This editorial appeared in today's AJC.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/03/18/0319edconfederate.html

This is the comment I posted:

"No one with any sense of history denies that slavery was wrong. However, it was not strictly a southern wrong. The vast majority of slaves transported from Africa traveled in U.S. flagged vessels, and were bought from Africans, to whom slavery was a matter of war and economics.

As a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer, I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States; but my great grandfather and two great uncles fought for the Confederacy. They did not own any slaves. They fought to protect their homes from invasion. My great grandfather died of disease in 1862. My great uncles were both captured and spent the last year of the war in Northern prison camps. The one who was wounded was kept at Camp Douglas, which had a reputation as bad as Andersonville.

Their suffering and sacrifice deserve to be honored and remembered.

Though slavery was a great factor in the war, it was not the only one. Until 1863, the major aim of Lincoln was to restore the union. He said to do that he would keep slavery, which was common in many Northern states, and remained so until after the war.

The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves of Southern states' areas under control of the Union Armies. It freed no slave in Northern or border states. In fact, Lincoln fired U.S. General John C. Fremont for issuing his own emancipation proclamation in Missouri. Lincoln said he did not want to upset his Southern Union friends.

Passing a bill to honor the Confederacy will only codify what has been done for years by proclamation. It would assure the study of all sides of our history, good and bad, and not just the politically correct version." Stan