Posted on 10/29/2001 11:26:49 AM PST by aomagrat
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.
That was before Sept. 11.
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."
The sticker features a Confederate flag.
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.'"
In Charleston, evidence of those competing loyalties still remains.
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.
So explain to this poor Yankee how Bush v. Gore comported with 'the clear and easily understood language of the constitution'.
I respectfully disagree... I'm an American by virtue of my residence in north america but I'm also a resident of the late, great CSA. A Mexican or Canadian is an american but it ain't their flag, either.
At one time, long before I was born, that flag represented the things I hold dear but now it represents massive, bloated, centralized gov't superior to it's subjects, imperialism and the "new world order". Those things are evil and they don't represent what I am or what I believe in.
I do agree with the previous posters that the 13 star "American" flag is a good banner to unite beneath, but for me, I'll take the good old Stars and Bars
Or, as his name implies, he acts out this agenda by changing the subject to some conclusional blather.
There were 3,950,000 slaves in the United States in 1860. If we assume an average price of $500 that would mean that it would cost the government around $2 billion to buy and free all the slaves. This at a time when the federal budget was $60 million. Anyone suggesting that would have been laughed out of government. As it turned out, the Civil War cost more than $2 billion and had the North known that the south would have resorted to war to defend their illegal secession, then it might have decided that it would have been worth it. But hindsight is 20/20 and the 13th Amendment was a far more cost effective way of dealing with the solution.
Of course, as a Yankee I don't agree with your interpretation of the 10th Amendment, or why I should think that it could override Article V. Not do I understand why I shouldn't think that slavery was the overriding issue since it was given as the primary, and usually only, reason for secession in every secession declaration that the south issued. I don't understand a lot of things about your position, mainly because they make so little sense in light of the evidence to the contrary.
Hey there, Pea. What kept you?
Finally, assuming that you mean Juillard v. Greenman is the worst decision the Supreme Court ever made, then I suppose it would be impolite to point out that since it was issued in 1884 it wasn't 'way back farther' than Texas v. White.
Yes. And the cross was the symbol used by the German Army in World War II. Any idiot can appropriate any image and twist it to seem to support his cause, just like any idiot can post on Free Republic. "Gee" I just saw the image you posted on Free Republic. That means Free Republic supports the Klan, right? We don't have time chase down every fool who misuses the CSA flag, just like we don't have time to reply to every fool on FR. We pick our spots.
Here's a link to the real flag of the KKK:
http://www.rulen.com/kkk/
To use your own words:
"Like it or not your banner has been appropriated by some pretty crummy organizations and I don't hear you complaining about it much"
Hoisted on your own petard, huh?
This, plus the formation of a free trade Confederacy, necessitated Lincoln forcing a war with the South.
Federal coercion over states' rights was founded in a financially strapped treasury, and began a tradition of statist expediency over Jeffersonian principles of individual rights.
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. If you want to speculate on how the North was going to pay for the Federal government, go ahead.
Want to admit that Lincoln sent Federal troops to Charleston to coerce their revenue source back into the Union?
Or, are you inclined to now admit that the low-tariff Confederacy was a greater threat to the Union than populist historians are willing to admit?
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? You yourself noted that the govenment had relied of tariffs as virtually the only source of revenue. A free trade south would have had to come up with other ideas to fund the government. I wondered what they were.
I must admit, thought, that for a country that saw almost all it's revenue dry up - if your claims be true - the North sure didn't seem to suffer from it. Oh, sure, the war caused the budget to explode and increased the national debt to many times it's prewar level but the economy didn't grind to a halt. The North didn't have runaway inflation the way the south did. The north didn't have to fund the war by cranking out ton after ton of paper currency until it eventually became worthless. Maybe the government wasn't as dependent on southern exports as you claim? Or is that more 'speculation off subject'?
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