Posted on 02/12/2003 11:17:57 AM PST by meandog
ATLANTA (AP) — Gov. Sonny Perdue, who campaigned with a promise to let voters decide whether to bring back the old state flag dominated by a Confederate emblem, will propose putting the question on the ballot at the same time as the 2004 presidential primary, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Supporters of the emblem say it represents Southern heritage, while blacks and others say it represents racism and slavery.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said voters will be asked two ballot questions, with the first being a yes-no question on whether the current flag should be kept.
Voters will then be asked whether they wish to revert to the previous state flag with its Confederate battle emblem, or a flag that flew until 1956 and did not bear a confederate St. Andrews Cross symbol.
State and national Republicans had worried that a flag referendum the same day as the presidential election could spark a huge turnout by blacks and moderate whites and potentially affect the fortunes of GOP candidates, including President Bush.
By choosing to schedule the referendum during the March primary instead, Perdue averts that problem, but that is expected to be fought by Democrats.
The vote would not be binding. If voters reject the current flag, the flag they favor would be submitted to the Legislature, which would have the final say.
The newspaper said it obtained details of Perdue's plan from people close to those who attended meetings with the governor Tuesday.
The current flag, featuring a tiny image of the Confederate emblem, was adopted in 2001 at the behest of Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes. He was defeated in a re-election bid in the fall, and blamed public anger over the new flag.
It replaced a banner adopted in 1956, in the midst of Southern segregationist defiance, that carried the Confederate battle emblem.
Nobody's aiming to put them on the capital building.
The CBF is the emblem or racism and slavery -- and losers.
"The South was almost helpless in this respect. Nearly all its locomotives, spikes, car wheels, car bodies annd other items of equipment had come from the north...
As the nation's need for an adequate transportation increased, the system would grow weaker and weaker, and there was no earthly help for it....these problems , indeed, were so grave and pointed so surely towards final defeat that one is faced to wonder how the founding fathers of the Confederacy could possibly have overlooked them. The answer perhaps is that the problems were not so much unseen as uncomprehended. At bottom they were Yankee problems; concerns of the broker, the money changer, the trader, the mechanic, the grasping man of business; they were matters that such people would think of, not matters that would command the attention of aristocrats who who were familiar with valor, the classics and heroric atttitudes. Secession itself had involved a flight from reality rather than an approach to it....Essentially, this was the reliance of a group that knew little of the modern world but which did not know nearly enough and could never understand that it did not know enough. It ran exactly parallel to Mr. Davis's magnificent statement that the duration of the war could be left up to the enemy--the war would go on until the enemy gave up, and it did not matter how far off that day might be.
The trouble was it did matter. It mattered enormously."
--The Coming Fury, p. 438-439, by Bruce Catton
In other words, as Rhett Butler said: "it's going to make a great deal of difference to a great many gentlemen."
Walt
W.T. Sherman told you what your country is all about.
Marching Through Georgia
Bring the good old bugle, boys! We'll sing another song.
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world a long,
Sing it as we used to sing it,fifty thousand strong,
While we were marching through Georgia
Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the Jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching through Georgia.
Walt
As have I. I would prefer the pre-56 flag as well; the 'post-56' flag was only done as an "in-your-face" to the early Civil Rights movement; the Barnes flag is just plain ugly.
The Pre-56 flag has a history in the state, and would serve (as far as I can see) as a reasonable compromise to both sides.
"Fortunately" as in presaging the collapse of the USA?
That was the goal of the secessionists, after all.
Walt
It's not over yet.
LOL, and exactly how is that? According to you, the north had everything and the kitchen sink, even though that's false. The South just wanted to leave, unless you're willing to accept Douglass's statement that contradicts that. Oh, I forgot that was the same statement in which he spotted 3000 black Confederates, so we know that statement must be false too. Right Walt?
This isn't necessarily so. John Sammons Bell, who started the move to change the flag, was a big Civil War reenactment buff. He always said that he was interested in getting the new flag on line in time for the Centennial (which was a very big deal hereabouts - I was about ten when all the hoorah started). The AJC (no bastion of reaction there) did an article on this years ago, likewise the DeKalb News-Era (I think - one of the DeKalb papers anyhow) and concluded that many legislators believed they were honoring the Centennial. They interviewed Bell as well as some legislators. I know that Durwood T. Pye (long time state representative) said otherwise (long after the fact) but that may be because his constituency in Macon had changed a great deal and he needed the political cover. And I wouldn't place much credence in the recent Senate report on the flag because it was done at Barnes's command and used no contemporary evidence.
Unfortunately, there is virtually zero legislative history in Georgia and no recording of debates, so we may never know the truth of the matter. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some legislators honestly believed they were doing something historical for the Centennial, while others said one thing and voted another, while still others were red-hot segregationists and thought it would be a good punch in the eye for the Feds.
But I think the pre-56 flag is a good compromise, too. After all, it's based on the First National flag. The Battle Emblem was square, not rectangular, anyhow, and it wasn't incorporated into a national flag until fairly late in the war.
< Good to see a politician keep a campaign promise.... >
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