It’s one thing when a Democrat, like Howard Dean running for president the last time around, declares, as he did, that he wanted to be the candidate of “guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” It’s quite another thing when someone running for the nomination of the Party of Lincoln, as Mayor Giuliani and Governor Romney are, refers to the Confederate flag as simply a state issue, as they have. Granted, it is technically up to each state to decide the design of its state flag, and where to fly it. But that’s just the beginning of the matter.

Anyone hoping to be president of the United States of America owes it to national unity and historical accuracy to go beyond that and note that to many Americans, the flag is a symbol of the evil of slavery and of a secession effort that threatened to destroy the union of our nation. Anything short of that is unseemly pandering to Southern voters. Mr. Giuliani is admired as much as he is because of his reputation as a straight-talking New Yorker. A presidential campaign is no time for Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney to start talking like Trent Lott or Howard Dean or Jefferson Davis. The Republican president for them to emulate on this issue, unapologetically, is Lincoln.