Juries get it wrong all the time.

Sarcasm thingy.

But then these are the same folk who think the confederate flag stands for something respectable and that the Civil War was all about anything other than slavery, that Obama isn't American, or even human, that this nation is a Christian fundamentalist evangelical stronghold fighting against the forces of persecution. So just to be historically clear: the confederate flag stands for slave states right to hold slavery as a viable economic system because Hey, Africans are not really humans, the confederates states lost the CIVIL WAR, no such thing as the war between the states, that's just another false equivalency, if you like you could call it the war of southern states treason at least that is an accurate descriptor. But I digress, this nation was founded on the notion that a religious monarchy imposing its religious will on people who held to differing ideals, religious or otherwise, fled the aforementioned religious monarchy and eventually established their own SECULAR democratic republic in which all belief systems were acceptable as well as no belief. Happy 4th all. I'm going to go put up my Stars and Stripes and remember the Iron Brigade and it's very successful Civil War legacy in stomping out treasonous confederate states and their slave mentality.

in former CSA locales.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

That was was fought for white supremacy to own slaves. They can denied it all they want but all that has to be to combat that is have them look up the "articles of confederation" of each traitor state. They state clearly that the war was fought to keep their enslaved people enslaved.

This is from the Mississippi secession proclamation:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world… . [A] blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization… . There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union… ."

There are even stronger statements in some rebel state secession documents that have come out lately since the massacre in Charleston that even use the term "white supremacy over the negro" but I haven't found them online yet.

and I have never heard that expression said without a smile and/or a wink. It appeared in some literature from the Civil War era and is frequently used by docents giving tours of antebellum homes or museums, I suppose to give some "authenticity." It is generally referred to as the War Between the States by whites and Freedom War by blacks.

The vast majority of southerners are well aware the war was fought over slavery. We don't sit around pining for the good old days of slaves, hoop skirts and 18 inch waistlines. Most people I know consider Gone with the Wind to be a mediocre work of fiction and an abominable film. I live in a very red county, and drove last week from one end to the other. I saw exactly two confederate battle flags, not exactly representative of a high proportion of our population.

Don't believe everything you read on DU.

personal family history, certainly NOT by reading it on DU. (Dad was a Texan, through-and-through.)

You are forgetting that slavery was legal when the first group of southern states seceded from the Union. Also, president elect Lincoln assured the southern states he had no intention of ending slavery where it was legal nor did he plan to repeal the fugitive slave act. The war was not sold to the people of the north as a war to end slavery, it was sold as a war to preserve the union. Furthermore, the northern states of Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland continued to practice slavery throughout the war. Slavery in the north ended December 18th 1865 with the 13th amendment to the constitution. So the war was about the right of a state to secede from the union which the south believed to be legal and there is plenty of evidence to back them up. It is a deep and complicated issue and that is why it is still being debated and written about 150 years later.

it wanted to maintain slavery. Period. Exclamation point. You can obfuscate and declaim as you wish but historical facts remain as irrefutable as the day they were created. The confederate flag stands as a symbol of treachery, slavery and greed. The end result is that for a few moments at least the moral won out over the immoral. As the South tries to rewrite history to make their interests and ancestors seem less the horror they were we are now seeing a light being shined on the heart of darkness that was the confederacy.

Being responsible for ones own actions is the root of it.

One is, what one does, everyday. What ones labor does, what ones "investments" do, what ones actions accomplish is the scorecard of existence.

Ignorance of the effects of ones deeds is of little to no defense.

Though conservatives tend to fail to partake.

Thanks for the thread, Little Star.