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The Flag Of The Confederacy

Decent Essays

On July 4th, Americans remember and celebrate the Declaration of Independence. The nation pauses to commemorate the actions of the Founding Fathers, who led the way in the effort—now known as the American Revolution— to break apart from Britain. The American flag flies proudly across the land, its red, white and blue, its stars and its stripes, serving as a symbol of American pride. The flag of the Confederacy, however, is often met with scorn, revulsion, and censorship, as many Americans see it as a symbol of an ideology irreconcilable with modern views on equality and individual liberty. The Civil War, fought between the Confederate states and the union from which they seceded, is remembered in a far different (and darker) light than the Revolution. But in both conflicts, a subset of a larger constituency sought to break away from actual, perceived and potential limitations on economic activity and political and social equality, and the larger body sought to preserve the hegemony of the pre-existing government. Strangely, comparisons between the origins and fallouts of the two conflicts can indeed be drawn, if only to a limited extent. Both the American Revolution and Civil War centered around an effort to resist what the separatist party viewed as an oppressive overarching government. In the 1770s, the colonists sought to liberate themselves from the control of "Mother England." The British had imposed a series of revenue-raising taxes which the colonists considered

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