IMHO, The bitterness of many whites that hangs to this day in some corners of the South has nothing to do with the defeat of southern military forces. But with the humiliation of reconstruction.
The first thing northern power brokers had to do was eliminate the man who stated, "with malice toward none."
Bingo! Finally someone brings up the origin of it all.
One of the major issues that ignited the Civil War was that the future Confederate States resented getting out voted and thus dictated to by the more populous and more industrial northern States. Issues included slavery, but that was but one of many reasons the future Confederate States ultimately decided that they could no longer exist within the Union.
Reconstruction was a heavy handed suppression of the people and the culture. Sherman's Scorched Earth policy coupled with the Emancipation Proclamation displaced millions, both Black and White.
Reconstruction then came to dictate life on a local level. The Southerner was humiliated and suppressed and the resentment toward the Federal Gov't and the Northern elites grew.
This resentment was real and nearly ubiquitous. The Southerner had very little to be proud of right through the first half of the 20th Century. When the issue of desegregation came about in the 1950s, once again the Federal Gov't and the Northern Elites were dictating how the former Confederate States were going to live.
As a protest and act of defiance, some States chose to incorporate the Confederate Battle Flag into their State flag. This had nothing to do with race and everything to do with defiance of being strong armed by the Feds.
It was the racist groups such as the KKK in the 1960s that adopted the flag as their standard that caused it to be seen as an overt symbol of racism to some. There is no intelligent human on the planet that has any use for such groups today, nor no flag supporters that view the flag as a tool of racism, but as a symbol of defiance. That is defiance against the over reach of Federal power, the ridiculousness of political correctness, the absurdity of revisionist history, and the pandering to all minorities and special interest groups at the expense of the conservative, Christian, caucasian.
It is, in fact, a way to give Washington DC, and the liberal Northeast the finger. I hope this explains the situation more clearly. My state got rid of the battle flag in the State flag a few years ago, and it hasn't affected me one way or another. I do hate it when the World has to bow to political correctness and its double standards. Maybe the next flag in South Carolina should just have a big fist with the middle finger extended. It would be vulgar, but would retain the same message .
