The Confederate Flag is racist. Some people say it's about heritage, but that heritage is racism. They say it's about history, but that's a history of racism. They say it's about “states’ rights” in the abstract, but the Civil War was about states’ rights to enslave one race of people to another! During the Civil War, the South stood for white supremacy!
If the Civil War was really about state’s rights beyond the issue of slavery, then why didn't any of the seceding states mention that? Why did every one of them assert in their Declaration of Causes of Secession that slavery was the only major relevant issue?
The state of Mississippi declared as follows:
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”
The state of Texas declared as follows:
“[Texas] was received [into the Union] as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery—the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits—a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?...
“That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.”
When the Southern states seceded and declared themselves independent from the Union, they specifically asserted that their reason for secession was so that they could perpetuate white supremacy and the enslavement of the African race.
When right-libertarians, under the influence of such revisionist historians as Murray Rothbard, claim that the secession of the South was over states rights in the abstract rather than over the issue of slavery, and point out that Abraham Lincoln was himself a racist, trying to paint the North as no better than the South, there is always either a great degree of ignorance or a great degree of intellectual dishonesty. Right-libertarians often sympathize with the South because they support the right of secession in general. This view holds that entering the federation was a voluntary contract amongst the states and that the individual states have a right to nullify federal laws and secede from the Union at any point. This view is based on The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and The Principles of '98 as laid out by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. It ought to be noted that the right-libertarian revisionist history interpretation of the Principles of '98 is actually a distortion of Jefferson and Madison's position. James Madison is the "father of the Constitution" and he actually defended the Supremacy Clause. (Cf. Federalist No. 44) The Supremacy Clause, as laid out in Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, states that federal law shall override state law. Jefferson and Madison's Principles of '98 asserted only that states have a right to nullify unconstitutional federal laws and secede if the federal government acts in an unconstitutional way. The Principles of '98, as espoused by Jefferson and Madison, would not have allowed the South to legally secede from the Union because the federal government had not committed any unconstitutional act. Even if the North did abolish slavery through federal law, overriding the pro-slavery laws of the Southern states, it would not have violated the Constitution since the Supremacy Clause allows the Federal Government to override state law. The only way the South could have legally withdrew from the social contract of the U.S. Constitution, according to the Principles of '98, is if the federal government had actually violated the Constitution and thereby failed to keep up its end of the bargain. Both Jefferson and Madison would have regarded the secession of the Southern states as a criminal act.
Even upon right-libertarian principles, it's impossible to justify the South's cause. The South seceded because it perceived the North as wanting to abolish slavery. The Federal Government was already prohibiting the spread of slavery into much of the new territories acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. The South wanted to turn more of the new territories into slave states in order to ensure that slave states outnumbered free states, thereby guaranteeing that no majoritarian democratic process could ever legally abolish slavery. From the moment that the South declared their cause to be the perpetuation of white supremacy and slavery, there was no possibility of justifying secession. Even supposing that the South had some sort of right to secede, it really doesn't make sense for right-libertarians to defend the Southern cause. Libertarianism holds that liberty, the opposite of slavery, is the ultimate good. The South had no right to enslave the African race. From a genuinely libertarian perspective, the South would have had no right to secede because the sole purpose of secession was the preservation of the institution of slavery, an institution that the South had no right to preserve. Furthermore, right-libertarianism rejects all forms of collectivism in favor of individualism. The South, as a collective, is not properly a subject capable of having rights. The South, as a collectivistic abstraction, could not have possibly had any rights whatsoever. The rights of individuals are all that matters per right-libertarian theory. Consequently, to be consistent, right-libertarians would have to recognize that any supposed rights of the Southern states were merely fiction and would have been overridden by the real and concrete rights of actual individuals who happened to be slaves.
The reason that certain people, especially African Americans, perceive the Confederate Flag as a symbol of white supremacy and racism is because it was a symbol of white supremacy and racism. The rebel flag was flown by people who explicitly stated that their cause was "identified with the institution of slavery" and "maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery—the servitude of the African to the white race." The people that flew that flag were traitors to the United States. They were killing Americans for the cause of white supremacy and slavery. That flag was not a symbol representing some abstract right of states to secede, nor of any other cause that libertarians could rightfully get behind. That flag was a battle flag, waved by criminals who murdered their own countrymen in defense of treasonous fascists.
When right-libertarians like Murray Rothbard, with their revisionist history, attempt to retell the story of the Civil War in a way that makes the Southern traitors look like the good guys, they are simply being goddamned liars!