The idea that the Battle Flag of the Confederacy is simply a symbol of Southern heritage is often promoted to make the use of the flag seem acceptable. It is, in fact, the symbol of a treasonous rebellion against the United States.

When I was a young kid, I bought a Confederate flag at the town festival with some of my friends. After all, I had seen such flags in many places, I knew it represented the South, and I lived in and loved the South, so why wouldn’t I want to hang the Confederate flag up in my bedroom?

Fortunately, that plan was never okay with my mom, who stuffed the flag in a drawer. I do not know where that flag is today, but I do know I am glad I never hung it, never displayed it, never used it after that one day.

Regardless of whether the flag’s defenders want to admit it or not, the Battle Flag of the Confederacy is a racially sensitive symbol that was frequently used by defenders of prejudice and segregation.

However, it is also important to remember that, outside of its racial context, the flag was used in battle by soldiers fighting a rebellion against the United States. True, each of those soldiers cannot be faulted for the war; many of them were brave and acted with noble purposes.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee led the Southern army simply because his home state of Virginia sided with the Confederacy. If Virginia had not seceded, Lee would have probably fought for the Union. He had no ideological commitments that drove him in the Civil War. He was just being loyal to his home state.

On the whole, however, the South acted in contempt. If the Civil War wasn’t over slavery, what was it about? States’ rights? States’ rights to do what? Enslave people?

Considering the Confederacy was founded before Abraham Lincoln took office as president, and thus before he had done anything to infringe upon the activities of Southern slave owners or state’s rights, it is not irrational to conclude that the Confederacy was in fact created to defend neither slavery nor state sovereignty.

It was created instead because a certain group of states disagreed with the election of Abraham Lincoln as president and with his political and abolitionist views.

The Civil War, therefore, was not only about slavery, but our identity as a country. It wasn’t just a question of whether or not we were going to live up to the words in our own Declaration of Independence, which states “All men are created equal.” It was also a question of whether or not we were going to be united as a country, or a fair-weather alliance of states that could come and go as they pleased.

The central issue in the Civil War was whether or not the U.S. Constitution is a binding pact among the states and the people, or something that can be disavowed whenever the states disagreed with its consequences. It isn’t hard to imagine how chaotic and unstable our country would be today if states could leave every time they disagreed with the results of a national election. Yet, that is the type of country the Confederacy fought for, if you can call such an arrangement a country at all.

There is an excellent case to be made for states’ rights, but not states with so many rights that they can tear the nation apart. The victory of the Union in the Civil War was a victory for the idea of an America united along democratic principles.

The Confederacy fought against that idea. The Battle Flag of the Confederacy represents opposition to that idea. Today, though, the United States of America is the greatest nation in all of human history, precisely because it operates based on that idea. Regardless of the severity of our disagreements, we resolve them democratically, and we peacefully comply with the consensus that emerges. We are one nation, under God, indivisible.

It is preposterous to think that the Confederate flag is as representative of Southern culture as pecan pie and fried chicken. In reality, the Confederate flag represents a rebellion against everything modern America stands for – and is thus not only racially insensitive, but also unpatriotic and disrespectful to the men and woman fighting oversees to champion American values today.

The South should be a place that celebrates its rich culture – of football, sweet tea, and hospitality – in a way that people of all races from all places can enjoy. After all, black southerners have done as much, if not more, to create that culture as white southerners have.

But the South shouldn’t be a place that clings to the Confederate flag. It has no place today’s United States.

Tray Smith is the opinions editor of the Crimson White.