"You Ain't Just Whistlin' Dixie"

During this holiday season, I feel compelled to include within these
pages, my feelings on a subject some may feel should be put to rest.
And if  many of you feel that way, you have the right to do so.
But I don't have that right.
Southern people have long been described as rebels. If it be rebellion in man
to pour out the best blood that flows in his veins upon the bloody battlefields in
freedom's cause and defense of his homeland, then Southerners accept the appellation
and take pride in the fact that we were members of that rebellious body
as the descendants of those rebels.
Therefore we of this generation are under a high and sacred obligation
to the preceding generations to honor their names and
fame and never to forget their courage and the righteousness of the cause
for which they fought and suffered.
~Smerelda
2000

---

The Civil War touched the lives of everyone at the time, and it continues to do
so today.  Much has been written  recently concerning the Confederate Flag,
which most true Southerners feel represents the heritage passed down to them
from their ancestors.  "It's offensive," some have said, " because it glorifies
slavery, represents a period of rebellion, and romanticizes war."  On the contrary...
It's not a matter of romanticizing war,  for none condemned war more than those
who suffered the horror and trauma of battle.  The only thing it  glorifies is the
gritty courage of those who fought and died on this country's bloodiest battlefields.
 Those were our Father's and Grandfather's bodies in those countless numbers of
caskets wrapped in that flag and who now rest on hallowed ground.  And yes,
 the Southern soil where they now rest is hallowed!  If the Confederate flag no
longer can be acknowledged,  WHAT NEXT?  Are all the statues of the
Confederate Generals who silently stand guard on court house lawns to be
reduced to rubble?
 Will we ever be allowed to sing "Dixie" in polite society again?

In an article which appeared in the New York Tribune, during the
war-between-the-states, a correspondent wrote:
"A people separated from their heritage are easily persuaded,"
This particular correspondent  zealously supported the Northern
side in the bitter conflict.  He went on to say:
"If you erase the symbols of a people's heritage, you erase their
public identity and memory, and then you can "persuade" them
in whatever you want."
For once in his life, this correspondent knew what he was talking about.

His name was Karl Marx.

---

It's not inappropriate for people in the South to honor their
Confederate soldiers.
 It's a heritage of sacred memories of our beginnings.  Better said,
"our ROOTS."  These were honorable men who were doing their
duty as they saw it.  Most all Confederate soldiers were volunteers.
They fought not for glory, nor for money, but for a cause in which
they believed deeply. They longed for peace and for a safe return to
their families.  To revile his flag is to revile his memory.

He sleeps--what need to question now
     If he were wrong or right?
He knows, ere this, whose cause was just
     In God the Father's sight.
He wields no warlike weapons now,
     Returns no foeman's thrust--
Who but a coward would revile
     An honest soldier's dust?

from "A Georgia Volunteer" by Mary Townsend

 Nobody is doubting that slavery is a stain on the very soul of  this nation. It is.
 But slavery was not the true cause of the war.  The issue of  slavery developed in the course of the war.  It was an element in the cause of the war,  but it was not the reason the war began.   The primary cause was whether the federal government could dominate state government.  Bottom line..dollars and cents.
For some that's too simple an explanation of it and will never  be accepted.
But 'tis true...

"That flag represents the "heritage" of only a certain specific people,"
one prominent flag hater is quoted as saying.  It seems apparent he is
more concerned with destroying the heritage than destroying the flag.
Life is too short to cherish revenge.  The present urges.  The future beckons.
Animosity can only mar the happiness of both, and narrow indeed must be
the mind of anyone who could wish to keep it up.
In the course of my upbringing we were taught to honor and revere
the heritage and civilization of our ancestors.   That it is good to feel
you belong to a people and to a land that you have a right to be proud of.
 The war between-the-states was a Southern tragedy  honorably overcome.
Never in all history, have people  recovered so completely from overwhelming
adversity as did The South.  The soldiers of The Confederacy were prepared
and willing to give their lives for the Southland.  But there was no way to
prepare for the vast, useless, complete devastation of so many lives and homes,
and in many places nothing left but scorched earth.  After which  the
"powers that be" placed a probationary tax on our cotton, robbing us of the last
resource the war had left us.  Our ancestors were discriminated against for half
a century.  And still it continues...

But although many may rally in protest of our flag, and march in countless
numbers to remove it from public buildings, and even try to strip every trace
thereof  from memory,  this shall all be in vain.  For they can never take it
from our hearts, our homes, from our rooftops and our front porches.
But most importantly they can never take it from our Southern children's keeping.

"Shall I speak to my children
of wars past..and of wars
which yet may be?
I cannot know the horror,
for I have never been there."

"But I shall speak to them
of  loyalty, heritage and
honor.  And to always
remember those who paid
such a high price for it."

Merry Christmas from
Smerelda  a/k/a  Donnis Lewis-Coleman

Southern by birth..and the grace of God

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