In My Opinion
It is not about a flag but the moral conscience of America
By Dr. David N. Smeltz

As we were driving, back from the Veterans Hospital today a truck went racing by us with a Confederate Flag attached to its bed. The Lord begin to speak to me about our situation here in America and what I am about to say I am sure will get someone upset with me and they might even call me a racist.
The Confederate flag has nothing to do with racism, it represents a time in our history when the north and the south differed in their opinion toward slavery. The following is an important time line of this four-year war.

1859-1861

October 16–18, 1859
John Brown, in an attempt to amass arms for a slave insurrection, attacks the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
December 2, 1859
Brown is hanged for murder and treason at Charles Town, Virginia.
November 6, 1860
Abraham Lincoln is elected President, with Hannibal Hamlin as his Vice President.
December 20, 1860
As a consequence of Lincoln’s election, a special convention of the South Carolina legislature votes to secede from the Union.
January 9, 1861
Star of the West, an unarmed merchant vessel secretly carrying federal troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, was fired upon by South Carolina artillery at the entrance to Charleston harbor.
January 9–February 1
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas follow South Carolina’s lead and secede from the Union.
January 29
Kansas is admitted as a state with a constitution prohibiting slavery.
February
Delegates from six seceded states meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a government and elect Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States of America.
March 4
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth President of the United States.
April 12–13
Fort Sumter is bombarded and surrenders to South Carolina troops led by P. G. T. Beauregard.
February 6, 1862
General Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Henry, Tennessee. Ten days later he accepts the “unconditional and immediate surrender” of Fort Donelson. These victories open up the state of Tennessee for Union advancement.
March 9, 1862
The ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly the sunken USS Merrimack, which the Confederates had raised from the Norfolk Navy Yard and rebuilt as an ironclad) battle to a draw at Hampton Roads, Virginia, demonstrating the superior potential of vessels made of steel.
April 4
On the peninsula southeast of Richmond, McClellan leads the Army of the Potomac toward Yorktown, Virginia, beginning the Peninsular Campaign.
April 6–7
Union General Ulysses S. Grant prevails at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, but not without enormous losses.
April 16
Conscription is adopted in the Confederacy.
April 25
Federal fleet commander David G. Farragut captures New Orleans.
May 8
Stonewall Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley campaign begins successfully with a victory at the Battle of McDowell in Virginia.
May 31–June 1
During the Battle of Seven Pines in Virginia, Robert E. Lee takes over command of the Confederate army from the wounded Joseph E. Johnston.
June 25–July 1
Lee forces McClellan’s army to retreat, ending the threat to Richmond in the Seven Days’ campaign.
August 20
Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune publishes The Prayer of Twenty Millions, a plea for Lincoln to liberate slaves in the Union.
August 29–30
The South is again victorious at the Second Battle of Manassas.
September 17
The Battle of Antietam, Maryland, exacts heavy losses on both sides.
September 22
President Lincoln issues the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
November 7
General McClellan receives Lincoln’s order relieving him of command of the Army of the Potomac.
December 13
Lee wins the Battle of Fredericksburg decisively.

1863

January 1, 1863
Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, which declares that slaves in the seceded states are now free.
March 3
President Lincoln signs a federal draft act.
April 7
In a test of ironclad vessels against land fortifications, Union Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont’s fleet fails to penetrate the harbor defenses of Charleston.

May 1–4
Lee hands the Army of the Potomac another serious loss at the Battle of Chancellorsville. “Stonewall” Jackson is wounded during the battle. He will develop pneumonia and die on May 10.
June 9
Confederate cavalry under Jeb Stuart clash with the Union mounts of Alfred Pleasonton in an all day battle at Brandy Station, Virginia. Some 18,000 troopers—approximately nine thousand on either side—take part, making this the largest cavalry battle on American soil. In the end, Stuart will hold the field. Yet this battle signals the rise and future domination of Union cavalry in the eastern theater.
July 1–3
The Battle of Gettysburg is fought in Pennsylvania. General George G. Meade compromises his victory by allowing Lee to retreat South across the Potomac.
July 4
After a long siege, Confederates surrender Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant, thus securing the Mississippi River for the Union.
July 13–15
Violent riots erupt in New York City in protest of the draft.
September 19–20
Confederates under General Braxton Bragg win a great tactical victory at Chickamauga, Georgia. Union General George H. Thomas wins the nickname "Rock of Chickamauga" for his stubborn defense of his position.
November 19
Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address, in which he reiterates the nation’s fundamental principle that all men are created equal.
November 23–25
After three days of battle, the Union victory at Chattanooga, Tennessee, opens the way for Union advancement into the heart of the Confederacy.

1864

March 10, 1864
Newly commissioned to the rank of lieutenant general, Ulysses S. Grant is given official authority to command all of the armies of the United States.
May 5–6
The Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia is the first of a bloody series of month-long engagements between Grant and Lee.
May 10–12
Battles at Spotsylvania Court House and Yellow Tavern impede Grant’s drive for Richmond. Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart is killed at Yellow Tavern, May 11.
June 1–3
The Battle of Cold Harbor results in heavy Union casualties. Grant prepares for a ten month siege of Petersburg.
June 19
The USS Kearsarge sinks the CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France, where the Confederate raider was bound for refitting.
June 28
Lincoln signs a bill repealing the fugitive slave laws.

July 11–12
Confederate forces under Jubal Early probe and fire upon the northern defenses of Washington, D.C., throwing the Capital into a state of high alert.
August 5
Union Admiral David G. Farragut wins the Battle of Mobile Bay.
September 2
After forcing the Confederate army of John Bell Hood out of Atlanta, Georgia, General William T. Sherman captures the city, a major munitions center for the South.
October 19
A Union victory at Cedar Creek ends the Confederate threat in the Shenandoah Valley.
November 8
Lincoln is reelected President, with Andrew Johnson as Vice President.
November 16
Sherman leaves Atlanta and begins his “march to the sea,” in an attempt to demoralize the South and hasten surrender.
December 15–16
General George Henry Thomas wins the Battle of Nashville, decimating John Bell Hood's Confederate Army of Tennessee.
December 21
Savannah falls to Sherman’s army without resistance. Sherman gives the city to Lincoln as a Christmas present.

1865

January 31, 1865
Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolishes slavery throughout the United States.
February 17
Columbia, South Carolina, is almost completely destroyed by fire, most likely set by Sherman’s troops.
March 4
Lincoln is inaugurated as President for a second term.
March 29
The Appomattox campaign begins, with Grant’s move against Lee’s defenses at Petersburg, Virginia.
April 2
Petersburg falls, and the Confederate government evacuates its capital, Richmond. Confederate corps commander Ambrose Powell Hill is killed in action while attempting to rally his men.
April 3
Union troops occupy Richmond.
April 9
Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox.
April 14
John Wilkes Booth shoots President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater; Secretary of State William H. Seward is stabbed and wounded in an assassination attempt inside his Washington home.
April 15
Lincoln dies, and Andrew Johnson is inaugurated as President.

April 26
Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to William T. Sherman in North Carolina; John Wilkes Booth is shot in a barn in Virginia and dies.
May 10
Jefferson Davis is captured and taken prisoner near Irwinville, Georgia.
May 26
In New Orleans, terms of surrender are offered to General E. Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department. His acceptance on June 2 formally ends Confederate resistance.
June 30
All eight conspirators are convicted for the assassination of President Lincoln; four are sentenced to death.

The beginning of the war the Northern states had a combined population of 22 million people. The Southern states had a combined population of about 9 million. This disparity was reflected in the size of the armies in the field. The Union forces outnumbered the Confederates roughly two to one.

United States Army consisted of 2,128,948 Soldiers
The Confederate Army consisted of 1,082,119 Soldiers

The total death toll was 620,000 men died in the Civil War while 644,000 thousand have died in all wars up to the Gulf War.

The following states succeeded from the Union.
South Carolina - December 20, 1860
Mississippi - January 9, 1861
Florida - January 10, 1861
Alabama - January 11, 1861
Georgia - January 19, 1861
Louisiana - January 26, 1861
Texas - February 1, 1861
Virginia - April 17, 1861
Arkansas - May 6, 1861
North Carolina - May 20, 1861
Tennessee - June 8, 1861

The question has been asked was the succession legal?
No, although it was not ruled illegal until after the war. This was a complex question at the time, with able legal minds to be found arguing both sides, but the United States Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868), determined that secession was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Salmon Chase wrote in his majority opinion that, "The ordinance of secession...and all the acts of legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law."

The Civil War started because of the lack of compromise some believe. While many still debate the ultimate causes of the Civil War, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson writes that, "The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries."

Actually, Lincoln started when he took the stand he took. The President has a lot of power and when one takes advantage of the power, they create a quagmire. Lincoln was a great president but probably moved too quickly. Over 600,000 died, for what. Here it is 2015 and we are still at war. The answer to the problem is cultural differences.

When looking back we find the following statistics:

With the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, African-Americans - both free and runaway slaves - came forward to volunteer for the Union cause in substantial numbers. Beginning in October, approximately 180,000 African-Americans, comprising 163 units, served in the U.S. Army and 18,000 in the Navy. That month, the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers repulsed a Confederate attack at Island Mound, Missouri. Men of the U.S.C.T. (United States Colored Troops) units went on to distinguish themselves on battlefields east and west - at Port Hudson, Louisiana; Honey Springs, Oklahoma; Fort Wagner, South Carolina; New Market Heights, Virginia. African Americans constituted 10% of the entire Union Army by the end of the war, and nearly 40,000 died over the course of the war.

In 1860, the Black population was 19% of the USA. In 2015, it was 12.6% of the USA population. Today the latest stats tell us we have 38,929,319 African Americans in the USA. Hispanic population is 17.1% with 77.7% Whites in America.

The major problem we are having in America is cultural differences. Much of African history is known through ORAL TRADITION. Folk tales passed down through the generations on the African continent were similarly dispatched in African American communities. Some did learn the written word. Poet and slave PHILLIS WHEATLEY is still studied. Her writings vividly depict the slave experience on the eve of the American Revolution.

Many devout British colonists saw CONVERSION of slaves to Christianity as a divine duty. Consequently, the Christian religion was widely adopted by slaves. The practice of Christianity by slaves differed from white Christians. Musical traditions drew from rhythmic African and melodic European models. The religious beliefs of many African tribes merged with elements of Christianity to form VOODOO. Spirituals also demonstrate this merger.

Despite laws regulating slave literacy, African Americans learned many elements of the English language out of sheer necessity. Since the planters' children were often raised by slaves, their dialects, values and customs were often transmitted back. This reflexive relationship is typical of cultural fusion throughout American history. Most African Americans are tribal and this is why it has been so hard for the majority to adapt to the White man culture. Many are blaming the White man for the cultural changes they need to make and refuse to make. Being tribal, they follow the customs that developed years ago. Clothing and hairstyles changed because of trying to fit in with the White man. Music, athletic ability and domination are part of their tribal character. Poverty has followed the Black populace and dependency on the White man leads back to the years of slavery. Even though African Americans have struggled, they have had every opportunity to better themselves. Over the years, complete communities were rebuilt and after a short period, they returned to their original status. Education was offered and through the 1960’s and 70’s integration allowed White and Black to attend the same schools. Those who lived in the projects were bused to other schools and before long; many of those schools were turned into ghetto type schools, pulling down the White children in the school. This movement brought about the Christian School movement, which began to strive with White children and parents pulling their children out of the public school. The government and social services took over the Public School and the scores dropped, standards, morals changed. When the government withdrew prayer from the public, educational system there was a mass exit to private education. The government came down hard on the Christian School and the IRS and other government agencies falsified documents and closed many of them down. By the late 70’s churches were withdrawing from the government and new movement was formed. Some churches refused to recognize the government and refused to pay any taxes, get a driver’s license or marriage license. This group was led by Independent Baptist who demonstrated and were bodily carried out of churches. The public education system continued to decline while the Christian School movement grew and many of these schools grew to incredible size. Bible colleges were started and a man name Jerry Falwell started a group called the Moral Majority. Falwell an Independent Baptist used the pulpit to motivate the Christians and stand against the liberal movement. He had started a college in 1972 and by 1980; “Liberty University” was in the making. President Ronald Regan could give credit to his election because of the influence of Falwell and Moral Majority. The Regan years were good our country prospered the African American Community had made some changes. The Arthur Mc Duffie riots in Miami, Florida took place. Throughout the 80’s Miami, New York, and Washington DC was the focal point of riots. The world was changing and over 10 years 46 riots took place around the world. The big change took place during the Clinton years. Clinton could be called the first Black President even though he was not Black. . He brought disgrace to the White House and motivated the Black community. In his years in office, he provided the most for the Black community and this is why he is revered. Hillary Clinton is trying to follow her husband.

When Obama became president, he was the Black’s Saviour. He was the fulfillment of Martin Luther King dream. The Black community was expecting a lot more out of Obama then they got. Instead, they got the homosexual movement, the highest unemployment in Black America in years, Social programs that do not work riots and killing of the highest degree in years. Racism is back on the climb and he has motivated young Black leaders to attack the White populace. The country is on the verge of civil war.

In the last few days, the attack has been on the Confederate flag when the real issue is the moral conscience of America is under attack.