The Wisconsin Republican Party's treasurer asked people organizing and attending a rally in Madison this week not to bring Confederate flags and firearms to the event.

"Ok folks, I implore you, please leave Confederate flags and/or AR15s, AK47s, or any other long guns at home," Brian Westrate posted in a private Facebook group, The New York Times reported. "I well understand that the Confederacy was more about states rights than slavery. But that does not change the truth of how we should try to control the optics during the event."

(The main goal of the Confederacy was to preserve slavery, as Confederate leaders explicitly laid out in their constitution.)