Keystone of Victory
I was born and raised near Philadelphia, without any knowledge of my Confederate ancestry. I did not discover my ancestry until four years after college. Yet, I was always drawn to the Southern Cause. I always believed that the South was right. I challenged the teachers on the issues because I took time to read more than what was spoon-fed. I protested that an exercise in our history class was unfair because it was set up such that the Confederacy could not possibly win. I guess it just goes to show that Confederate blood and the facts of history can outweigh even the most biased education.
I experienced anti-Confederate discrimination for the first time while living in State College after graduating from Penn State. You see, I have always collected flags and flown them. I have scores of flags, including flags of the Confederacy. I flew those, along with my others, from a flagpole I installed at my home in a managed community. One afternoon, I was told by the head of the community that I could either stop flying any flag with the Southern Cross or I would have to remove the flagpole. I asked if someone had complained but was told that no one had. They were just worried that someone might be offended or decide not to live in the community because they saw the flag. I consented and flew the Bonnie Blue or 1st National every day from that point on and was proud of myself for having outwitted them. In truth, I was as wrong as they.
I gave away my rights and I was a fool. Instead of being proud of myself for displaying flags that meant the same thing, but that they did not understand – I should have been ashamed for not standing up for my rights as my ancestors had.
I knew I would lose the fight. I had erected that flagpole without the permission of the management and they had the legal right to make me take it down. It was because I knew I would lose, that I decided not to fight – thinking it a victory to keep the pole and fly the other flags. I know now that it is better to lose a battle than to surrender liberty without a fight.
Here in Pennsylvania – the birthplace of our nation and our Constitution – the “Cradle of Liberty”, it was here that I was told I could not express my rights. The battles in South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia are not isolated and local problems. Those same attacks on our heritage and our freedoms are here, in this state and beyond.
We must not let anyone defame, destroy, desecrate, or deny us our symbols and our heritage; we must be as active and as vocal as needed to ensure that we do not lose who we are. There are many groups who carry out this fight and we must support them whenever practical. Whether we like the people involved or whether the battle is far away is not as much the issue as whether that battle is part of the overall war effort. And make no mistake, we are at war.
If you do not believe that we are at war, then it is time to open your eyes. We did not start it and we did not want it, but we have been drawn into a war where our attackers have nothing to lose and we stand to lose not only our heritage and our symbols, but also our Liberty.
This state is a vital part in the war. Our history is the history of freedom and liberty. Yet, in this Cradle of Liberty, our freedoms are attacked by companies and individuals. Victory here has a meaning far greater than victory anywhere else. As was true in 1863, a victory for us in the North would tell the nation and the world that our Cause is not an isolated “Southern Thing You Wouldn’t Understand”, but a struggle for the rights we are supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution.
When Pennsylvanians were oppressed by a king and saw their countrymen in the other colonies suffering even more greatly, they did not seek a separate peace and let the others fend for themselves. They rose up and acted as a center for the Revolution and a safe haven for the outnumbered, underfunded and undersupplied army.
When Pennsylvanians were oppressed by a President and saw how even a democratic government can trample the rights of men, they rose up and fought. Some gave their lives to prove that liberty is more important than security or comfort. And although the President rode at the head of the army through the state and put the rebellion down and took away the freedom of all those who took part in it, those Pennsylvanians were the true victors because the oppressive tax they revolted against was repealed.
Pennsylvanians, I call upon you to make a difference. Stand up for the Cause our ancestors did. Stand up for the freedoms men died to create and again to defend. Stand up for what is right, regardless of whether that fight is here or elsewhere. Stand up for yourselves.
We must lobby our government to protect our heritage. We must educate our fellow citizens to the truth about our symbols, heritage and common history. We must support our fellows who are making the legal and vocal fight to protect our freedoms throughout the country. We must work together, each to his own abilities, to win this unsought war.
We must win a victory here in Pennsylvania. Here where the media cannot ignore it. Here where the nation cannot ignore it. And here where the people cannot ignore it.
2 Comments:
I had a hard time understanding your post. I'm replying to find out what Confederate means to you. To me, it means keeping people enslaved. It means that voting is in proportion to your land holdings, rather than one man, one vote. It means the establishment of an aristocracy that has riches at the expense of their fellow man. It means voting without secret ballots, allowing intimidation of voters.
So in what sense is this freedom? Perhaps it is freedom for the aristocracy, but not for anyone else.
Confederate means a weak central government as was originally created by the Founding Fathers. Now, the original Articles of Confederation were found lacking and the Constitution was created in their place, but it also created a very limited government.
The Confederacy from 1861-1865 used an almost identical Constitution to that of the United States. The notable differences were making the Presidency a single six year term only and the prohibition of slave importation. Other than those, it was nearly a verbatum copy of the U.S. Constitution. The citizens of the South felt that the U.S. government had grown beyond what the Founder's had envisioned and wanted to re-create their government as it had originally been created in 1789.
Yes, slavery was legal - as it was in the U.S. and continued to be in the U.S. more than a year after the collapse of the Confederacy. Yes, voting was restricted in different ways - as it was in the U.S. and continued to be in the U.S. for decades after the war. In Illinois "The Land of Lincoln", it was illegal for free blacks to travel into and stay in that state.
Confederate is about the size and scope of government, not about social issues. Our societal problems existed both before and long after the rise and fall of the Confederacy. Even today, hate crimes in northern states tremendously outweight those in southern states. Extremist groups have more members in northern states than in southern states. It is not a north-south issue. It is not a Union-Confederate issue. It is a societal issue.
As for aristocracy, to see that problem only in the Confederacy is to be blind to our history. Do you think the workers (men, women and children) in factories in the north who barely made enough to survive, got injured and thrown out of work to starve to death or just plain got killed working in such unsafe conditions were so much better off than the slaves? Carnegie, Vanderbuilt, Morgan and the like were even greater villains and self-made aristocracy than the planters of the South. Tammany Hall and Teapot Dome were not in the Confederacy and there were no greater examples of 'being above the law' in our history.
Quite frankly, it was the expansion of governmental power that the Confederates fought against that created the Tammany Hall & Teapot Dome style of politics that can still be found in this country. Unfunded mandates, unprotected borders, loss of sovereignty to internationals, huge government bueauracracy, failed welfare programs, corporate corruption and influence peddling all come as a result of the huge centralization of power away from the people into the hands of a few powerful politicians and many, many, many political appointees, lobbiests and political action committees over which We The People have no real control.
Yes, much of the societal structure of the Confederacy was bad, but the governmental principles they fought for were those that Washington, Jefferson and Paine originally built our county upon. Their descendants fought for the Confederacy. President Taylor's son fought for the Confederacy. President Tyler died while en route to serve in the Confederate Congress. Of all the major nations in Europe, only the Russian Czar showed sympathy for the U.S. in that war.
But don't take my word for it, go research it. Read Article I of the U.S. Constitution and its list of powers granted to the central government. Then read the 9th and 10th Amendments. Then, you tell me by what Constitutional authority the U.S. government has social welfare programs, education programs and all the many other expansions of power.
As a Confederate, I don't believe the U.S. government has nor had any Constitutional authority to expand to its present nearly omnipotent state within the heirarchy of power of this country.
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