Racist symbols and reparations

In this book, George Schedler offers fresh moral and legal perspectives on two legacies of the Civil War: the adoption of the Confederate battle flag by Southern states and the question of reparations to African Americans. Schedler demonstrates that constitutional objections to the Southern states' display of the battle flag are without merit, arguing that either the flag is not a racist symbol or there is a similar case for attaching racist significance to the Stars and Stripes.

Drawing on scholarship of the Civil War and its aftermath, the author concludes that the Confederate battle flag can actually be seen as a multicultural symbol. Schedler's analysis of reparations focuses on the principle that whatever the enslaved would have earned and enjoyed had they not been enslaved should determine compensation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the Civil War, moral philosophy, and constitutional law.