Two sides still arguing over the Civil War

It's their flag that their troops died trying to protect.  I can see them as a wounded party.

I can't.  I can however, see them as sore losers trying to at least partially overturn the verdict of history.  What I find particularly galling is the veiled threat by Virginia to lawyer up if Minnesota doesn't pony up the flag.  Very post-modern of them.

Virginia obviously is taking the war to the courts, where they should have done in the first place rather than siding with South Carolina who fired on Ft. Sumter.

Going to the courts?  In what way was slavery legally defensible?  That is an especially valid question given the whole all men are created equal statement from the Declaration of Independence.  The south would have been in the unenviable position of at a minimum defining Negroes as not people.  Face it, the only way the questions that led to the Civil War were going to be settle was war and the South lost.  Hence, slavery is no more.  Arguing over a battle flag is arguing over crumbs.  Virginia wants to salvage some crumb of "honor" by recovering what they lost in open conflict.  The best thing Virginia could do is honorably concede they lost and the battle flag does indeed belong to the state that captured it in honest, open combat.Don't get me wrong, I am a southerner and pround of that heritage but slavery was indefensible.  The whole "states rights" arguments boils down to slavery and it's probity.

Legal and morally defensible are two separate things entirely.

Yes.Just look a what happen to what the voters in California passed regarding gay marriage.  State officials refused to defend the will of the people in court and the US Supreme court would not let anyone else defend it so the will of the people was negated by state official who broke their oath to defend the state constitution.

I would say there are parallels between the present situation in the US and the period prior to the Civil War.  The issues are different but the efects are the same.  That discussion probably belongs in it's own thread though.