I did my Civil War research.
Senator Charles Sumner was nearly beaten to death by a Southern governor after giving an anti-slavery speech 5 years before the Civil War started.
So, yeah... fuck off with this delusion that the confederate flag represents anything but the oppression of black people in this country.
You're 5 minute google search is not enough. You did not even research where I told you that you would find GOOD information.
I guess we should all leave, since the slaves were sold to the South by the North, you knnow, under the American flag. Not ONE ship that brought slaves to this nation flew the Confederate flag, nor landed at a Southern port. The Spaniards were the first to bring African slaves here.... after the WHITE slaves. THEN, the first person, to appear in a court, to claim a slave as a piece of property, was a BLACK man! Several free blacks owned slaves, and were more likely to own a plantation. Blacks were originally in business to sell slaves, as their own tribes people sold them out.
Slavery was already ending here when the war broke out. The Industrial Revolution was kicking in. No one had yet figured out how to free the slaves safely and without economic hardship. The slaves were not educated, nor had their own place to live. A lot of slaves were not even treated badly, and loved their masters and didnt want to leave them. Wanna know what the Union did, built the slaves a mud hut with no windows, no heat, no floors, cracks in the walls, and said "here ya go, y'all free."
NOW, as far as the great men of the South. Stonewall Jackson was teaching black kids how to read and write, at a time when it was illegal to do so. Robert E. Lee, despised slavery, and said it was an abhorrent evil. Slaves that fought with their masters, when the war was over, still rode home with their masters when asked if they wanted to leave. Sherman, from the Union, even said if the war was over slavery, he would've joined the South.
Yes, some states supported slavery, but not all, nor all the people. Only those rich enough to have slaves had them... so in reality you need to be blaming the rich.
When the war broke out, it was fellow Southerners fighting for their lives, their family, their land, their everything, since it was all destruction upon us and everyone down here.
Also, ALL races fought in that war with the South. White, black, Asian, Native American, Spanish, Irish, you name it!
Im in Virginia, Virginia had the most freed slaves. Virginia did not want to succeed from the Union, it was only when the Union wanted Virginia to attack their brothers and sisters, did Virginia succeed, along with the rest of the states. THIS is why we flag "the battle flag of Northern Virginia" which y'all usually call the Confederate Flag, though it is not the actual Confederate Flag, but everyone just calls it that. Its the flag of HONOR, of the SOUTH! The flag of LIBERTY and rebellion against Tyrants!!!