You're right that we agree on much but disagree on this. I think in the great scheme of things this is a topic of less importance than a lot of others.

Responding to some of what you wrote.

First, what Lincoln said and did is really irrelevant to the issue of the flag. Lincoln had nothing to do with any CSA flag. The point is really what the CSA was about.

Second, what Jefferson Davis said and did isn't all that relevant either since the CSA existed before he was elected as its president, just like the USA already existed before George Washington was president. The president doesn't form the country, the country elects the president.

Third, what is relevant is what the statement of secession for those states that formed the CSA said. The very first state to secede, and therefore most relevant since it was the leader in this movement (the movement to secede from the Union), was South Carolina. So the South Carolina Declaration of the Causes of Secession is posted here: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libra...s-of-secession/

It is dated December 20, 1860. Lincoln had not yet even taken the oath of office!

Here are some key statements:

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

In other words, SC was pissed that the non-slave states didn't enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.

A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the Common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

SC was mad that the Northern states elected a Republican. The Republican Party was formed in 1854 as an anti-slavery party. The North elected Lincoln; he didn't get a single vote in the Southern states. Whatever Lincoln did or said after this isn't relevant because he had not yet sworn the oath of office! He took the office on March 4, 1861 -- this declaration was made on December 20, 1860. The issue was slavery.

Here is a key paragraph from the Declaration of Secession for Mississippi:

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. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Again, the reason is that the central issue is slavery.

Don't take my word for it: click on this link and look up each declaration here: http://www.civil-war.net/pages/ordinances_secession.asp

It may be true that there were some white slaves in Louisiana and maybe a few other places, but they were the exception, not the rule. Slavery in the South was almost always slavery of black African people and their descendants. They justified this by claiming that they were inferior, meaning less than human or subhuman. They were animals. Today we treat our animals better than how they were treated then. You could LEGALLY work a slave to death. You could LEGALLY rape a slave. You could LEGALLY beat a slave. You could legally kill a slave. This is what the states that seceded from the Union to form the CSA justified. This is what the Confederate flags represent.