A Betrayal of Their Fathers, Part 2

To broaden our scope a bit, and perhaps to add to your knowledge, General Robert E. Lee, CSA was the great grandson-in-law of our first President George Washington, (as Lee’s wife, Mary Custis Lee, was the great granddaughter of Martha Washington). Gen. Lee was a devout man who, after the war, bent his knee at the altar next to a black man and accepted communion; thus acting as a role model for the entire congregation of the church which he attended.

 

In 1861, just as hostilities were imminent, the U.S. Congress approved the Corwin Amendment, a document which President Lincoln favored, and which guaranteed the right of the Southern states to continue the practice of slavery; should they agree to cease and desist in their determination to break free of the Union.

 

While the practice of slavery cannot be defended, as no defense exists for it, the South’s refusal to accept this provision, and defer from their decision to secede, should make it altogether clear that there were greater issues than slavery which contributed to hostilities between the North and the South; issues such as the tendency of the federal government to intrude into the internal matters of its separate states, (a practice which continues to this day), and a disproportionate taxation on Southern products.

 

In terms of our Southern heritage , and the flag which represented our brave men on the field of battle :

 

The majority of Confederate soldiers were poor farmers and miscellaneous artisans of other trades, and never so much as owned a slave.

 

A significant number of freed blacks wore the Confederate gray and distinguished themselves in battle.

 

The common soldier was devoted to home and family and revered the battle flag; making no connection between it and the practice of slavery. Hundreds of thousands of our brave Southern soldiers fought, and died under what they characterized as “The Grand Old Flag.”

 

The use of the Confederate Battle Flag by the Ku Klux Klan, and other militant groups, and the resulting perception of the battle flag by the public is unfortunate. The murders of nine of our black brethren in a South Carolina church by a crazed gunman is even more despicable, but neither circumstance has anything, whatsoever, to do with our Southern heritage, or the Confederate Battle flag.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 12. Copyright Volumes 1-15.

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