in almost all respects correct. One can believe in federalism without believing in seccession; one can resent the bullying both of industrial, moneyed interests and of centralized government without secretly pining for a diminution of human rights. And one absolutely, positively, proudly, can celebrate the culture of the old South COMPLETELY DIVORCED FROM SLAVERY, and can see the flag as a symbol of that culture. A culture of courtesy. Of honor. Of chivalry. Of appreciation for the land. Of honoring and protecting ladies who live up to the name. Of individualism. Of decentralized authority. Of governance by tradition and cultural mores as much as by formal government that is enforced, as all government eventually is, at the point of a gun. (And of the idea that guns are there as much to protect against oppressive government — as a last resort — as for anything else.)
4) Nevertheless, one can also honor those good things without needing to wave a Confederate flag. And it is indisputable that the flag is inextricably linked with an armed effort that, whatever else its goals, also would have had the effect of (and in many cases was motivated by the desire to ensure) the continuance of the absolute evil of slavery. For those reasons, I myself never will raise aloft a Confederate flag. I think it appropriate to be unfurled only in certain, very very very limited circumstances (historical re-enactments of course among them). And I understand those who find it offensive even as I fully understand those who mean to give no offense by unfurling it.
5) In conclusion, I do not think the Confederate flag is something worth fighting over. It is not inherently evil, but by its very nature, even if unintentionally, it carries at least a little whiff of evil no matter how many other ennobling things it may also represent to the people who display it. If it is absolutely sick and unfair for people like Tom to equate it with Nazism, it also is at least a little bit intellectually dishonest to deny that its symbolism is somewhat troubling. If I thought that Southern Appeal was dedicated to the Confederate flag (in any of its forms) or to glorifying the entire cause of the Old Confederacy, I never would have joined it. I joined because it was a blog that mainly focused on appellate legal matters, with a particular emphasis on southern legal matters and a southern sensibility of the right sort (i.e., chivalry, etc.), and those are matters that are of great interest to me. The site now seems to spend as much or more time on matters Catholic (not, by the way, traditionally predominant in the South, old or new) and broadly cultural — matters definitely worthy of discussion and also of interest to me as a near-Catholic and as a deep admirer of John Paul II. But they are matters that have strayed from the “appeal” part of the blog’s name in its original sense. As long as those emphases, and the particularly southern character of the site in terms of chivalry, etc., continue, I am happy to be an occasional blogger here — and I am always happy to call its founder, Feddie, my friend. But if this site becomes an apologist for the Confederate cause in toto, I then will say goodbye. If I ever do so, I certainly will do it without a noxious, below-the-belt attack such as the one with which Tom bid adieu.