General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is it possible to destroy everything of Confederate origin? [View all]Yupster
(14,308 posts)are not examples of white privilege.
Davis was not tried because of a political decision made by one of Davis's worst enemies, President Andrew Johnson. No one took his race into consideration. If you had one of Johnson's lawyers here today and asked him whether Davis was not tried because he was white, he would look at you strangely and say "He was white? Well what the hell else would he be?" It would be inconceivable for a leader in 1865 to think a President or Five Star General would be anything but white.
As for the banning of the Confederate battle flag, you have to force yourself to look at the world in 1865.
Who would ban the flag? The congress wouldn't see any Constitutional power to do it even if they thought they should. Lincoln took "Constitutional liberties" during the war, but Johnson didn't have that kind of support, especially during peacetime.
In 1865, the average person (who didn't die in the war) died within 30 miles of where they were born. Other than the postman, the average person in peacetime, who was a farmer never saw a federal government employee. The country had no social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment, food stamps, WIC, Department of Education or Energy. There wasn't even an income tax.
This was a nation of very limited federal government. People lived in their farming communities and small towns and moved very little. In fact when the war started young men died in their tens of thousands of measles in boot camp because they never had resistance to the disease because they never met people outside their communities.
The idea of banning a flag would be considered so foreign to the congress. Who would even enforce it if it was passed, and how would it be passed when there's no Constitutional authority for it. This was a time before "hate speech", "political correctness," and "protected classes" of people. There was no internet, tv or radio for people to get information to change their views quickly like today. Back then you had a local newspaper controlled by a local family who has been in the town for generations.
Again, race wouldn't ever enter a discussion about banning the flag. A discussion like that would be unlikely to ever be held. There just wasn't the culture in the country for the government to do such things.
When you're looking at decisions people made in the past, you have to look at the world they lived in. Each of us are products of the society we grew up in. You can't expect people in the past to have social consciences far ahead of the society they lived in.