Paul Sassone

So, they’re thinking of no longer flying the Confederate battle flag from public buildings down south.

What I wonder is why is the flag still being flown 150 years after the Civil War ended? Maybe it’s because the Civil War never ended.

Oh, Lee surrendered, the Confederate government collapsed and the Union was preserved. Large armies no longer battle each other. But that doesn’t mean the conflict is over.

The cause for which white Southerners fought — slavery — remains unresolved.

The still-waving Confederate flag is the symbol of that cause and a not-so-subtle code for continuing rebellion.

The Civil War ended actual slavery. Blacks for the first time were able to learn to read and write, to marry, to own property, to enter professions, to have equality before the law and to vote.

Between 1868 and 1876, 14 Black Americans were elected to and served in the U.S. House of Representatives and two served in the U.S. Senate. More than 600 blacks served in state legislatures and local governments.

Confederate flag at the Confederate monument on the SC capitol grounds in Columbia, SC. Photo by Billy Hathorn / Wikimedia Images

But white Southerners continued their war. They founded the Ku Klux Klan in 1868. In 1877 when federal troops were pulled out of the South the disenfranchisement of blacks began.

Citizenship rights had been restored to former rebels. Laws passed in 11 former Confederate states with now white dominated legislatures disenfranchised blacks through poll taxes, literacy tests, comprehension tests and such like.

Over all this, the Confederate flag flew.

During the latter 19th Century so-called Jim Crow laws codified racial segregation in all facets of life under using the lie of separate but equal.

Over all this the Confederate flag flew.

It took the federal government, prompted by the civil rights movement, to belatedly restore actual citizenship through the school desegregation Supreme Court ruling in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

And even today, there are efforts to deny the vote to black Americans.

Under the guise of preventing voter fraud — though a study by Arizona State University found only 28 cases of voter fraud nationwide since the year 2000 — several states have adopted legislation requiring voters to show photo ID before they can vote. Poor, minority and rural people often don’t have such IDs.

All the old Confederate states have such laws. Illinois, by the way, is among the 17 states that do not require any IDs at polling places.

It’s only to be expected that the Confederate flag would fly over such goings-on.

But, I hear it argued, flying the Confederate flag is a way to honor the men who died for their cause.

Men have died for many causes, some very bad, through history. Should Germany fly the swastika as a way to honor the Germans who died in World War II?

And soldiers don’t just die for a cause. They kill. The latest estimate I can find is that 359,528 Union soldiers died in the Civil War. They died because of soldiers representing the cause of human slavery.

Just who should be honored?

No, there is no good reason why the Confederate flag is flying, and has been flying for the last 150 years.

That flag has its place — in museums and history books.

Take down the Confederate flag.