After attacks, many Southerners fly different flag

Until recently, if you saw a red, white and blue flag sticker on a Southern pickup truck, odds were good that it was a Confederate flag.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks, the once-prominent symbol beloved by both unreconstructed Southern partisans and Civil War buffs has been swamped in a wave of national unity.

American flags are popping up on cars, outside homes and businesses - and even on horse-drawn carriages in the city where the Civil War started.

In Charleston, unlike New York or California, the Stars and Stripes can often be seen displayed beside the controversial Confederate battle flag.

One local bumper sticker even has a message for Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network, "Terrorists: Your soul is the devil's and your butt's America's."

Another depicts both the U.S. and the Confederate battle flag and says "red-blooded American."

Area flag merchants say sales of Confederate flags have remained steady even as sales of U.S flags have increased.

"My American flag sales have increased 100-fold," Gary Shelton, president of 1abcstore.com in St. Simons, Ga., said. His Confederate flag sales are about the same.While it might strike some as inconsistent to fly the flag created by people who wanted to dissolve the United States next to the American flag during a time of national crisis, many in the region do not see it that way, says political science Professor Bill Moore of the College of Charleston.

"In general, I don't feel Southerners see it as inconsistent. You do have a few ultra-nationalists who would still like to secede from the Union. However, most of those who maintain a strong identity with the Confederate flag incorporate it into a historical context," he said.

In the Southerner's view, loyalty to the historical South is not necessarily incompatible with contemporary values as Americans, Moore said.

"Collectively, Southerners do tend to be stronger supporters of the military than their non-Southern counterparts and value a military career more," he said.

Also, because of limited immigration into the region and less exposure to different cultures, Southerners can be more parochial and suspicious of foreign populations than other Americans, and are thus more likely to support action on behalf of American interests abroad, he said.

Sen. Glenn McConnell is one of the brokers of the compromise that brought the Confederate flag down from the Statehouse dome to a monument on the Capitol grounds in 2000, and owns a Confederate memorabilia shop in North Charleston.

McConnell's sales of Confederate flags have continued and are unaffected by the terrorist attacks. He says he flies both an American flag and a Confederate flag and sees no inconsistency in his actions.

"We see it as a patriotic emblem of our ancestors, but the nation's moved on since then. We think our ancestors stood up for a Constitutional principle that was still considered an option back then - the issue of whether states can secede from the Union - and the issue was resolved on the battlefield. We had an unpleasant disagreement amongst ourselves, and it was settled. So now, if you punch at the United States, you've struck at all of us," he said.

Some Confederate flag supporters do embrace the flag as a separatist symbol. Before the attacks, neo-Confederate messages, like Southern independence, were said to be gaining traction, especially in the angry wake of several regional controversies. Debates about the removal of the flag from the South Carolina Statehouse, the changing of the Georgia state flag and a contentious vote on the Mississippi state flag riled Southern partisans and fans of Southern history alike.

In 1997, Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, wrote in one of his publications that "the American flag has, in fits and starts, come to stand for a corrupt central regime that increasingly visits upon its citizen-subjects expropriations that would have driven our ancestors to active resistance."

Hill said he considers himself an American, and he claims that Southerners are more American than people from other regions. He said the Confederate flag is the flag that truly represents states' rights and a Constitutional government.

On the other hand, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group that also has been on the forefront in the battles over the public display of the Confederate flag, took a much different position.

After the attacks, the SCV's national commander-in-chief, Ed Deason, immediately issued a statement on behalf of its 30,000 members expressing sympathy and support of President Bush, Congress and the government and affirmed its intentions to "join all patriotic Americans."

That move is harmonious with the organization's mission, spokeswoman Lynda Moreau said.

"We were chartered over 100 years ago as a patriotic and benevolent organization. Our mission is to defend the good name of the Confederate soldier. The SCV does not advocate secession," she said.

Many of its current members are veterans who fought in the armed forces during wartime.

"They fought for this country, and they stand behind it. That doesn't mean they honor the Confederate flag any less. They honor both," she said.

The Rev. Joe Darby of the Morris Avenue Missionary Baptist Church in Charleston, who is first vice president of the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, views the issue differently. The NAACP continues its efforts to boycott the state because of the location of the flag on the Statehouse grounds and will raise it, as well as other issues, again in the next legislative session.

To Darby, the Confederate flag is a symbol of disunity in a time when the nation's citizens should come together.

"We need to be unified at a time like this. While I don't think everyone who flies it (the battle flag) is a member of a hate group, I would not fly it. When I see it, I see a symbol of white, antebellum unity. That leaves me out of the picture," he said.

Darby acknowledges that there are South Carolinians who see no conflict in flying both flags.

"What do I think when I see both flags flying together? I guess I rejoice that we live in a country where people can hold strange views," he said.

Since the Civil War, major events such as the terrorist attacks have moved Southerners toward a stronger view of themselves as Americans first and Southerners second, even if they created some subconscious tugs between regional and national loyalties along the way, writes Charles Reagan Wilson in his 1980 book "Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920."

"The Spanish American War and World War II provided the perfect backdrop for Southern ministers to identify again with the values of the American nation," he writes.

"In 1917 the raising of Old Glory on Jefferson Davis Parkway in New Orleans became a symbolic event marking renewed patriotism. Ministers even wrote poems praising the flag, although acceptance of the prime symbol of national unity created a tension with continuing adoration for the equally potent Confederate battle flag," Wilson writes.

One Southern writer of the time, according to Wilson, suggested "that Southerners should still 'consecrate in our hearts our old battle flag of the Southern Cross'," but that it should be honored not as '"a political symbol, but as the consecrated emblem of a heroic epoch.'"

Until May, the Old South Carriage Company downtown displayed three flags, the United States flag, the state flag and the Confederate flag. However, the flags were stolen on Mother's Day weekend and have not yet been replaced, manager Kay Motley said. When they are replaced, one flag will still represent the Confederacy, but it will be another, less controversial flag, she said.

The company currently displays an American flag inside its barn and quickly put American flags on its carriages after the terrorist attacks.

"We're proud of our Southern heritage. Our company is named Old South, but we are patriotic enough to add American flags to our carriages at a time like this," Motley said.

As of January, 1861 the US Treasury's only revenue source, tariffs on imports, was essentially wiped out with the withdrawl of the Southern states.

False.

Tariff revenue during 1859 in all southern ports combined was less than that of Philadelphia.

Walt

So, in other words, it's OK to theorize how a 'free trade south' would have doomed the North but wondering how that same south would pay it's bills is speculation off subject?

Not my speculation.....it was what was being said in the Spring of 1861 by your people.

A free trade south would have had to come up with other ideas to fund the government. I wondered what they were.

Read the Confederate Constitution.

We ought to quit speculating, and stick to the facts.

From an American Heritage article on the National Debt:

After the Mexican War, the peace and prosperity of the early 1850s allowed the debt to be cut in half. Then a new depression struck in 1857, and the debt moved back up until, at the end of 1860, it amounted to $64,844,000. Only one year later it reached $524,178,000 and was rising at a rate of well over a million dollars a day.

The Civil War was by far the largest war fought in the Western world between the end of the Napoleonic era and World War I, and its cost was wholly without precedent. To pay for it, the federal government moved to tax nearly everything. Annual revenues, which had never exceeded $74 million before the war, were $558 million by 1866 and would never again drop below $250 million.

But revenues did not come anywhere near to matching outlays, especially in the early years of the war. In fact, 1862 would be the worst year ever -- so far -- for spending in excess of income. The deficit amounted to an awesome 813 percent of revenues (almost four times the worst year of World War II).

Now, the question, not speculation please, is who was lending this money to the Treasury?

Read the Confederate Constitution.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States..." Big deal. My question is where from? You take a newspaper editorial and make an economy out of it. If all the gloom and doom that poured out of the New York Times editorial pages came true we would have been destroyed years ago. All I'm asking is for you to flesh your position out somewhat. Fess up. The whole free trade south never occured to any of the southern leadership at the time, did it? They would have enacted duties and tariffs and taxes, the same as the Federal government would have. They would have had to in order to pay for the army they authorized and all the infrastructure necessary for a government. The south was decades away from being a serious economic threat to the North.

Now, the question, not speculation please, is who was lending this money to the Treasury?

Obviously nobody who was inclined to lend money to the south. The northern economy during and after the war was as sound and robust as before. Sure it went through cycles of growth and depression but it did that before the war. The union currency was sound and treasury bonds were a good investment. Otherwise it wouldn't have stayed afloat. The confederacy, on the other hand, had a government who fought against taxed even in their 'countries' darkest hour. If they wouldn't vote to tax themselves to save their country then why should we assume they would have in time of peace?

As usual, you're wrong. The major inducement to the northern business community to support Lincoln's illegitimate war was the fear that with the excellent port of New Orleans, access to the center of the country via the Mississippi River, and a free trade policy, the South could quickly attract much of the international trade that up to then flowed to the northeast coast.

Do you see anything in this quote that makes sense to you?

"Out of ports throughout the South flowed all sorts of goods, primarially cotton and tobacco. The federal government kept track of the value of goods flowing out. 35% of South Carolina's exports in 1860 were shipped out of Charleston directly to Europe. 15% of the returning goods came directly back. All the rest was transhipped through Northern ports." exerpt from 'Charleston, A Maritime History'.

And this:

Tariffs were assigned and collected at the port-of-entry, unless perishible goods required immediate shipment. In this example, the owners paid their tax on the perishibles where they took delivery. 'Historical Statistics of the US', Dept. of Commerce.

That then leads to this:

The total revenue of the US Treasury in 1860 was $56,065,000. Revenue from tariffs was $53,188,000. Value of total exports in 1860 was $270,000,000. Cotton and tobacco valued at $208,000,000 or 77% of the money to buy European goods.

So in 1860 77% of the imports were paid for with Southern goods.

Who would pick up the tab of government in 1861?

I'm asking a question, how can I be wrong? But since PeaRidge won't answer then I'll ask you. If the south adopted a free trade policy then where do you think they would have gotten the revenue to run the government? Tariffs brought in close to 90% of the federal revenues in 1860. You two economic wizards claim that the south wouldn't use tariffs so I am asking. Where...would...they...get...the...money...for...the...government? It is no stretch to say that their budget would have approached the size of the federal budget of 1860, after all they had to build an army and a navy, set up a government, establish postal deliver, keep harbors and rivers cleared and all the rest. Where would it come from?

You take a newspaper editorial and make an economy out of it. If all the gloom and doom that poured out of the New York Times editorial pages came true we would have been destroyed years ago.

Well, I am not sure what newspaper report you are discussing, but you are aware that after secession, most articles were concilatory. But after the Confederacy announced its low tariff, all the newspapers, especially the ones in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia became hostile to the South, calling for war.

It is not my opinion, but theirs, that the low tariff of the South was a threat. That is not being said in 2001, but 1861.

I would tend to believe the people and their actions of the time

Non, the Federal government spent about $60 million on its wonderful work in 1861.

Two questions:

1.How much of that was spent on military, necessary infrastructure?

2. How much do you think it would take to run the Confederacy?

The whole free trade south never occured to any of the southern leadership at the time, did it? They would have enacted duties and tariffs and taxes, the same as the Federal government would have.

Well, actually it did. Read the Confederate Constitution again. They were very much aware of free trade.

They enacted some taxiation, but the South was still motivated by individual responsibility and initiative. Therefore, central taxiation was against their philosophy.

In order to accomodate deep draft ocean going trade vessels, Charleston initiated a major dredging project that culminated in 1860. Who do you think paid for this?

"I'm asking a question, how can I be wrong?"

The following (from your post 264) is an assertion, not a question:

" The South was decades away from being an economic threat to the North."

WRONG

Please reread my post 266.

Who do you think paid for this?

Since it ended before the Civil War my guess would be the Federal government. But you prove my point. As opposed as they were to most forms of taxation the confederate government would have had no choice but to turn to tariffs to fund the government whcih would have put a crimp in the free trade business.

In the world of 1860, without welfare, revenue sharing and the rest, I imagine that the military took much of the federal budget with navigational improvement, transportation, federal debt and the like taking up the rest. Since the south was trying to form a government from scratch, create a military many times larger than the Federal one, and would have had to fund her own infrastructure then I don't think that it is reasonable to assume that her budget would have approached the $60 million mark initially. It probably would have declined after a while, assuming peace between north and south, but initial expenses would have been high.

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