Allow displays of battle flags By Ann Coulter There are a few points to be made in defense of the Confederate flag. Despite grandiose revisionist history written by the victors, the Civil War was not exclusively about slavery: It was about saving the Union. President Lincoln wrote to the editor of the New York Tribune in August 1862: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that." Indeed, Lincoln didn't even issue the Emancipation Proclamation until well into the Civil War, largely as a war tactic. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee opposed slavery and had freed his slaves long before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Lee's men followed him, often hungry and barefoot, because the South was their home - not because they held a brief for slavery. The battle flag never flew over a Confederate building: It was truly a battle flag. Symbols of slavery! ? The American flag or native African kente cloth could more plausibly be said to symbolize slavery than the Confederate battle flag. Slavery was legal under the Stars and Stripes for more than 70 years, far longer than under any of the Confederate flags. Moreover, it is a historical fact that American slaves were purchased from their slave masters in Africa, where slavery exists to this day. Indeed, slavery is the only African institution America has ever adopted. But while some Americans express pride in their ancestors, even though some of them were slave traders, by calling themselves "African-Americans," pride in Confederate relatives is deemed a virtual hate crime. Yet this country's heroic annals are shot through with Southerners - Southerners that former Navy secretary James Webb describes as whispering "and for the South" when pledging their duty to America. It is the South's pride in its valiant military history that the battle flag represents. In his World War II ! account, Citizen Soldiers, Stephen E. Ambrose recalls the amazing feats of Lt. Waverly Wray from Batesville, Miss. With his "Deep South religious convictions," Wray's worst curse was to exclaim "John Brown!" referring to the abolitionist who helped spark the Civil War. One time, Wray single-handedly killed eight German officers by sneaking up on them "like the deer stalker he was." As Ambrose says: "You don't get more than one Wray to a division, or even to an army." There was one like him in World War I, Ambrose reports - "also a Southern boy." Southern bravery This is a shared cultural ethic among all Southerners. Five black marines were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for mind-boggling acts of heroism that protected their comrades in Vietnam. Three of the five were from the South. The disproportionate number of blacks in the military is a reflection of the disproportionate number of Southerners in the military. Retired Army general Colin Powell concluded there is ! no impediment to a black person being elected president, noting that he received his strongest support to run for president from white Southerners. Slavery is an ugly chapter in this nation's history, but it was not unique to this country, and it was not unique to the South. It is its own kind of bigotry to condemn respectful displays of the Confederate battle flag