The problem: Poor history education, not Confederate flags - Commentary by Bill Ward

An all too frequent occurrence happened recently at Grand Blanc High School. Two students displayed the Confederate battle flag. A shoving match took place between two other students, and now the two who displayed the flags are being disciplined.

Then the hyperbole about the display of Confederate flags began to flow with one student comparing the incident to Brown vs. Board of Education and another describing the incident as 'very degrading.'

What is really degrading at Grand Blanc and virtually every other high school in the country is the quality of history education. The history taught in most public schools consists of little more than racially divisive propaganda. That's not the fault of students. It is a problem with school administrators and curriculum planners. To punish students for the shortcoming of their adult mentors is totally out of line. The misunderstanding did not start with the display of Confederate flags; it started in the classroom.

Consider the basic idea that is usually taught about the Civil War, which wasn't truly a civil war at all. Most students feel that the South fought a war to defend slavery. The most superficial reading of history gives that impression and causes conflicts like the recent one at Grand Blanc.

Attempts to condense the terrible bloody conflict of the War Between the States to the simplest form of north vs. south, and whether the main issue was taxes or slavery is pure folly. Without a doubt, slavery was one issue in a list of social, political, and cultural differences that existed between the two regions. But to focus on slavery as the single most important cause is to wallow in abject ignorance of the period. The South no more fought a war to perpetuate slavery than the North fought to free the slaves, contrary to the teachings in my earlier years in North Carolina public schools.

Then, of course, there is the 1861 version of the Thirteenth Amendment written by the Northern Republicans in congress, which Abraham Lincoln favored, and explained by an excerpt from the article, "Stopping Time: The Pro-Slavery and Irrevocable Thirteenth Amendment," by A. Christopher Bryant; Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol. 26, 2003:

"In the post-secession winter of 1861, both Houses of Congress approved a proposed thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Three northern States even managed to ratify the proposal before the Civil War intervened. That version of the thirteenth amendment, introduced in the House by Representative Thomas Corwin of Ohio, purported to prohibit any future amendment granting Congress power to interfere with slavery in the States."

With that constitutional concession agreed to by a Northern controlled congress, making slavery a permanent institution in this country, if slavery was truly the primary issue, why didn't the Southern government accept this offering instead of choosing to dig in its heels and fight for its independence? Think about it: an amendment to the Constitution that would have made slavery legal in this country even today, and the Confederate government turned it down, a point that's rarely, if ever, mentioned in any high school history classes.

The Confederate battle flag never represented the institution of slavery. It was a soldier's flag to rally troops on a battlefield. However, that statement is not so simplistic when applied to the U.S. flag, the same flag flying in front of Grand Blanc High School.

The 13 stripes represent the original 13 slave-owning colonies of the United States. Decades before the Confederacy was even an idea, slave ships arriving in New England seaports with slave cargo, mostly flew the American colors. The path of the slave trade was clearly marked from north to south and existed in practically every state in the Union.

Massachusetts became the first state to legalize slavery in 1645. The Puritans brought Africans into their seaports for slave commerce and enslaved Native Americans (Indians) who lived in the territory. The South or the Confederate battle flag had nothing to do with any of that.

Other symbolism perceived in Confederate flags is so-called hate and racism. With its reincarnation in 1915, the Ku Klux Klan pretty much claimed as its own the U.S. flag, the Stars and Stripes. The Klan also turned the Christian cross into a fiery symbol that became the foremost representation of intimidation, terror, and hate. They targeted Roman Catholics (my faith) first, then Jews, then Blacks. On that basis, shall we proceed to eliminate all crosses from places of worship and from jewelry? Or perhaps we should cut the 13 stripes away from the U.S. flag.

The Klan and other white supremacist groups have displayed the Confederate battle flag a few times over the last 50 years, not nearly as much as the Hollywood entertainment media would have us believe. Those of us who revere the Confederate flags as symbols of Southern history, heritage, and culture despise that kind of hatefulness as much as anyone. We're working to prevent that. We also want to help weed out the ignorance that blooms so frequently in our public classrooms.

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Bill Ward is a writer and historical researcher living in Salisbury, NC. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Disabled American Veterans. Contact him at wardwriters@bellsouth.net. .