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I can't get my head around why it flies over South Carolina's capitol building.

I figure my lack of understanding is cultural. What am I missing about the "Southern heritage" debate?


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I'm more of a libertarian but I honestly don't think there are nearly enough 'positive' associations to that flag to hang onto. granted, I'm also an ohioan - we gave the union both grant AND sherman - so I might be a little biased. but even as someone who grew up in cleveland - and trust me, we're suckers for losing teams - I can't grasp why some folks down there are so damn attached to a flag (not even THE flag) of a failed state.


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Being a Southerner I can probably give a little more insight to the whole "Southern Heritage" issue. I'll do that later after I get home from work. I do want to point out now, though, that the flag you're referring to isn't the Stars and Bars. That's the actual flag of the CSA. The flag you refer to on South Carolina's capital is the battle flag or Southern Cross. It was adopted because the national flag of the CSA and the USA looked too similar especially when there was no wind making identifying troops as friend of foe difficult (in the early part of the war in 1861 many of the Southern regiments also wore blue uniforms before the grey color was adopted outright).


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 Originally Posted By: First Amongst Daves
I can't get my head around why it flies over South Carolina's capitol building.

I figure my lack of understanding is cultural. What am I missing about the "Southern heritage" debate?


So Fedzilla knows that it's not the end all be all of American government.

The real question here is why Haley is pulling a Pence and capitulating to Obama and friends' social engineering tactics.

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Back in the 70s and 80s the Confederate Flag just meant, at least to us Northern Kids, "the South" or "Rebel": Dukes of Hazzard, Skynyrd even Tom Petty all sported the flag in a harmless, non racial, sense.

I respect the viewpoint of people that still feel it means that.

Still, sometimes symbols get co-opted to the point where the general meaning has been corrupted and the "negative" connotation is too widely accepted for it to be worthwhile to keep arguing about the original, benign, meaning.

(See, for example, the Roman salute and the Swastika).

I've thought the Confederate flag might be at that point for a while now.

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At the foundation of our nation, there was a lot of conflict about what the Constitution actually meant. We'd just tossed out the Articles of Confederation because it had no real federal government (at least not one with any power). There was still a sense of 'states rights' and that the states were all sovereign but united. When the Alien and Sedition acts were passed in the 1790's that allowed the ruling political party to silence and deport opposition, the concept of the states having power of Nullifaction over laws that are 'unconstitutional' began to pop up. Now around 1830 the 'Tariffs of Abomination' are passed to support Northern industry by keeping out European goods. This caused Southern states to 1) pay more for goods than they had previously and, in some cases, begin a revolving debt with Northern suppliers; and 2) reduced the income Europe was using to purchase Southern cotton (the backbone of the Southern economy). Not to mention the Whiskey Rebellion and our whole outlook of 'we wanna do what we wanna do'. I guess the best way to describe this whole thing is to compare it with Scotland or Wales. They're part of island Britain, but they have enough of a distinctive culture to also sit somewhat separate from the ruling English government.

There is also the political tug-of-war dealing with representation in the legislature. A lot of the early denouncement of slavery came not as a moral opposition but seen as an economic threat to the north since the invention of the cotton gin allowed short staple cotton (a variety of cotton that could thrive in more diverse environment than long staple) a cash crop and slavery a viable system to produce it. As the north became industrialized, its population grew and gained more power in the House of Representatives. Then, the annexation of Texas and the resulting Mexican-American War brought in more land that could go slave state. The decades leading up to the Civil War essentially created a tension between the two halves of the country and making slavery the main wedge issue.

The Civil War came and with very few exceptions was fought in the south. Grant put Vicksburg under siege leaving the residents to eat horses, mules, dogs, and even shoe leather. Sherman practiced the scorched earth method on his march to Atlanta and the coast. Follow that up with military occupation during Reconstruction and the influx of Northern politicians taking over local government and you get a resentful population. A large portion of the south was settled by Scottish immigrants, so you get that clan (not the KKK kind) of mentality where outsiders are looked upon with suspicion. Mississippi included the battle flag in its state flag in the 1890's as a 'fuck you'

During the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's, State's Rights and Nullification reemerge. Flying the battle flag over the South Carolina capital was a straight up act of defiance against federal attempts to desegregate. A straight up racist act. People fear change. Especially when that change takes away their power and wealth. That, since the early 1800's, coalesced the racist views of generations of Southerners. From the 1950's on, though, you have this indoctrination of the next generation that the flag is a symbol of a deep, rich heritage of rebellion against an overreaching government not that different from the fight of our Founding Fathers' with Britain.

So the quick rundown. It was a battle flag to identify the Confederate troops on the battle field. A utilitarian device that we can debate is or isn't a racist symbol while I'll personally sit on the side that it isn't. In the late 19th through most of the 20th century it is being used as a symbol of defiance for giving freedoms to black men and women. Flat out racists with no questions. Then you have a generation ignorant of the racial ties and just see it as part of their heritage.

Hell, I've met black people who've worn shirts or belt buckles with the Southern Cross on it. It's made me question the value of symbolism altogether. The Nazis co-opted the swasticka, which is a symbol of reverence in Buddhism and Hinduism forever ruining it for Western civilization. Could it be possible for perception to reverse such a thing for something like the Confederate battle flag? I don't know. It's a piece of symbolism that I now use as a punch line.

I do find that it's an easy distraction from the real problems of this country. As much as the south gets blasted for racism, I believe that it's really a game for the rest of the country to ignore its own racist policies. The south just didn't bother to hide its racism. The rest of the country used tricks like districting to segregate itself from black society. The Tuskegee Experiments may have happened in Alabama, but it was the federal government's idea.


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I would agree that nobody's hands back then were truly clean. it was southern cotton that fed northern textile mills, and as openly as they denounced slavery in the legislature, northern industrialists were perfectly fine with reaping its material benefits. the federal government has done plenty to show its attitudes on race were no more enlightened than those of the CSA. and some of the worst race riots in American history happened in northern cities like detroit and chicago. no region is free of racism or other prejudices; it's just more or less visible or called other things.


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I really need to read more about the US Civil War. Its a topic from the 1800s which has escaped me notwithstanding the enormous amount of written material about it (as an aside I just read up on the Louisiana Purchase - pretty amazing stuff to think that Republican senators thought the expansion of the United States beyond the original colonies was an unconstitutional and illegal act, and an amazing story of partisan politics, accident and good fortune).

I understand the economic drivers behind the split between the north and the south, although I did not realise the trigger of industrial advancement was quite as pronounced as that. (I think you always get those tensions between urban and rural areas - just look at your contemporary US red/blue voting maps. We get the same thing here with a relatively recent rural conservative economic push for "royalties for regions").

I also knew that the division between north and south with the south pretty much as an impoverished occupied state existed for a long time after the conclusion of the war. I read somewhere that the next time Southern officers actually worked together with Northern officers was in the Spanish-American War in 1899 - what's that, a few decades later?

Setting aside, in so far as you can, the fundamental issue of slavery, my own States-rights and secessionist instincts have enormous sympathy for the Confederate states on the basis of cultural differences (which I understand mirror the rationale for Queen Victoria's and Prince Albert's tacit support for the South during the war. Must find out more about Tsarist Russia's planned intervention in the war, apparently driven by the increase in cotton prices). I read in Esquire magazine a long time ago an interview with University of Alabama student politicians about racial integration. One comment which stands out in my memory was the repeated, and apparently genuine assertion from a black student politician that a black guy can share in the traditions and heritage of the Southern gentleman. If there is any element of truth to that, I find that very appealing that a previously exclusive culture can reinvent itself as inclusive and decent. Which I think conforms to your observations about black people wearing the Southern Cross as belt buckles.

But, I also knew about the increase in nostalgia in the 1960s as a direct backlash to the civil rights movement, which you fairly describe in your post. So, the symbolism of the flag extends beyond rebellion and an assertion of states' rights to racism.

From what I know, I'm not sure you can parse the two symbolic elements. I was very offended to read that the flag was not lowered to half-mast (notwithstanding the difficulties of actually doing that since it is not on a pulley) after the recent church shootings, and I'm half a world away.

I can understand, kind of, the generalised states rights "fuck you" inherent in having the flag flying at the best of times. But not lowering it seemed like a big fuck you to the families of the people who had been killed.

I was thinking about what you said as I wrote this post, and I think I have reached a conclusion which takes into account your quite valid views on this. If the flag had been lowered to half mast, then I think that would have gone a long way to negating the impression that it flies as a symbol of white supremacy: that the Southern gentlemen of South Carolina, the heritage and culture of politeness and manners which I understand it to embody, pay their respects to the dead by half-lowering the flag. But, by leaving it flying at full mast, it says that it pays respect to no one, no matter what.

A flag is just a rag on a pole, and might not be much compared to the racial poverty in Compton or wherever else in the US where you correctly say race relations are masked by the veneer of manners and not much else, but a flag has something to say, and the people who control the flag can use it to send a message.

I didn't know that flag was called the Southern Cross flag. We incidentally have our own Southern Cross flag which started off as a resistance to gold prospecting licenses in New South Wales (or Victoria? can't remember) in the 1800s and which lead to a siege of a fortified encampment by British soldiers. It has since curiously been adopted by the Australian union movement as a symbol of resistance to pro-employer politics (along with Mao Zedong's "Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win" slogan - a weird mix). My mother's cousin, who was involved in Australian federal politics on the left, once suggested to me that the Southern Cross flag should replace the current Australian flag, and I think the look of horror on my face killed the conversation (you people forget, I think, that by Australian standards I am reasonably conservative).


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*rollseyes*

Instead of a rehearsed "all to blame" knee-jerk, can we please acknowledge the lion's share of the blame so that we may empirically conclude that it was the fucking North that was responsible not simply for trying to force their values and policies on the South but also defy the constitution and start a ridiculous war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives just so Lincoln wouldn't have to say he let the union dissolve?

Also, Southern culture was not nearly as overtly supremacist as modern armchair historians would have us believe. While the South had the most slave owners, they could hardly be associated with the common Southern man. The reality is that slavery was out the door anyway. On that note, Lincoln wasn't even averse the idea of letting it continue as long as the succession was put to an end--a proposal that was refused of course.

The very existence of the Confederate flag defies the idea of a federal monopoly over the states. That's the only reason the left truly hates that flag.

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 Originally Posted By: First Amongst Daves
I can understand, kind of, the generalised states rights "fuck you" inherent in having the flag flying at the best of times. But not lowering it seemed like a big fuck you to the families of the people who had been killed.


Based on what? The fact that the leftist media machine magically drew a relation between the Stars and Bars and their deaths?

If Roof had waved Old Glory instead and pushed a nationalist narrative instead of a secessionist narrative, would that then give everyone cause to lower that flag?

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But everyone is lowering that flag, to half-mast. The shooter could have been flapping that flag about like a hanky, and it doesn't matter: the country mourns the deaths by lowering its standards to half-mast.

Contrary to what you have said, there's no "magic" to the evidence of a relationship between the Confederate flag and the shooter. The man committed a hate crime. He wore the South African apartheid flag on his vest, along with the Rhodesian flag. Both are recognised as symbols of white supremacy. He clearly identified himself with the Confederate flag, and the reason for that wasn't because he was into Southern hospitality and largesse: it was because he wanted to align himself symbolically using all the relevant indicia, with white supremism.

The "leftist media machine", whatever that is globally or otherwise, didn't need to do a thing to provide evidence of that conclusion. The shooter wanted people to know precisely why he killed black people in a black church, and evoked what he regarded as the proper symbology to that end.

You're pushing both an ad hominem argument, which as you of all people know, is logically flawed: "the leftist media says that this is the case, the leftist media always lies, therefore this is incorrect".

You could argue, as thedoctor did logically, that to some people the Confederate flag has an alternative meaning and thereby justify its use on a government building. That's a respectable argument and one I won't dismiss and which got me thinking.

You, on the other hand, as the token logician on the forum, left yourself wide open to entirely appropriate ridicule. Lift your game.


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 Originally Posted By: Pariah
*rollseyes*

Instead of a rehearsed "all to blame" knee-jerk, can we please acknowledge the lion's share of the blame so that we may empirically conclude that it was the fucking North that was responsible not simply for trying to force their values and policies on the South but also defy the constitution and start a ridiculous war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives just so Lincoln wouldn't have to say he let the union dissolve?

Also, Southern culture was not nearly as overtly supremacist as modern armchair historians would have us believe. While the South had the most slave owners, they could hardly be associated with the common Southern man. The reality is that slavery was out the door anyway. On that note, Lincoln wasn't even averse the idea of letting it continue as long as the succession was put to an end--a proposal that was refused of course.

The very existence of the Confederate flag defies the idea of a federal monopoly over the states. That's the only reason the left truly hates that flag.


But, noting your implication that the everyday Confederate citizen may well have been as or more impoverished than your average slave (I don't know), the political elite of the Confederacy had different views:

 Quote:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way:

"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

Article IV, Section 2 also prohibited states from interfering with slavery:

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."

Perhaps the most menacing provision of the Confederate States Constitution was the explicit protection Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3 offered to slavery in all future territories conquered or acquired by the Confederacy:

"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."

This provision ensured the perpetuation of slavery as long and as far as the Confederate States could extend it's political reach, and more then a few Confederates had their eyes fixed on Cuba and Central and South America as objects of future conquest.


http://civilwartalk.com/threads/what-the-confederate-states-constitution-says-about-slavery.72233/

So, the Confederate constitution itself contemplates slavery as a federal institution and one which could be extended through territorial acquisition. So, I guess, if the Confederate army had acquired, I don't know, Rhode Island (from memory of a train ride in 2010, north of NY but south of Boston, so my example is improbable), then slavery could be practiced there without inhibition from the Confederate government. Legally, that doesn't sound like slavery was on its way out.

Practically, I assume the English blockade on slave ships wasn't super effective, and that the economics of a slaving nation are lucrative. But I don't know the reality of that, and you didn't embellish on your position of the causes of a decline in slavery in the South pre-Civil War.

Nothing otherwise to say on this post: I am in the position of not having an opinion through lack of knowledge on the history and causes of the war. What you say is interesting and doesn't seem improbable.


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Dave, you make me wish that I remembered all the books I read in my Southern History class in college. Even being from the south I was unaware of a lot of the society before the war. That is due a lot to media interpretations making everything 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (written, by the way, by a woman who not only did not live in the south but had never even been in a slave state). Turns out that a good number of slave owners where actually Northern professionals, doctors & lawyers, who'd earned enough money to buy a small plantation as a status symbol (Ferraris hadn't been invented yet) and hired someone to run it in their absence.

One I do remember is called 'The Barber of Natchez'. It's about a slave who was given his freedom (because the guy who owned him was most likely his daddy), learned the trade of a barber, and opened his own shop in Natchez, Mississippi. He opened up several more businesses, became very popular in the town, and became a land and slave owner himself.

The guy who taught the class had written a couple of books based off of diaries and letters from plantation owners, foremen, and even slaves. I know that he was working on a big one when I took his class about the elite slave owners (250 or more). His name is William K. Scarborough.


whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

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 Originally Posted By: First Amongst Daves
But everyone is lowering that flag, to half-mast. The shooter could have been flapping that flag about like a hanky, and it doesn't matter: the country mourns the deaths by lowering its standards to half-mast.

Contrary to what you have said, there's no "magic" to the evidence of a relationship between the Confederate flag and the shooter.


The relationship between the flag and the shooter isn't what's magical. It's relating the flag to the actual occurrence of death by lowering it as a direct response. In capitulating with the demand to take down the flag, the state of SC is officially recognizing the colloquially racist meaning inferred upon it by the shooter, effectively ignoring the real reasons for which thousands of Americans died. It's an insult, and the SC constituency should interpret it as such.

Battle flag flying at the capital or no, Roof was going to shoot those people regardless. With this fact well in mind, Obama and his compatriots jumped on the crisis (see also: Rahm Immanuel saying, "Never let a crisis go to waste.") and made it about whatever other issue they found most convenient to their culture-killer mindsets.

I'm not familiar with the Apartheid or Rhodesian flags. For all I know, they're receiving the same shitty, dismissive treatment as the SaB.

 Originally Posted By: First Amongst Daves
So, the Confederate constitution itself contemplates slavery as a federal institution and one which could be extended through territorial acquisition. So, I guess, if the Confederate army had acquired, I don't know, Rhode Island (from memory of a train ride in 2010, north of NY but south of Boston, so my example is improbable), then slavery could be practiced there without inhibition from the Confederate government. Legally, that doesn't sound like slavery was on its way out.

Practically, I assume the English blockade on slave ships wasn't super effective, and that the economics of a slaving nation are lucrative. But I don't know the reality of that, and you didn't embellish on your position of the causes of a decline in slavery in the South pre-Civil War.

Nothing otherwise to say on this post: I am in the position of not having an opinion through lack of knowledge on the history and causes of the war. What you say is interesting and doesn't seem improbable.


Don't misunderstand me. I'm not associating the cultural views of the average citizen to the political motivations of Southern Democrats or Jefferson Davis. They were not, in general, good people--be rest assured though that neither was Lincoln (see also: Sherman's March). But the mechanisms they put in place to preserve slavery were destined to either be amended or antiquated within another thirty years at the most. The succession itself may have bolstered the issue of owning chattel in response to Northern regulations, but it's a tough sell to say it was on the verge of profoundly extending the practice of slavery on the NA continent.

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Pariah, shut the fuck up.


whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

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Disclaimer: I was born and raised in rural SC. I lived there until I was 29. I now reside less than half a mile from the SC border. So, I apologize for my bias when it comes to things involving my home state.

But, the history from day one is pretty clear that it was about states` rights...

 Quote:
Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments - Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms:

"ARTICLE 1 - His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.

The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.

If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were - separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Adopted December 24, 1860


...to hold black people as chattel slaves.

Take the damn flag down.

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 Originally Posted By: First Amongst Daves
I can't get my head around why it flies over South Carolina's capitol building.

I figure my lack of understanding is cultural. What am I missing about the "Southern heritage" debate?


I actually think you partly answered it in the phrasing of your question. It's part of the heritage of former Confederate states, part of their history, that they wish to preserve in their state flag, and in their culture.

My personal view of the Confederate flag is pretty close to G-Man's, that it's mostly not about racism among the guys in high school and college I knew who displayed the rebel flag on their trucks and t-shirts and so forth.
In my conversations with them, it didn't represent a white-supremacist ideology to them, it was more about a Deep South/redneck regional pride, listening to Lynard Skynard, Marshall Tucker, 38 Special, Charlie Daniels and similar "Southern Rock", and just a general youthful sense of rebellion against authority.

From others I've talked to older than me, they have a greater connection of the flag to Robert E. Lee and other soldiers of the Civil War, an honoring of those who died in that war. There is recognition (apart from whether the war was about slavery or other issues) that these were men who fought a difficult war against men they knew, and with exceptional honor and chivalry, particularly Robert E. Lee.
Lee and many of the other Confederate officers were West Point graduates in the Union before the war, who then were called on to fight for their states against the Union, and against their fellow West Point classmen cadets. And certainly toward the end, fought on for the Confederacy even when they saw it was a lost cause.

As an Australian, Dave, you might not know that more Americans died in the U.S. Civil War (over 600,000) than in any other war. More than in World war I (126,000 dead), more than in World War II (405,000 dead).
And since both sides in the Civil War were Americans, the flag and soldiers of the Confederate South are for many accepted as American symbols, not just as Confederate symbols. In World War II, military units gathered from Southern states fought with a regional pride under the banner of the rebel flag for the American cause.

In that spirit, I think a majority of Americans similarly have an appreciation for the Confederate Flag as simply representing the history and the valor of Confederate soldiers who fought in the Civil War (independent of the slavery/ white-supremacist ideological aspects of the Confederacy's written founding ideology, that I doubt many of the "heritage, not hate" enthusiasts are even fully aware of.)

Arguments could be made either way. The Confederacy's founding ideology --and original flag!-- are deeply rooted in white supremacy.

But in the modern U.S., advocates for the Confederate flag's inclusion in their states may number in the millions, but the Ku Klux Klan's membership is believed to only be about 5,000 to 6,000 nationwide. And if you include a wider spectrum of white supremacist groups in the U.S., maybe that number rises to 40,000.
Out of a U.S. population of 320 million, they are insignificant among the millions who support inclusion of the Confederate flag.

So... regardless of what the Confederate banner truly represents historically, I seriously doubt it symbolizes racism or white supremacy for most who presently advocate its inclusion for reasons of history or regional-pride.
There are even black Americans who advocate its inclusion!


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Something I find odd is that, as The Doctor pointed out partly above, there were a number of Confederate flags flown during the war, none of which are the Confederate flag that is currently pushed to be included in Southern state capitals for historical reasons.

As The Doctor said, the modern "Confederate Flag" was in fact not the Confederate States' national flag, but was only the battlefield flag of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

Here are the MANY different flags of the Confederate South:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America

This one in particular makes the argument against its inclusion in state capitals, as an inherently racist symbol, as clearly stated by the guy who created it:

 Quote:
The flag is also known as "the Stainless Banner" and was designed by William T. Thompson, a newspaper editor and writer based in Savannah, Georgia, with assistance from William Ross Postell, a Confederate blockade runner.[1][2][4][5][6][7] The nickname "stainless" referred to the pure white field which took up a large part of the flag's design, although W.T. Thompson, the flag's designer, referred to his design as "The White Man's Flag".[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In referring to the white field that comprised a large part of the flag's design elements, Thompson stated that its color symbolized the "supremacy of the white man":




Second national flag
(May 1, 1863 – March 4, 1865[17]), 2:1 ratio

Second national flag, also used as the Confederate navy's ensign, 1.5:1 ratio

  • As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.

    —William T. Thompson (April 23, 1863), Daily Morning News[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]


But again, this is not the Army of Northern Virginia battle flag widely advocated for, and again, I doubt many who advocate for the flag are aware of these ideological origins, or would support this ideology.

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 Originally Posted By: Pariah
 Originally Posted By: First Amongst Daves
I can't get my head around why it flies over South Carolina's capitol building.

I figure my lack of understanding is cultural. What am I missing about the "Southern heritage" debate?


So Fedzilla knows that it's not the end all be all of American government.

The real question here is why Haley is pulling a Pence and capitulating to Obama and friends' social engineering tactics.


Yes. It is symbolic to many states' (and individuals') right to push back and resist an oppressive authoritarian federal government.

And I agree that it's unwise of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley to oppose the symbolic and actual freedom the flag's inclusion represents.

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 Originally Posted By: the G-man
Back in the 70s and 80s the Confederate Flag just meant, at least to us Northern Kids, "the South" or "Rebel": Dukes of Hazzard, Skynyrd even Tom Petty all sported the flag in a harmless, non racial, sense.

I respect the viewpoint of people that still feel it means that.

Still, sometimes symbols get co-opted to the point where the general meaning has been corrupted and the "negative" connotation is too widely accepted for it to be worthwhile to keep arguing about the original, benign, meaning.

(See, for example, the Roman salute and the Swastika).

I've thought the Confederate flag might be at that point for a while now.



It's worth noting that prior to World War II, U.S. citizens used to pledge to the American flag in a similar "Roman" or "Seig Heil" position of the arm. To eliminate any similarity to the Nazi salute, the position was changed to the right hand over the heart.

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 Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy

It's worth noting that prior to World War II, U.S. citizens used to pledge to the American flag in a similar "Roman" or "Seig Heil" position of the arm. To eliminate any similarity to the Nazi salute, the position was changed to the right hand over the heart.


Which ties in nicely with my point.

You don't see conservatives tryng to argue we should keep the Roman salute for the Pledge. Instead, we recognize that the iconography has been irretrievably co-opted by the Nazis and, therefore, we salute the flag differently.

A valid argument can be made about the Confederate Flag as well.

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I see both sides of the Confederate flag argument. And your argument certainly has merit.
Including the flag as, say, a symbol of state rights against federal authority, requires a lot of explanation and disclaimer that you don't support white supremacy.
And perhaps one's anti-federalist or state rights cause is better represented with Tea Party arguments or the American Revolution's "don't tread on me" flag than with a Confederate flag. (Although the Left constantly slanders the Tea Party movement as racist with manufactured arguments as well, regardless of the absence of racism there.)

I see the inclusion of the Confederate flag as saying that regardless of slavery or white-supremacy of the Confederacy, all those who fought in the Confederacy were not white supremacists, and many of them were honorable men, who fought the war for honorable reasons other than white supremacy and advocacy of slavery.

As I could get into in a lengthier post, slave owners existed in the North as well, though in lesser numbers. And Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation only freed the slaves of Southern slave owners, not of the Northern slave owners who were Lincoln's political supporters.

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For those who want to ban the Confederate flag...





...anyone reconsidering?

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I just want to point out that the two guys on this board actually from the south have said that the flag on state grounds in SC was put there as a racist symbol and should be taken down.


whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

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 Quote:
I just want to point out that the two guys on this board actually from the south have said that the flag on state grounds in SC was put there as a racist symbol and should be taken down.


I don't have time to post at length right now, but I just wanted to point how much I admire the finesse of your approach.

As the resident Southern local, you can invoke authority on the matter to squash non-Southern dissent, but your previous post still leaves enough legroom to attribute "flat out racism" to any other Southern posters who might disagree with your point of view.

Masterful way to stack the deck. Certainly better than Iggy's copy/paste strategy (which I didn't bother to read).

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Or just clarifying that the pissed off Fred Savage from Cali shouldn't be bolstering up 'Southern Heritage' when he ain't got none.


whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

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 Originally Posted By: thedoctor
I just want to point out that the two guys on this board actually from the south have said that the flag on state grounds in SC was put there as a racist symbol and should be taken down.


WB's from FL isn't he?

Though, to be fair his original analysis of the issue was more nuanced than his post with the chick in the bikini pic.

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Florida is the Rachel Dolezal of the south.


whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

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 Originally Posted By: Pariah
 Quote:
I just want to point out that the two guys on this board actually from the south have said that the flag on state grounds in SC was put there as a racist symbol and should be taken down.


I don't have time to post at length right now, but I just wanted to point how much I admire the finesse of your approach.

As the resident Southern local, you can invoke authority on the matter to squash non-Southern dissent, but your previous post still leaves enough legroom to attribute "flat out racism" to any other Southern posters who might disagree with your point of view.

Masterful way to stack the deck. Certainly better than Iggy's copy/paste strategy (which I didn't bother to read).


That copy/paste job was of the SC declaration of secession. Thanks for proving the point that you guys will gladly ignore the documented history when it does not jive with your imagined historical narrative.

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It's been interesting seeing at least some of the GOP modify it's stance on this issue. I think it boils down to a case of the their old base not being big enough for the republican party any more.


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the south hasn't really been a republican stronghold for very long. up until about the time of goldwater - the most recent generally acknowledged polarity reversal between parties - southern politicians were heavily democrat and fighting against a civil-rights movement which happened to be populated with numerous republicans pushing for federal intervention. it's also important to remember that the GOP began right before the civil war as a (for the time) radical and classically liberal party in the industrialized north as a reaction to the conservative landed aristocracy of the democrat-dominated south. sometime between 1964 and 1968 everything got turned on its head, and the GOP of today can't exactly be accused of being too preoccupied with issues of tolerance, but one surprisingly overlooked bit of revisionism is the dems' decidedly spotty track record relating to black America.


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So the south became a republican stronghold about the time the democrats adopted civil rights into their party correct?


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Most of the south actually voted for Carter in the '76 election.


whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules.
It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness.
This is true both in politics and on the internet."

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Yep, he was the first southern elected to President in a long time.


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 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
So the south became a republican stronghold about the time the democrats adopted civil rights into their party correct?


there were a number of factors in the switch and I doubt anyone will agree on one root cause. the beginnings of the neoconservative movement with goldwater most likely broke republicans of their inclination toward government spending (at least pertaining to social programs), and the nascent leftist neoliberal movement that took hold among democrats favored way more federal-level intervention in both social and fiscal matters than I think many in the south were comfortable with.


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 Originally Posted By: thedoctor
I just want to point out that the two guys on this board actually from the south have said that the flag on state grounds in SC was put there as a racist symbol and should be taken down.


Uh... you excluded me.

I'm from and live in Florida, which is also part of the South, and I advocate for the Confederate flag's inclusion, to acknowledge the history of the South, both the good and the bad.

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 Originally Posted By: iggy
 Originally Posted By: Pariah
 Quote:
I just want to point out that the two guys on this board actually from the south have said that the flag on state grounds in SC was put there as a racist symbol and should be taken down.


I don't have time to post at length right now, but I just wanted to point how much I admire the finesse of your approach.

As the resident Southern local, you can invoke authority on the matter to squash non-Southern dissent, but your previous post still leaves enough legroom to attribute "flat out racism" to any other Southern posters who might disagree with your point of view.

Masterful way to stack the deck. Certainly better than Iggy's copy/paste strategy (which I didn't bother to read).


That copy/paste job was of the SC declaration of secession. Thanks for proving the point that you guys will gladly ignore the documented history when it does not jive with your imagined historical narrative.



Nice sweeping generalization. Pariah spoke for himself, no one else. I both read your copy-and-paste, and responded to it in my counter-argument.

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 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
It's been interesting seeing at least some of the GOP modify it's stance on this issue. I think it boils down to a case of the their old base not being big enough for the republican party any more.



While the DNC (and liberal media) gladly gives a free pass to the anti-white racism of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Barack and Michelle Obama's diatribes againse America as if it were still 1964, pan-Hispanic groups who advocate "taking back" the U.S. demographically or otherwise, and the violence of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and other lowlife criminally inclined belligerents whose actions are somehow justified by past racism and "white privilege", while those who lawfully defend themselves from them are ostracized as racists who got away with something even after a trial by jury (George Zimmerman), and after a biased U.S. Justice Dept investigation under Eric Holder STILL finds them innocent of wrongdoing (Officer Darren Wilson).

One side has respect for the rule of law, and it is the Republicans, not the Democrats.


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 Originally Posted By: Captain Sammitch
 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
So the south became a republican stronghold about the time the democrats adopted civil rights into their party correct?


there were a number of factors in the switch and I doubt anyone will agree on one root cause. the beginnings of the neoconservative movement with goldwater most likely broke republicans of their inclination toward government spending (at least pertaining to social programs), and the nascent leftist neoliberal movement that took hold among democrats favored way more federal-level intervention in both social and fiscal matters than I think many in the south were comfortable with.



A lot of cold-war Democrats switched party affiliation after LBJ (such as Donald Rumsfeld). JFK was arguably the last Democrat who was a strong supporter of our military and who took a firm position on national defense. This issue as well is one that repels DNC support among residents of the South. More volunteers in our military come from the South than from any other region.

About 80% of those in our military polled oppose Obama's military policy.

And that trend is quantifiable going back a long way. In the 2000 election, Al Gore's legal team wanted to exclude military absentee ballots (that overwhelmingly support the GOP) from the re-count for precisely that reason.

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 Originally Posted By: Captain Sammitch
 Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
So the south became a republican stronghold about the time the democrats adopted civil rights into their party correct?


there were a number of factors in the switch and I doubt anyone will agree on one root cause. the beginnings of the neoconservative movement with goldwater most likely broke republicans of their inclination toward government spending (at least pertaining to social programs), and the nascent leftist neoliberal movement that took hold among democrats favored way more federal-level intervention in both social and fiscal matters than I think many in the south were comfortable with.


Of course if you look at actual spending by the parties the GOP rhetoric on fiscal matters ends up being bs. And while a root cause can be debated for the south turning republican, I think it would be hard to argue race didn't play a significant factor. This topic for example shows that.


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