The Confederate Flag is reasonably construed as a symbol of racism.

Rebuttals: "The foundations of our new government are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. "This is one man's opinion of a Constitution he was not a signatory of, nor a responsible party in its drafting. This is evidently his opinion, as its not specifically codified as law in the the new CSA's Constitution that 'the Negro is not equal to the white man', and the only references to race was immediately used as the identifier for a particular purpose of keeping or travelling with slaves. Were we to take one man's opinion as the de facto arbiter of racism, President Lincoln would have already summed this up for us, he was elected, with his views, and served as the acting head of the Union. Does that inherently mean the Union was a symbol of his views? Of course not, one man's opinion is nothing compared to the weight of their duty, which in the role of both Alexander Stephens and Abraham Lincoln was to execute the law of the land. In this instance, its a law of the land that had no overt rules about one race being inferior to another, only that Slavery needed to stay to enable the South's continued prosperity. Not to belabour the point, but if one part of a speech is representative of the whole, then overall the "Cornerstone" Speech from which Stephens is being quoted should even better qualify what the CSA was about:"The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise. Nay, more not only the cost of the iron — no small item in the aggregate cost — was borne in the same way, but we were compelled to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the privilege of importing the iron, after the price was paid for it abroad. What justice was there in taking this money, which our people paid into the common treasury on the importation of our iron, and applying it to the improvement of rivers and harbors elsewhere? . .. If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the commerce of Charleston bear the burden. If the mouth of the Savannah river has to be cleared out, let the sea-going navigation which is benefited by it, bear the burden". -Alexander Stephens"Con provides a quote from Abraham Lincoln that shows President Lincolns racist beliefs. I don’t contend this. Racist beliefs were very common at the time. "Then pointing to one specific symbol as racist without affording other symbology the same cherry-picked scrutiny is dishonest to the resolution. This is doing nothing more than attempting to take further dignity from the loser of the conflict by denying moral high ground, of which "slavery" apparently wasn't enough. That is not "reasonably construing", that is "reasonably disregarding" other data of the time to castigate from a position of moral superiority. Worse still, it diverts the problem of racism to the loser of the War, rather appreciating that such a thing is endemic to the society of the time, and sadly, to this day. This is why I say there is so much more at stake. Should we as society 'reasonably construe racism' to that symbol, the 'defeated' symbol, we have don ourselves a great disservice. We have rationalized it to ourselves that it was not slavery that was defeated, it was racism that was defeated, and give ourselves moral blinders to what racism exists today because it no longer carries the implements of bondage to go along with it. Conclusion: In the course of this discussion, we have seen how easy is to take one point, and conflate it into a caricature of what we want it to represent. Of course, we have also seen how easy it is to dispel that particular variety of caricature in favor of a larger picture. Is one man's opinion about a document in which he was responsible to and not for a reasonable construction? That is really the only evidence availed by Pro. The cause for the Civil War was multi-faceted ranging from slavery, to states rights, to taxation. No where in any of that is race specifically a factor, nor is a direct link of racism to the flag of the CSA evident. In a resolution so plain as what is it desires to connect, it seems the ability to demonstrate such a link would be wide indeed, however all Pro has admitted into evidence is the scant opinion of one man weighted against other sentiments of the time, as well as the dearth of evidence in the Confederation Constitution itself, the true corner stone of the Confederacy. In light of the information presented, and in light of how we should judge history as well as ourselves through the lens of a historian rather than seekers (demanders! )