If there is one thing that you can say with a certainty in America, is that most Americans, do not much care about history, and consequently don't really know much about their own history. That is a shame, because history has lessons that always can be applied to the present day. When you ask people what symbol best sums up Nazism, most people would quickly respond with the swastika, although a few might respond by suggesting the "Heil Hitler" salute which is also apt, as both are powerful symbols, that are well understood to represent State control and State power with the attendant demand of absolute obedience to such. In regards to the confederacy, the symbol, that rivets one's attention most is the Battle Flag of the Northern Army of Virginia, later incorporated into the second national flag of the Confederate States of America. This Confederate Battle Flag features a red background, a blue X in the middle of the flag, and 13 white 5-pointed stars running at a diagonal within the blue X. The symbol is powerful, and while some in the South may see the Confederate Battle Flag as something that represents southern pride, southern heritage, southern rebellion, southern identity, southern hospitality, or perhaps even "stick to the man" type mentality, it also represents whether it is considered blatant or coded, southern racism.
Of all the many symbols of the confederacy, it is the Battle Flag, that is by far the most powerful and most recognizable as well as the most divisive of all the Confederate symbols. Now I do believe that the Confederate Battle Flag has a place for those that wish to display it on their own private property and on their possessions and should be allowed to be sold on goods, if there is a market for such. The line in the sand is crossed, however, when any State or Federal government institution incorporates the Battle Flag as part of their correspondence, or their website, or contained within their flag of their State, or their media, and so forth. The civil war ended over 150 years ago, the South was vanquished, and the Battle Flag represents for far too many people a battle cry for a return to an era that passed away long ago.
War is a horribly cruel thing, and our civil war, was one of those things, of which many good men and women paid the final price with their blood, sweat, toil and tears. Abraham Lincoln was a very wise and gracious President, who only asked that the South upon their defeat take an oath of allegiance to the United States of America, in which upon doing so this would incorporate the legality as well as being an acknowledgment by the South that the emancipation of those human beings once enslaved was now the law of the land forevermore. It was Lincoln's belief that by doing so this would be the means that the citizens of this country could produce a just and lasting peace as well as ultimately becoming truly united as a nation.
The Confederate Battle Flag therefore represents defiance to hallowed ground and has no place as part of this nation's fabric.