The confederate flag is not racist

PRO: "Florida had a low slave population but they left because they were taxed too high because there was no industrial use in Florida as in Maryland the people in the western industrial area was German how oppose the South."Most of the "Florida Declaration of Causes" [1], the official reasons for secession of Florida, speaks about slavery and abolition."By the agency of a large proportion of the members from the non slaveholding States books have been published and circulated amongst us the direct tendency and avowed purpose of which is to excite insurrection and servile war with all their attendant horrors. A President has recently been elected, an obscure and illiterate man without experience in public affairs or any general reputation mainly if not exclusively on account of a settled and often proclaimed hostility to our institutions and a fixed purpose to abolish them. It is denied that it is the purpose of the party soon to enter into the possession of the powers of the Federal Government to abolish slavery by any direct legislative act. This has never been charged by any one. But it has been announced by all the leading men and presses of the party that the ultimate accomplishment of this result is its settled purpose and great central principle. That no more slave States shall be admitted into the confederacy and that the slaves from their rapid increase (the highest evidence of the humanity of their owners will become value less. Nothing is more certain than this and at no distant day. What must be the condition of the slaves themselves when their number becomes so large that their labor will be of no value to their owners. Their natural tendency every where shown where the race has existed to idleness vagrancy and crime increased by an inability to procure subsistence. Can any thing be more impudently false than the pretense that this state of things is to be brought about from considerations of humanity to the slaves."Florida still had a lot of Slaves at the beginning of the war (61,000), and their labor accounted for 85 percent of the cotton production. Also, a lot of slaves that fled fought in the civil war, on the Union side! "By 1840 white Floridians were concentrating on developing the territory and gaining statehood. The population had reached 54,477 people, with African American slaves making up almost one-half of the population. Steamboat navigation was well established on the Apalachicola and St. Johns Rivers, and railroads were planned. There were over 61,000 slaves in Florida in 1861. Their labor accounted for 85 percent of the state’s cotton production. Confederate authorities used slaves as teamsters to transport supplies and as laborers in salt works and fisheries. Many Florida slaves working in these coastal industries escaped to the relative safety of Union controlled enclaves. Beginning in 1862, Union military activity in East and West Florida encouraged slaves in plantation areas to flee their owners in search of freedom. Some worked on Union ships and more than a thousand enlisted as soldiers and sailors in the U.S. military" PRO:"You only said two states that said slavery was there reason for secession, but what about Virginia or the Carolinas they seceded for there rights and taxes."Now, if we look at the South Carolina declaration of secession [3], the Wikipedia synopsis says: "The opening portion of the declaration outlines the historical background of South Carolina and offers a legal justification for its secession. It asserts that the right of states to secede is implicit in the Constitution and this right was explicitly reaffirmed by South Carolina in 1852. The declaration states that the agreement between South Carolina and the United States is subject to the law of compact, which creates obligations on both parties and which revokes the agreement if either party fails to uphold its obligations. The next section asserts that the government of the United States and of states within that government had failed to uphold their obligations to South Carolina. The specific issue stated was the refusal of some states to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and clauses in the U.S. Constitution protecting slavery and the federal government's perceived role in attempting to abolish slavery. The next section states that while these problems have existed for twenty-five years, the situation had recently become unacceptable due to the election of a President (this was Abraham Lincoln although he is not mentioned by name) who was planning to outlaw slavery. The final section concludes with a statement that South Carolina had therefore seceded from the United States." Again, slavery is the main reason for secession of S. Carolina. Need I go on??? Surely, if you check the other states, you will find the same (I think I have done enough research for now).KKK and confederate flagPRO: "And at the end of the 1800's the KKK stop using the Confederate flag and made their on flag and used the American flag."I just went to the KKK website (www.kkk.com - easy to remember), then clicked on "...KKK t-shirts and more", then clicked on "flags" [4].Out of the 17 flags they offer, 5 have the confederate flag (or a variation) on it. Only 3 have a KKK logo. One of the flag has both: So it seems that the KKK is still using the confederate flag, even if it is not their official flag.Main pointMy main point though, is that regardless what the flag originally stood for (and it stood in part for slavery), it matters what it stands for today. The poll results show that the flag is conceived as being racist. And it is easy to see, why people could perceive it as racist (slavery in civil war, KKK, etc.)PRO: "The USA kept slaves for 89 years as the CSA only held slaves for 4 years. "True, but for whatever reason, the stars 'n stripes has evolved as a symbol that unites all American people, and the confederate flag has evolved as a symbol that divides the American people. Blacks dying for the confederate flag?PRO: "The Confederate flag was the flag of the confederacy from 1863-65. It's cross is the cross of Saint Andrew and each star resembles a 13 colony. Flown By Northern Virginia and the Army of Tennessee, blacks freed and slaved including native Americans all died for this flag. "There were very few black soldiers on the confederate side, about 300 perhaps. Compare this to the 180,000-200,000 black soldiers on the union side. [5]"It is widely accepted by historians that perhaps as many as 200,000 blacks served in the Union Army.""CWG has discovered that historians and staff – notably Robert Krick – atSpotsylvania National Battlefield Park have sifted through about 100,000 soldiers’ records to see how many non-whites were represented. Non-whites could be blacks, Native Americans, and mulattoes. They found that only 20-30 non-whites were found out of 100,000 soldiers’ records. That is less than 1/300th of one percent. Taking into account that the following estimate involves more conjecture than a good historian would be comfortable with applying to acceptable methods of reliable historical inquiry, one can still get a fairly solid “finger in the air” estimate that if that same ratio of 1/300th was applied to the figure-range of 750,000 – 900,000 Confederates serving during the war from 1861-1865, then one could only reasonably conclude that, at best, between 250-300 black soldiers may have served in the Confederate Army, and of those an even much smaller percentage would have been entrusted to take up arms."[1]http://www.civilwarcauses.org...[2]http://en.wikipedia.org...[3]http://en.wikipedia.org...[4]http://americanheritagecommittee.com...[5]http://civilwargazette.wordpress.com...