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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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To: StormEye

Maryland may not have been a Union state by choice, but due to Federal interference it remained in the Union.

It sort of had to from a Northern perspective as if it would of become a Confederate state, Washington DC would have been surrounded.


41 posted on 08/03/2017 3:20:40 PM PDT by hirn_man
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To: TigerClaws

Oh noesss! Quick run around in circles!


42 posted on 08/03/2017 3:28:12 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
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To: SpaceBar

That would include a fair number of asshats who post on this forum


43 posted on 08/03/2017 4:16:46 PM PDT by wardaddy (Virtue signalers should be shot...conservative ones racked and hanged then fed to dogs)
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To: Haiku Guy

A few racist idiots huh

Jesus


44 posted on 08/03/2017 4:20:14 PM PDT by wardaddy (Virtue signalers should be shot...conservative ones racked and hanged then fed to dogs)
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To: Colonel Kangaroo; x

Petards enjoy

X isn’t this your home state?


45 posted on 08/03/2017 4:21:48 PM PDT by wardaddy (Virtue signalers should be shot...conservative ones racked and hanged then fed to dogs)
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To: Colonel Kangaroo

Walton County, Florida voted against secession but when Florida did secede, it sent just about all it’s Sons to fight for the South.


46 posted on 08/03/2017 5:24:02 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: Pelham

I hope I heard Laura ingraham

Today

Third hour

Bravo


47 posted on 08/03/2017 6:11:26 PM PDT by wardaddy (Virtue signalers should be shot...conservative ones racked and hanged then fed to dogs)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

This is a doozy.


48 posted on 08/03/2017 6:29:58 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (I was not elected to continue a failed system. I was elected to change it. --Donald J. Trump)
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To: TigerClaws

But, but, progressivism got it’s start from a leading Confederate. You’d think they would all be a little more welcoming to the Confederate flag:

http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/03/confederacy-still-lingers-within-progressivism-birthed/


49 posted on 08/03/2017 7:04:55 PM PDT by Slyfox (Where's Reagan when we need him? Look in the mirror - the spirit of The Gipper lives within you.)
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To: wardaddy

I missed it- what did you hear?


50 posted on 08/03/2017 8:28:57 PM PDT by Pelham (Liberate California. Deport Mexico Now)
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To: Pelham

South bashes and neo conservatives

Same pile of excrement

Anyhow

They are facile about Dixie

She elaborated well

She gets it I think

She was critiquing Hollywood south demonizing ala Benioff and Weiss

The usual drivel dates back to Meathead


51 posted on 08/03/2017 8:51:05 PM PDT by wardaddy (Virtue signalers should be shot...conservative ones racked and hanged then fed to dogs)
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To: wardaddy
A few racist idiots huh ... Jesus

How many Marylanders joined the Confederate Army and fought against the Union?

More than a few I guess, but only about a third of the number who fought for the Union.

The fact that that a relatively small number of people appropriated a symbol from the Maryland flag does not make the Maryland flag Confederate. Far more Marylanders supported the Union, so the Maryland flag would be more accurately viewed as being anti-Confederate, just as the flag of New York or Pennsylvania.

Whether you view people who would leave their homes to support the Confederacy and slavery as racist idiots is up to you.

I call them that not to besmirch Marylanders in general, and certainly not the Marylanders of today. But to travel south to support the Confederacy and slavery in 1861 you would have to be a racist, and given the futility of the cause, idiot could not be far from the truth.

52 posted on 08/04/2017 4:43:38 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (eliminate perverse incentives)
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To: grey_whiskers

I remember learning that song in the 4th Grade. We were particularly enthusiastic on the “Northern Scum” line.


53 posted on 08/04/2017 4:49:15 AM PDT by Haiku Guy (eliminate perverse incentives)
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To: TigerClaws
And now for another exciting episode of


54 posted on 08/04/2017 4:59:11 AM PDT by xp38
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To: Haiku Guy

Virtue signaling is your forte i see

And facile logic

Keep going


55 posted on 08/04/2017 8:15:15 AM PDT by wardaddy (Virtue signalers should be shot...conservative ones racked and hanged then fed to dogs)
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