Dixie's dilemma

At the beginning of the school year, Dixie Outfitters T-shirts were all the rage at Cherokee High School. Girls seemed partial to one featuring the Confederate battle flag in the shape of a rose. Boys often wore styles that discreetly but unmistakably displayed Dixie Outfitters' rebel emblem logo.
But now the most popular Dixie Outfitters shirt at the school doesn't feature a flag at all. It says: ''Jesus and the Confederate Battle Flag: Banned From Our Schools But Forever in Our Hearts.'' It became an instant favorite after school officials prohibited shirts featuring the battle flag in response to complaints from two African-American families who found them intimidating and offensive.

The ban is stirring old passions about Confederate symbols and their place in Southern history in this increasingly suburban high school, 40 miles northwest of Atlanta. Similar disputes over the flag are being played out more frequently in school systems -- and courtrooms -- across the South and elsewhere, as a new generation's fashion choices raise questions about where historical pride ends and racial insult begins.

Schools in states from Michigan to Alabama have banned the popular Dixie Outfitters shirts just as they might gang colors or miniskirts, saying they are disruptive to the school environment. The rebel flag's modern association with white supremacists makes it a flashpoint for racial confrontation, school officials say.
''This isn't an attempt to refute Southern heritage,'' said Mike McGowan, a Cherokee County schools spokesman. ''This is an issue of a disruption of the learning environment in one of our schools.''

Walter C. Butler Jr., president of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, said it is unreasonable to ask African Americans not to react to someone wearing the rebel flag. ''To ask black people to respect a flag that was flown by people who wanted to totally subjugate and dehumanize you -- that is totally unthinkable,'' he said.
But the prohibitions against flag-themed clothing have prompted angry students, parents, Confederate-heritage groups and even the American Civil Liberties Union to respond with protests and lawsuits that argue that students' First Amendment rights are being trampled in the name of political correctness.
''This is our heritage. Nobody should be upset with these shirts,'' said Ree Simpson, a senior soccer player at Cherokee who says she owns eight Confederate-themed shirts. ''During Hispanic Heritage Month, we had to go through having a kid on the intercom every day talking about their history. Do you think they allow that during Confederate History Month?''

Simpson said no one complains when African-American students wear clothes made by FUBU, a black-owned company whose acronym means ''For Us By Us.'' Worse, she says, school officials have nothing to say when black students make the biting crack that the acronym also means ''farmers used to beat us.'' Similarly, she says, people assume that members of the school's growing Latino population mean no harm when they wear T-shirts bearing the Mexican flag.
Simpson believes the rebel flag should be viewed the same way. The days when the banner was a symbol of racial hatred and oppression are long gone, she contends. Far from being an expression of hate, she says, her affection for the flag simply reflects Southern pride. ''I'm a country girl. I can't help it. I love the South,'' she said. ''If people want to call me a redneck, let them.''

It is a sentiment that is apparently widely shared at Cherokee, and beyond. The day after Cherokee Principal Bill Sebring announced the T-shirt ban on the school's intercom this fall, more than 100 students were either sent home or told to change clothes when they defiantly wore the shirts to school. In the weeks that followed, angry parents and Confederate heritage groups organized flag-waving protests outside the school and at several school board meetings.

''All hell broke loose,'' said Tom Roach, an attorney for the Cherokee County school system. When principals banned the shirts at other county high schools in the past, he said, ''there was no public outcry. No complaints. No problems.''

But the Confederate flag was a particularly hot topic in Georgia this year. Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes was upset in his re-election bid in part because he successfully pushed for redesign of the Georgia state flag, which was formerly dominated by the Confederate battle emblem. On the new state banner, the emblem is reduced to a small icon. During the campaign, Barnes' opponent, Sonny Perdue, called for a referendum on the new flag, a position that analysts say helped make him the state's first elected Republican governor since Reconstruction.

Elsewhere in the South, civil rights groups have mobilized to remove the banner in recent years. Activists had it removed from atop the South Carolina statehouse and from other public places, saying it is an insult to African Americans and others who view it as a symbol of bigotry and state-sanctioned injustice. But that campaign has stirred a resentful backlash from groups that view it as an attack on their heritage.

''We're not in a battle just for that flag, we're in a battle to determine whether our Southern heritage and culture survives,'' said Dan Coleman, public relations director for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, one of the groups that joined the protests at Cherokee High School.

The battle over Confederate-themed clothing has made its way to the courts, which generally have sided with school dress codes that prevent items that officials deem disruptive.

In a 1969 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent Community School District that school officials could not prohibit students from wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, but only because the court found that the armbands were not disturbing the school atmosphere.

By contrast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit earlier this year revived a lawsuit by two Kentucky students suspended for wearing shirts featuring the Confederate flag. The court said the reasons for the suspension were vague and remanded the case to a lower court, where it was dismissed after the school district settled with the students.

Also, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit earlier this fall sided with a Washington, N.J., student who challenged his school's ban on a T-shirt displaying the word ''redneck.'' The student was suspended from Warren Hills Regional High School for wearing the shirt, which school officials said violated their ban on clothing that portrays racial stereotypes. The school's vice principal said he took ''redneck'' to mean a violent, bigoted person.
But the court overturned the ban, saying the shirt was not proven to be disruptive. School officials, noting the school has a history of racial tensions, have promised to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

''Since last year, we have gotten well over 200 complaints about the banning of Confederate symbols in schools,'' said Kirk Lyons, lead counsel for the Southern Legal Resource Center, a North Carolina-based public-interest law firm that works to protect Confederate heritage and is in discussions with some families at Cherokee High School. He said the center is litigating six lawsuits and that dozens of others challenging Confederate clothing bans have been filed across the country.

As the controversy grows, Confederate-themed clothing has become more popular than ever. The owner of Georgia-based Dixie Outfitters says the firm sold 1 million T-shirts last year through the company's Web site and department stores across the South. Most of the shirts depict Southern scenes and symbols, often with the Confederate emblem.

''This is not your typical, in-your-face redneck type of shirt,'' said Dewey Barber, the firm's owner. ''They are espousing the Southern way of life. We're proud of our heritage down here.''

Barber said he is ''troubled'' that his shirts are frequently banned by school officials who view them as offensive. ''You can have an Iraqi flag in school. You can have the Russian flag. You can have every flag but the Confederate flag. It is puzzling and disturbing,'' he said.

(sigh) Yes, Lincoln was against slavery, but he also was against the blacks it brought with it. He wanted them gone, and not amongst whites.

Lincoln said publicly in the 1850's -- in the debates with Douglas in fact -- that the negro was included in the Declaration of Independence -- that he was, "...in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

You can't shoehorn a desire to force negroes out of the country into that.

Lincoln might have been glad in the 1850's to snap his fingers and have all blacks gone. But after they were soldiers under Old Glory, he dropped that idea and began to clear the way for full rights for them.

This is all so ridiculous. There can be no doubt that Lincoln's ideas were far advanced above most people of his day.

"And yet again, there are in the United States and territories, including the District of Columbia, 433,643 free blacks. At $500 per head they are worth over two hundred millions of dolars. How comes this vast amount of property to be running about without owners? We do not see free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves themselves, or they would be slaves now, but for something which has operated on their white owners, inducing them, at vast pecuniary sacrifices, to liberate them. What is that something? Is there any mistaking it? In all cases it is your sense of justice, and human sympathy, continually telling you, that the poor negro has some natural right to himself-- that those who deny it, and make mere merchandise of him, deserve kickings, contempt and death...

The doctrine of self-government is right -- absolutely and eternally right -- but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government -- that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal;" and there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another."

Your position is as false as it hateful.

Walt

"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [applause]: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." -- Reply by Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas in the first joint debate, Ottowa, IL; 21 Aug 1858

A quick net search shows me you got your quote from a hate group site, or they used the exact same text you did:

http://www.scvcamp469-nbf.com/lincolnquotes.htm

Here is a more complete quote from the Ottowa debate:

"Now gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse. [Laughter.]

I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position.

I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man." [Great applause.]

You try out of context quotes to suggest interpretations that the record won't support.

I wouldn't look to those lying bums at the Sons of Confederate Veterans for my facts if I were you.

Walt

"Such separation ... must be effected by colonization ... to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be." - Abraham Lincoln, from a speech delivered in Springfield, IL; 26 June, 1857

President Lincoln changed his position:

John A. Andrew

Executive Mansion,

Washington, February 18. 1864.

Yours of the 12th was received yesterday. If I were to judge from the letter, without any external knowledge, I should suppose that all the colored people South of Washington were struggling to get to Massachusetts; that Massachusetts was anxious to receive and retain the whole of them as permament citizens; and that the United States Government here was interposing and preventing this. But I suppose these are neither really the facts, nor meant to be asserted as true by you. Coming down to what I suppose to be the real facts, you are engaged in trying to raise colored troops for the U. S. and wish to take recruits from Virginia, through Washington, to Massachusetts for that object; and the loyal Governor of Virginia, also trying to raise troops for us, objects to you taking his material away; while we, having to care for all, and being responsible alike to all, have to do as much for him, as we would have to do for you, if he was, by our authority, taking men from Massachusetts to fill up Virginia regiments. No more than this has been intended by me; nor, as I think, by the Secretary of War. There may have been some abuses of this, as a rule, which, if known, should be prevented in future.

If, however, it be really true that Massachusetts wishes to afford a permanent home within her borders, for all, or even a large number of colored persons who will come to her, I shall be only too glad to know it. It would give relief in a very difficult point; and I would not for a moment hinder from going, any person who is free by the terms of the proclamation or any of the acts of Congress."

A. Lincoln

John Andrew was the governor of Massachusetts. He was a leading abolitonist and played a big role in raising the 54th and 55th Mass. Inf. regiments, as seen in the movie Glory.

Walt

"I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization...in congenial climes, and with people of their own blood and race." Abraham Lincoln, Annual message to Congress; 1 Dec 1862

And you'll find almost no reference to colonization from Lincoln for the rest of the war.

The commissioner of colonization reported to Lincoln in October, 1864 that he had not been paid since June, and that all his files had been removed "long before."

Lincoln tried to get blacks and whites to buy off on colonization, saying to a group of border state represrentatives:

"Upon these considerations I have again begged your attention to the message of March last. Before leaving the capitol, consider and discuss it among yourselves. You are patriots and statesmen, and as such, I pray you, consider this proposition; and, at least, commend it to the consderation of your states and people. As you would perpetuate popular government for the best people in the world, I beseech you that you do in no wise admit this. Our common country is in great peril, demanding the loftiest views, and boldest action to bring it speedy relief. Once relieved, it's form of government is saved to the world; it's beloved history, and cherished memories, are vindicated; and it's happy future fully assured, and rendered inconceivably grand. To you, more than any others, the privilege is given, to assure that happiness, and swell that grandeur, and to link your own names therewith forever."

That was 1862.

In the Hodges letter of 4/4/64 he said:

"When in March, and May and July 1862 I made earnest, and succcessive appeals to the border states to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable neccessity for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter."

President Lincoln knew that for better or worse, blacks were going to be living in this country and he said:

"When you give the Negro these rights, when you put a gun in his hands, it prophesies something more: it foretells that he is to have the full enjoyment of his liberty and his manhood."

And that was what he was working for.

Walt

I didn't know that, I'll take your word for it and won't use it anymore.

A lie?

Carl Shurz, in an essay contained in The Writings of Abraham Lincoln: Volume One, writes that on "every available occasion, he pronounced himself in favor of the deportation and colonization of the blacks, of course with their consent. He repeatedly disavowed any wish on his part to have social and political equality established between whites and blacks. ... It is characteristic that he continued to adhere to the impracticable colonization plan even after the Emancipation Proclamation had already been issued."

Why would General Butler make that up?

You answered your own question - why would Butler make up such a quote? Lincoln had attempted in late 1864 to retain Commissioner of Emigration Rev. James Mitchell, receiving a response from Attorney-General Edward Bates on 30 Nov 1864, stating that Lincoln had "the same right to continue Mr. Mitchell that you had to appoint him originally." Rev. Mitchell also corresponded with Lincoln on 2 Sep 1864, noting that Secretary of Interior Usher seemed to be the problem, and the letter was endorsed by Lincoln.

Regarding Butler being "a known and notorious liar", Lincoln had previusly asked Butler to become his running mate in the 1864 elections, which Butler declined. This incident is also in Butler's Book, as is the colonization quote you cited. Some posters allege that Lincoln never met with Butler in 1865, but in January Lincoln issued a telegram summoning Butler to Washington - do you honestly think he failed to attend?

Lincoln's views on rewarding the blacks for their service in April 1865. Full text - no exclusions, additions in brackets below are mine for clarification:

A conversation was held between us after the negotiations had failed at Hampton Roads [3 Feb 1865], and in the course of the conversation he [Lincoln] said to me:--

But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes. Certainly they cannot if we don't get rid of the negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us, to the amount, I believe, of some one hundred and fifty thousand men. I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves. You have been a stanch friend of the race from the time you first advised me to enlist them at New Orleans. You have had a good deal of experience in moving bodies of men by water,--your movement up the James was a magnificent one. Now, we shall have no use for our very large navy; what, then, are our difficulties in sending all the blacks away? If these black soldiers of ours go back to the South I am afraid that they will be but little better off with their masters than they were before, and yet they will be free men. I fear a race war, and it will be at least a guerilla war because we have taught these men how to fight. All the arms of the South are now in the hands of their troops, and when we capture them we of course will take their arms. There are plenty of men in the North who will furnish the negroes with arms if there is any oppression of them by their late masters. I wish you would carefully examine the question and give me your views upon it and go into the figures, as you did before in some degree, so as to show whether the negroes can be exported. I wish also you would give me any views that you have as to how to deal with the negro troops after the war. Some people think that we shall have trouble with our white troops after they are disbanded, but I don't anticipate anything of that sort, for all the intelligent men among them were good citizens or they would not have been good soldiers. But the question of the colored troops troubles me exceedingly. I wish you would do this as soon as you can, because I am to go down to City Point shortly and may meet negotiators for peace there, and I may want to talk this matter over with General Grant if he isn't too busy.
I said: I will go over this matter with all diligence and tell you my conclusions as soon as I can. The second day after that, I called early in the morning and said: Mr. President, I have gone very carefully over my calculations as to the power of the country to export the negroes of the South, and I assure you that using all your naval vessels and all the merchant marine fit to cross the seas with safety, it will be impossible for you to transport them to the nearest place that can be found fit for them,--and that is the Island of San Domingo,--half as fast as negro children will be born here. I am afraid you are right, General, was his answer; but have you thought what we shall do with the negro soldiers? I said:
I have formulated a scheme which I will suggest to you, Mr. President. We have now enlisted one hundred and fifty thousand negro troops, more or less, infantry, cavalry, and artillery. They were enlisted for three years or for the war. We did not commence enlisting them in any numbers until the latter part of 1863 and in 1864. I assume that they have a year at least on an average to serve, and some of them two to three years. We have arms, equipment, clothing, and military material and everything necessary for three hundred thousand troops for five years. Until the war is declared ended by official proclamation, which cannot be done for some very considerable time, they can be ordered to serve wherever the commander-in-chief may direct. Now I have had some experience in digging canals. The reason why my canal, which was well dug, did not succeed you know. My experience during the war has shown me that the army organization is one of the very best for digging. Indeed, many of the troops have spent a large portion of their time in digging in forts and intrenchments, and especially the negroes, for they were always put into the work when possible. The United States wants a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien at some proper and convenient point. Now, I know of a concession made by the United States of Colombia of a strip thirty miles wide across the Isthmus for that purpose. I have the confidence of the negroes. If you will put me in command of them, I will take them down there and dig the canal. It will cost the United States nothing but their pay, the clothing that they wear will be otherwise eaten by the moths, the arms are of no worth, as we have so many of them in excess; the wagons and equipments will otherwise rust out. I should set one third of them to digging. I should set another third to building the proper buildings for shelter and the rest to planting the ground and raising food. They will hardly need supplies from the government beyond the first season, having vegetable supplies which they will raise and which will be best for their health. After we get ourselves established we will petition Congress under your recommendation to send down to us our wives and children. You need not send down anybody to guard us, because if fifty thousand well-equipped men cannot take care of ourselves against anybody who would attack us in that neighborhood, we are not fit to go there. We shall thus form a colony there which will protect the canal and the interests of the United States against the world, and at least we shall protect the country from the guerilla warfare of the negro troops until the danger from it is over.
He reflected a while, having given the matter his serious attention, and then spoke up, using his favorite phrase: There is meat in that, General Butler; there is meat in that. But how will it affect our foreign relations? I want you to go and talk it over with Mr. Seward and get his objections, if he has any, and see how you can answer them. There is no special hurry about that, however. I will think it over, but nothing had better be said upon it which will get outside. Well, then, Mr. President, I said, I will take time to elaborate my proposition carefully in writing before I present it to Mr. Seward. I bowed and retired, and that was the last interview I ever had with Abraham Lincoln. Some days afterwards [6 April 1865] I called at Mr. Seward's office, reaching it, as near as I can remember, about two o'clock in the afternoon. He promptly and graciously received me, and I stated to him that I came to see him at the request of the President, to place before him a plan that I had given to the President for disposing of the negro troops. Ah, he [Seward] said, General, I should be very glad to hear it. I know Mr. Lincoln's anxiety upon that question, for he has expressed it to me often, and I see no answer to his trouble.

Benjamnin F. Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler, Book Publishers, Boston, 1892, pp. 903-907

Lincoln was a politician, and repeatedly demonstrated it:

"In addition to all this we have shown that the Supreme Court---that tribunal which the Constitution has itself established to decide Constitutional questions---has solemnly decided that such a bank is constitutional."
Abraham Lincoln, "Speech on the Sub-Treasury", 26 Dec 1839, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler ed., Vol. I, pp. 170-171.
"It affirms that, whatever the Supreme Court may decide as to the constitutional restriction on the power of a teritorial Legislature, in regard to slavery in the teritory, must be obeyed, and enforced by all the departments of the federal government."
Abraham Lincoln, "Fragment on the Dred Scott Case", Jan 1857, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler ed., Vol. II, p. 387.

Despite those statements, his position was far from adhering to that 7-2 decision, as his entire campaign was based upon preserving a lily-white West, free from blacks.

Butler's account has no support in the record. Butler had reasons to suggest that he was "in" with Lincoln when he really was not. There is no proof that I have found that Butler even met with Lincoln after the beginning of 1865.

Here's a letter I just found:

John A. Andrew

Executive Mansion,

Washington,

February 18. 1864.

A. Lincoln.

You can see a Jpg of this document at the Library of Congress site.

Butler's account is not so well supported, to say the least.

Walt Walt

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