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Does Maryland’s Flag Have Confederate Ties? Social Media Campaign Sparks Controversy
CBS Baltimore ^

Posted on 08/03/2017 12:17:08 PM PDT by TigerClaws

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — During a social media campaign to derail HBO’s planned modern-day Southern slavery drama, one Twitter user’s posts about the history of the Maryland flag got a lot of attention.

“What a lot of people don’t know is that the Maryland flag is half confederate,” @benjancewicz wrote, using the hashtag #NoConfederate. ADVERTISING

And, he’s kind of right.

Yes, even though Maryland was a Union state, the flag — which is featured on the state’s license plate and is a popular adornment for clothing and accessories — does contain some Confederate symbolism.

RELATED: #NoConfederate Campaign Against HBO Modern Slave Drama Takes Off

The flag’s older history is tied to George Calvert, an English politician and colonizer who more or less founded the Maryland colony, although he died just weeks before the charter for the state was approved in 1632. The settlement of the area was left to his firstborn son Cecil and his second son Leonard Calvert was the first colonial governor of the province.

“George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, adopted a coat of arms that included a shield with alternating quadrants featuring the yellow-and-black colors of his paternal family and the red-and-white colors of his maternal family, the Crosslands,” state archives say.

“When the General Assembly in 1904 adopted a banner of this design as the state flag, a link was forged between modern-day Maryland and the very earliest chapter of the proprietorship of the Calvert family.”

But the red and white part of the flag, known as the Crossland arms, was also the design flown by Marylanders who sympathized with the South in the Civil War, according to state records.

“During the war, Maryland-born Confederate soldiers used both the red-and-white colors and the cross bottony design from the Crossland quadrants of the Calvert coat of arms as a unique way of identifying their place of birth,” the records say. “Pins in the cross bottony shape were worn on uniforms, and the headquarters flag of the Maryland-born Confederate general Bradley T. Johnson was a red cross bottony on a white field.”

During the slow process of reconciliation after the Civil War ended in Union victory in 1865, a “flag incorporating alternating quadrants of the Calvert and Crossland colors began appearing at public events” in the state.

The origins of the flag including both designs is not known, but state records say it was being flown by October 1880.

In 1888, the flag was carried by Maryland National Guard troops escorting Governor Elihu E. Jackson at the dedication ceremonies for the Maryland monument at the Gettysburg Battlefield.

The next year, the Fifth Regiment, Maryland National Guard, adopted the flag as its regimental color, becoming the first organization to adopt it officially.

And, as previously mentioned, it was declared the official state flag by the General Assembly in 1904.

Read more about the history of the state flag HERE, and tell us what you think of it.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
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Another NAACP travel advisory is in the works.
1 posted on 08/03/2017 12:17:08 PM PDT by TigerClaws
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To: TigerClaws

Uhm Maryland flag is the coat of arms from the Calvert Family. Maryland was found about 200 years before the Civil War.


2 posted on 08/03/2017 12:22:05 PM PDT by PJBankard
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To: TigerClaws

This is one of the leftist agitators who is sparking up this controversy.

https://twitter.com/benjancewicz?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor


3 posted on 08/03/2017 12:25:16 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff
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To: PJBankard

And Lord Calvert died in 1632, ten years before Mayland received her first slaves.


4 posted on 08/03/2017 12:26:00 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: PJBankard

Damn, Confederates wore boots, now I can’t wear any!


5 posted on 08/03/2017 12:26:01 PM PDT by Defiant (The media is the colostomy bag where truth goes after democrats digest it.)
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To: TigerClaws

Let’s just get rid of the people who are perpetually offended by all things confederate.


6 posted on 08/03/2017 12:26:11 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: TigerClaws

This from the same fools who see nothing wrong at all with a hammer and sickle flag. Begin the pardon of any decent conservatives in that state, but Maryland deserves this idiocy, let them destroy their own flag over imagined historical impurities. Raise the hammer and sickle and be done with it, it’s “inoffensive.”


7 posted on 08/03/2017 12:26:30 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: TigerClaws

I should probably just let sleeping dogs lie but both Alabama and Florida’s state flags are taken in part from the Confederate battle flag.


8 posted on 08/03/2017 12:30:19 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: PJBankard
If they want to dig for a tie, they have a (very weak) point. The black and gold is Calvert, but the red and white is Crossland. The Crossland was used by Marylanders who fought for the South, and the two were combined in a new flag in 1880 to unite those from opposite sides of the war. Since the goal of the Ctrl-Left is to divide us, I expect them to destroy the Maryland flag specifically because it is a symbol of unity.


9 posted on 08/03/2017 12:32:20 PM PDT by Pollster1 ("Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed")
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To: TigerClaws

I should probably just let sleeping dogs lie but both Alabama and Florida’s state flags are taken in part from the Confederate battle flag.


10 posted on 08/03/2017 12:32:52 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: TigerClaws
Can't say for sure about the flag. The state song, “Maryland, My Maryland,” is fine.

I hear the distant thunder-hum,

Maryland!
The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!

11 posted on 08/03/2017 12:37:38 PM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: TigerClaws

The Confederate flags had red, blue and white colors, therefore we need to eliminate those three colors from all use in the USA, since they are linked to the Confederacy and slavery!


12 posted on 08/03/2017 12:41:35 PM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
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To: TigerClaws

Liberals better get to banning every state flag... someone is always gonna be offended.


13 posted on 08/03/2017 12:42:27 PM PDT by goldstategop ((In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever))
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To: RegulatorCountry

ISIS and Hezbollah flags fly in many snowflake demonstrations also. The country is being Talibanned.


14 posted on 08/03/2017 12:42:44 PM PDT by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: TigerClaws

>>But the red and white part of the flag, known as the Crossland arms, was also the design flown by Marylanders who sympathized with the South in the Civil War, according to state records.

Anyone who goes this far out on a limb to find fault with something in history needs to be removed from the USA.

According to records, people who sympathized with the South also used a toilet that was a seat with a hole and the poop fell down and away from the body. So, the PC thing to do is break with that history of racism and sit astride a dome when you poop so it does not fall away as those Confederate SOBs did during the war.


15 posted on 08/03/2017 12:44:10 PM PDT by Bryanw92 (If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.)
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To: GreyFriar
The Confederate flags had red, blue and white colors, therefore we need to eliminate those three colors from all use in the USA, since they are linked to the Confederacy and slavery!

That's next.

16 posted on 08/03/2017 12:44:19 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: TigerClaws

Chris Farley says, Whoop de do.....


17 posted on 08/03/2017 12:46:04 PM PDT by VaRepublican (I would propagate taglines but I don't know how. But bloggers do.)
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To: Pollster1

Actually the it’s the banner created by Lord Baltimore. The yellow and black were from the Calvert (father’s) coat of arms and the red and white from the Crossland (mother’s) coat of arms. Had nothing to do with slavery what so ever. The fact that secessionists used the Crosslands portion of the the banner is irrelevant to the history of the banner.


18 posted on 08/03/2017 12:48:04 PM PDT by PJBankard
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To: Defiant

They wore pants too. I’m thinking we’re all in trouble now. :=)


19 posted on 08/03/2017 12:48:54 PM PDT by Bob (Damn, the democrats haven't been this upset since Republicans freed their slaves.)
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To: TigerClaws

I believe that the Maryland Legislature was ready to vote secession, but was intimidated by threats and the presence of Federal troops. So I would imagine that many of the rooted Marylanders are pro-Confederate—though of course not the huge number of Federal Bureaucrats.


20 posted on 08/03/2017 12:53:40 PM PDT by Ohioan
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