People of this thread, please allow me to state up front for the record that I'm a conservative.
That being said, there's no defending the Confederacy as good and mostly for states rights. That's just not true. From the south side, the war was mostly about the desire to keep slavery alive and well.
Did you know that it was illegal for black people to learn to read in some southern states? And that whites were forbidden from teaching them? Why? Because education is the beginning of the road to freedom.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/education/docs1.html
I'm from the south, and I love the south. And I had a rebel flag tag on the front of my car when I was in high school (in 1980). But I've learned better since. I do not, and never have, believed that blacks are inferior in any way to whites.
And whether the rebel flag was meant to represent the fight for states rights, or other sinister things, or all thereof, the sinister things are all that the younger generation today believes in. There's no saving the rebel flag, and everyone who tries to defend it will be shunned. It's going to be eliminated soon anyway, and resisting will only stir the pot of negative public opinion. So why try to defend it? It needs to disappear from public display.
Personal display is, and should be, for every person to decide.
On the other hand, what was the north's motivation? Was it to end slavery? Was president Lincoln hell-bent on saving the slaves? HELL NO. It was to save the
Union; slaves be damned, if need be. Read his letter here:
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greeley.htm
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.