I support the Confederate flag because I know it bothers the hell out of people I hate but really should a victorious government allow a defeated people to put the symbol of their rebellion on the new symbol of the state. And this is aside from the issue of the war and whether it was just or not or about succession. Would we have allowed Germany to continue with the swastika as a national symbol after the war?
The Confederate Flag
- Thread starter Colonel_Reb
- Start date
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
Well, if the "victorious government" is reallyabout freedom, and the "defeated people" are truly again its own, why should it matter if they want to honor their ancestors battle flag by incorporating it into a state flag? If the federal government can dictate what kind of flag a state flies, then anything is fair game. I find it interesting that you use the word "government" for the north and "people" for the south. Thats really what happened, the government becamealmighty in this country, the people lost, except thatmost people north of the Mason-Dixon line didn't realize it at the time. By the way, who's arguing that the Confederate battle flag is a national symbol? It is a soldiers flag, and should be remembered as such and as a symbol of freedom.
Clearly the victorious government was not about freedom, it was about power, the power to dictate to the south that it would be part of the Union like it or not. The current state governments were forced upon the South, thus they were creations of the North and symbols of federal power, because of that any symbols of the old south should have been destroyed.
Don't get me wrong here, I don't agree with any of that, if the South had went it's own way there would have not been a Negro migration to the North and I would be living in a white paradise
but every modern politician (except Dr. Paul) agrees with the concept of federal power and would expand it even more given the chance. How could anyone expect that a modern politician would support the confederate flag?
Don't get me wrong here, I don't agree with any of that, if the South had went it's own way there would have not been a Negro migration to the North and I would be living in a white paradise
ToughJ.Riggins
Hall of Famer
The Confederate flag is wrongly assumed to be a slavery symbol. Sure the confederate states had slavery, but the war was more about the fact that the north was putting tariffs on English textiles which forced the south to buy more expensive northern goods. It was really a war of Industry vs. Rural; a war of cultures. Southerners certainly did despise Lincoln b/c he was against any new slave states, however I doubt the south would have seceded soley based on Lincoln without other factors.
The war didn't start until the Confederates fired on Fort Sumpter because they wanted to confiscate it as Confederate property b/c they were seceding. This started the war. Lincoln never could have gotten enough support for a war solely about ending Slavery.
Robert E. Lee in my opinion was a very honorable man. General Lee was a top graduate of West Point and was originally asked to lead the Union Army. General Lee was against slavery and didn't own slaves, but fought for the south b/c he was from Virginia and he couldn't take up arms against his family and friends.
Even if the south had won the war, slavery would have likely faded out by WWI and the onset of higher industrialization. There is no way that there would be slavery in the south today even if there still was a Confederate States of America. In my opinion the Confederates would have rejoined the Union by now anyway. This is b/c the people who fought in the Civil War have long been dead and their ancestors probably would have forgiven by now to rejoin the Union for economic reasons.
Do you agree with my analysis Colonel, you are a history teacher right? So I'd like to know.
Reb, for your information Robert E. Lee is one of my favorite people in U.S history b/c of his honor, deep convictions, discipline and loyalty to his family and fellow soldiers. Edited by: ToughJ.Riggins
The war didn't start until the Confederates fired on Fort Sumpter because they wanted to confiscate it as Confederate property b/c they were seceding. This started the war. Lincoln never could have gotten enough support for a war solely about ending Slavery.
Robert E. Lee in my opinion was a very honorable man. General Lee was a top graduate of West Point and was originally asked to lead the Union Army. General Lee was against slavery and didn't own slaves, but fought for the south b/c he was from Virginia and he couldn't take up arms against his family and friends.
Even if the south had won the war, slavery would have likely faded out by WWI and the onset of higher industrialization. There is no way that there would be slavery in the south today even if there still was a Confederate States of America. In my opinion the Confederates would have rejoined the Union by now anyway. This is b/c the people who fought in the Civil War have long been dead and their ancestors probably would have forgiven by now to rejoin the Union for economic reasons.
Do you agree with my analysis Colonel, you are a history teacher right? So I'd like to know.
Reb, for your information Robert E. Lee is one of my favorite people in U.S history b/c of his honor, deep convictions, discipline and loyalty to his family and fellow soldiers. Edited by: ToughJ.Riggins
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
Thats the problem with the term politician jaxvid. It is just another example of how things have changed.We used to have statesmen in this country. Men used to be loyal to their state over the fed gov. A real representative of the people (not a politician) could easily support a state's right to fly whatever flag it chooses. Thanks to the rise and dominance of the New World Order after The War, we no longer have statesmen or people who stand up for the rights of the people they are supposed to represent.
As for the Confederate battle flag being a symbol of slavery, the only ties it has is that is considered the most widely known symbol representing an army of men who were fighting for a country where slavery was already legal. In other words, just like Old Glorywas a symbol of northern men fighting to preserve the Union where slavery was legal. Slavery legally existed in the USA from the inception of the country until December 1865 (at least 3 northern states had slavery during The War, not counting the border states), with the passage of the 13th Ammendment. Slavery existed in the CSA from 1861 until July1865, as the last slaves were freed by thefederal armies. Slavery existed for a much longer period of time and ended months later in the USA than in the CSA. For one to honestly arguethat the Confederate battle flag (which was not a national flag) is a symbol of slavery, they must also arguethat the Stars and Stripes (the official flag of the United States) is a symbol of slavery, as it actually flew over slave ships until 1808 when the international slave trade ended, somethingno flagof the Confederacy everdid.
As for how The War started, South Carolina had seceeded from the Union on December 20, 1860, and the US commander at Fort Sumter had ignored repeated attempts to surrender, even after several US supply ships had been cut off before they could reach the fort. Lincoln used the almost 5 month long occupation of the fort to lure the Confederatesinto firing the first shot, throwing the blame on them. If Lincoln had been serious about avoiding war, he would not have called up 75,000 volunteers to invade the South just two days after Fort Sumter had been surrendered (April 13, 1861).
Lincoln wanted to subdue the South so that the North could make even more profits from slavery there (higher tariffs, more lending, etc), and that is why he fought for the preservation of the Union for the first half of The War. Only when northern popular opinion grew against the war because of mounting losses (battles and men) andriots breaking out in New York andother citiesdid he decide to make it a moral fight against slavery (Emancipation Proclamation-only affected slaves in areas in rebellion). With a northern victory, this change would end slavery but it still allowed northerners to profit from the results. Carpetbaggers came in to assume roles in the radical Reconstruction governments and in commerce, taking land away from people and making life hard on former Confederates and their sympathizers.
Yes, General Lee was a great man, as was General Jackson. More than that, they were great patriots, as the term was known before The War. They were just like their forefathers whofought justlyagainst the tyranical government of England. Lee and Jackson believed that secession was Constitutional.Virginia had entered into the Union voluntarily, and could leave it the same way. They would not raise their sword against their relatives, friends, or fellow Virginians.
Yes, I believeslavery would have died of several causes. I doubt it would have lasted much after the turn of the century. However, I'm not sure if the CSA and USA would have rejoined or not. That, my friend, is a subject best left to alternative historians.
As for the Confederate battle flag being a symbol of slavery, the only ties it has is that is considered the most widely known symbol representing an army of men who were fighting for a country where slavery was already legal. In other words, just like Old Glorywas a symbol of northern men fighting to preserve the Union where slavery was legal. Slavery legally existed in the USA from the inception of the country until December 1865 (at least 3 northern states had slavery during The War, not counting the border states), with the passage of the 13th Ammendment. Slavery existed in the CSA from 1861 until July1865, as the last slaves were freed by thefederal armies. Slavery existed for a much longer period of time and ended months later in the USA than in the CSA. For one to honestly arguethat the Confederate battle flag (which was not a national flag) is a symbol of slavery, they must also arguethat the Stars and Stripes (the official flag of the United States) is a symbol of slavery, as it actually flew over slave ships until 1808 when the international slave trade ended, somethingno flagof the Confederacy everdid.
As for how The War started, South Carolina had seceeded from the Union on December 20, 1860, and the US commander at Fort Sumter had ignored repeated attempts to surrender, even after several US supply ships had been cut off before they could reach the fort. Lincoln used the almost 5 month long occupation of the fort to lure the Confederatesinto firing the first shot, throwing the blame on them. If Lincoln had been serious about avoiding war, he would not have called up 75,000 volunteers to invade the South just two days after Fort Sumter had been surrendered (April 13, 1861).
Lincoln wanted to subdue the South so that the North could make even more profits from slavery there (higher tariffs, more lending, etc), and that is why he fought for the preservation of the Union for the first half of The War. Only when northern popular opinion grew against the war because of mounting losses (battles and men) andriots breaking out in New York andother citiesdid he decide to make it a moral fight against slavery (Emancipation Proclamation-only affected slaves in areas in rebellion). With a northern victory, this change would end slavery but it still allowed northerners to profit from the results. Carpetbaggers came in to assume roles in the radical Reconstruction governments and in commerce, taking land away from people and making life hard on former Confederates and their sympathizers.
Yes, General Lee was a great man, as was General Jackson. More than that, they were great patriots, as the term was known before The War. They were just like their forefathers whofought justlyagainst the tyranical government of England. Lee and Jackson believed that secession was Constitutional.Virginia had entered into the Union voluntarily, and could leave it the same way. They would not raise their sword against their relatives, friends, or fellow Virginians.
Yes, I believeslavery would have died of several causes. I doubt it would have lasted much after the turn of the century. However, I'm not sure if the CSA and USA would have rejoined or not. That, my friend, is a subject best left to alternative historians.
ToughJ.Riggins
Hall of Famer
Thanks for the analysis Colonel. I actually like your avatar of the confederate flag, it is a symbol of southern pride and I think it is a cool avatar that represents the Un-PCness of this site. Politically correct people would never go on this site anyway for anything other than to malign us.
I do think though, that we could do better to draw in more people who are pondering about why their are no white RBs to this site. We could do it by editing out some of the more extreme language of "a few fellow posters" that post calling blacks "savage criminals, barbarians, a dumb sub-species etc (not saying most posters do this)." That is much more than non-PC, that is racist, and those posters keep us from growing the site. Just like it wouldn't be fair to generalize that all people who like the Confederate flag are racist it isn't fair to label all blacks as thugs etc. There are more tactful ways to discuss differences. Edited by: ToughJ.Riggins
I do think though, that we could do better to draw in more people who are pondering about why their are no white RBs to this site. We could do it by editing out some of the more extreme language of "a few fellow posters" that post calling blacks "savage criminals, barbarians, a dumb sub-species etc (not saying most posters do this)." That is much more than non-PC, that is racist, and those posters keep us from growing the site. Just like it wouldn't be fair to generalize that all people who like the Confederate flag are racist it isn't fair to label all blacks as thugs etc. There are more tactful ways to discuss differences. Edited by: ToughJ.Riggins
Col Reb
Fort Sumptner was federal property, bought and paid for by the gov't of the US, SC should have offered to purchase the fort as it was not theirs. This is similar to a country taking over a foreign embassy--an act of war--without permission and finacial compensation. SC forced Lincoln's hand in their actions there.
Everything else about your post I agree with.
Fort Sumptner was federal property, bought and paid for by the gov't of the US, SC should have offered to purchase the fort as it was not theirs. This is similar to a country taking over a foreign embassy--an act of war--without permission and finacial compensation. SC forced Lincoln's hand in their actions there.
Everything else about your post I agree with.
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
Fort Sumter wasn't even finished and was empty when SC seceeded.It had been under constructionsince 1829 and the Federal Commander Anderson was at Fort Moultrie until after SC seceeded. It wasn't until5 days afterwardsthat he decided to secretlytake his force to Fort Sumter, because he thought he could slow down an attack. As South Carolina had seceeded already, the Fort was theirs, not the Fed Govs. The act of war was the effort to resupply the fort. If Lincoln wanted to, he could have ordered Anderson to withdraw, but he chose the option that would draw the South into the conflict.
As to giving the Fed Gov an out, the Confederate Congress was generousenough to offer Lincoln and the Fed Gov free navigation of the Mississippi River through the South in exchange for the fort. Even after his cabinet voted two to one in favor of handing over the fort when he polled them on what to do, he refused to make a decision for over a month. He also refused to meet with Confederate reps sent to Washington to work out such details.Instead Lincoln assembled a group of warships to support Anderson's men now in the fort. Even after a month's wait when Lincoln finally decided to resupply the fort, Secretary of State Seward deceived southern representatives andsent them a messagesaying nothing was going to happen andto give it more time. So the Confederate forces wasforced to fire the first shot before the Federal warships that were already in Charleston harborarrived at the fort.
As to giving the Fed Gov an out, the Confederate Congress was generousenough to offer Lincoln and the Fed Gov free navigation of the Mississippi River through the South in exchange for the fort. Even after his cabinet voted two to one in favor of handing over the fort when he polled them on what to do, he refused to make a decision for over a month. He also refused to meet with Confederate reps sent to Washington to work out such details.Instead Lincoln assembled a group of warships to support Anderson's men now in the fort. Even after a month's wait when Lincoln finally decided to resupply the fort, Secretary of State Seward deceived southern representatives andsent them a messagesaying nothing was going to happen andto give it more time. So the Confederate forces wasforced to fire the first shot before the Federal warships that were already in Charleston harborarrived at the fort.
Matra1
Mentor
As long as the war against the South continues white Southerners should refuse to fly the multicultural rag known as the Stars & Stripes.
A couple of times in the last year I've seen Confederate battle flags on vehicles in small town Ontario, Canada. Just over Christmas I saw a battle flag licence plate just above the official provincial licence plate. I've also seen on TV rural New Hampshirites sporting the flag on vehicles.
In Europe it doesn't carry the same 'racism' stigma as it does in North America. For example it's not unusual to see the flag's image on pictures of Elvis.
A couple of times in the last year I've seen Confederate battle flags on vehicles in small town Ontario, Canada. Just over Christmas I saw a battle flag licence plate just above the official provincial licence plate. I've also seen on TV rural New Hampshirites sporting the flag on vehicles.
In Europe it doesn't carry the same 'racism' stigma as it does in North America. For example it's not unusual to see the flag's image on pictures of Elvis.
I really don't give a rat's you know what about the flag down south but it does piss me off when I see it on Ohio vehicles or Ohio residents in general wearing Confederate flag crap. Don't these idiots know anything about history and how Ohio was a Union state and their ancestors fought against the Confederate flag? I guess people up here wear it because they see it as anti-black. That's really the only reason I can think of or they're just oblivious to history. I just know that these northern idiots make me upset but not to the point where I would actually say anything to them. Maybe just a stare or glance.
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
whiteCB, great attitude man.
What's up with all the naivehate? Mybelief as towhy they fly it up north or have it on their vehicles is that it is still widely seen as a symbol of freedom, despite revisionist history in public (government) schools for decades. It was visible when the Berlin wall came down as well. Many people all over the world see it as a protest against opressive government and a symbol of freedom.
Using your logic, nobody in the south should have the US flag on their cars. There were Confederate sympathizers in every state, and maybe they realize that the Confederacy wasn't all evil like the cultural Marxists would have us believe. Just because they live in Ohio doesn't mean they had Union ancestors, and even if they do, it doesn't mean they should hate or not use Confederate symbols. Theymight even realize their some of their ancestors were fighting on the wrong side.
In my opinion, your staresand similar actionsby others who want to discard the flag actually help a lot of the same PC, socialist, mutliculturalist, one world forces that we are fighting against here at CF.
Using your logic, nobody in the south should have the US flag on their cars. There were Confederate sympathizers in every state, and maybe they realize that the Confederacy wasn't all evil like the cultural Marxists would have us believe. Just because they live in Ohio doesn't mean they had Union ancestors, and even if they do, it doesn't mean they should hate or not use Confederate symbols. Theymight even realize their some of their ancestors were fighting on the wrong side.
Matra1
Mentor
whiteCB,
Ohio, particularly the southern parts that were not settled by Yankee New Englanders, had a considerable number of Copperheads. Maybe those Ohio people sporting confederate flags know more about their history than you do.
Colonel Reb,
I tend to think of Southerners who fly that symbol of leftist multiculturalism, the Stars & Stripes, as being drones not much different than the white fans who buy into the caste system in professional sports.
BTW I feel the same way about those Canadians who love the Maple Leaf rather than the real Canadian flag - the Red EnsignEdited by: Matra1
Ohio, particularly the southern parts that were not settled by Yankee New Englanders, had a considerable number of Copperheads. Maybe those Ohio people sporting confederate flags know more about their history than you do.
Colonel Reb,
I tend to think of Southerners who fly that symbol of leftist multiculturalism, the Stars & Stripes, as being drones not much different than the white fans who buy into the caste system in professional sports.
BTW I feel the same way about those Canadians who love the Maple Leaf rather than the real Canadian flag - the Red EnsignEdited by: Matra1
You know maybe these people up north who fly the flag do have southern backgrounds to speak of. However, you connot tell me that every single person with the stars and bars up here is connected to the south in some way. I mean I'm using the logic that its kind of idiotic to represent the flag that your state once fought against. See what I'm saying. I'm perfectly fine with southerns flying their flag or whatever. It's their history, their background, and it represents to them an important part of their heritage. Though it makes no sense for a northerner with no family connections to the south to fly the flag. Yes, I'm guessing part of the reason is that the CSA flag represents to a degree a rebellious attitude, but that shouldn't be the basis for representing a symbol(because that's all flags are) which goes against what your state once stood aganist. So no I'm not "hating" on the south but rather on dumb northerners.
I agree with whiteCB, I think it's lame for a Yankee to fly the Confederate flag, unless of course they're from the south, it's the same with northerners wearing cowboy hats and boots, it's fake, a kind of posing.
I think every southerner should fly it though, and I wish we had something like it up here, I fly the original 13 stars and stripes but it's not the same thing.
And to continue the argument with the Col., he mentioned that the Conferederate flag stood for freedom. HAHA!!! some freedom. The CSA was the most restrictive UNFREE government ever on the continent of North America, they had a war-socialism form of government, actually it was pure communism. Every person and all property was deemed the property of the CSA to be used in the war effort.
They conscripted all males, all slaves for the war effort, they seized whatever property they wanted for the war effort. Unlike the North which "hired" all troops, and used private industry (capitialism) to build and equip their army, the south built government iron works, government powder plants, government ship yards, etc.
It's funny when people rag on Lincoln for suspending habeas corpus when the south essentially ended all personal rights in the name of the war effort.
That's not to say that Lincoln and the North weren't wrong about succession, or didn't break constitutional safegaurds, but they were pikers compared to the the CSA. Imagine if the South had won. Do you suppose they would have returned to a constitutionally limited government or would they have continued on their dictatorial ways in the name of rebuilding and defending. Like any government they would have probably gotten worse.
The CSA was about as "free" as the USSR was.
That don't mean they didn't have the right to succeed, it just means that they were a bad government. And they had a kick ass Army.
I think every southerner should fly it though, and I wish we had something like it up here, I fly the original 13 stars and stripes but it's not the same thing.
And to continue the argument with the Col., he mentioned that the Conferederate flag stood for freedom. HAHA!!! some freedom. The CSA was the most restrictive UNFREE government ever on the continent of North America, they had a war-socialism form of government, actually it was pure communism. Every person and all property was deemed the property of the CSA to be used in the war effort.
They conscripted all males, all slaves for the war effort, they seized whatever property they wanted for the war effort. Unlike the North which "hired" all troops, and used private industry (capitialism) to build and equip their army, the south built government iron works, government powder plants, government ship yards, etc.
It's funny when people rag on Lincoln for suspending habeas corpus when the south essentially ended all personal rights in the name of the war effort.
That's not to say that Lincoln and the North weren't wrong about succession, or didn't break constitutional safegaurds, but they were pikers compared to the the CSA. Imagine if the South had won. Do you suppose they would have returned to a constitutionally limited government or would they have continued on their dictatorial ways in the name of rebuilding and defending. Like any government they would have probably gotten worse.
The CSA was about as "free" as the USSR was.
That don't mean they didn't have the right to succeed, it just means that they were a bad government. And they had a kick ass Army.
Tom Iron
Mentor
jaxvid,
If you want a flag to fly, try the "Don't Tread on Me"
Snake Flag from Revolutionary times.
Tom Iron...
If you want a flag to fly, try the "Don't Tread on Me"
Snake Flag from Revolutionary times.
Tom Iron...
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
jaxvid, nice of you to finally comment after my post to whiteCB.
I agree that the CSA wasn't the bastion of freedom. I never made the claim that it was though, so nice try but no cigar. The CSA was,however, an attempt to free people from an existing oppressive government, and the flag stood for that attempt, as it was a soldiers flag. Maybe the southern peoplewere trading one form of oppression for another, but I believe the globlistic march would have slowed on this continent had the CSA maintained its independence. The assertion that the CSA was about as free as the USSR is ridiculous and I'm surprised that even you would make that claim. Yeah, the CSAhad problems, but come on dude, you aren't being intellectually honest. The whole army was conscripted? Not hardly! Most southern soldiers were volunteers, 77% in fact. Conscription started in April 1862. The USA started conscription in March 1863. 93% of its force was volunteer. As for property being taken, what is going on in our USA now? The CSA never took any of my ancestor's land, but the USA did.I really do believe the CSA would have changed greatly had their independence been recognized. How else could they have had a chance of winning their independence without creating the government they did? After all, the government was created during wartime, same as the Articles of Confederation during theU.S. War of Independence. After the war, when the needs were different, southern leaders would have proposed and the states would have adopted a new and better Constitution, just as the United States did in peacetime after realizing the articles were ineffective. The worst thing about the CSA to me was the timid leadership it had. The War could have been won after First Manassas, but the insistence on fighting a defensive war doomed the future of the country.
You may not have claimed that the CSA was a bastion of freedom but you did say: "My belief as to why they fly it up north or have it on their vehicles is that it is still widely seen as a symbol of freedom"
I disagree that it was a symbol of freedom and I don't think that's why people fly it at all, I think they see it as a symbol of REBELLION and that's why they fly it. Which is cool too by the way.
I would disagree with the idea that the CSA would have changed much after the war. Unlike the post revolutionary USA the enemy didn't go an ocean away. The CSA would still have had a bitter adversary across their long border and plenty of unsettled land to fight over. This type of threat usually turns the best of governments into a tyranny (look at the USA today!)
So I doubt that a "better" CSA would have arisen. More likely it would have split up a bit as the issue of succession had been settled in the positive. Some states would have eventually returned to the Union and the rest would have waged endless war like happened in Europe over the next century.
I disagree that it was a symbol of freedom and I don't think that's why people fly it at all, I think they see it as a symbol of REBELLION and that's why they fly it. Which is cool too by the way.
I would disagree with the idea that the CSA would have changed much after the war. Unlike the post revolutionary USA the enemy didn't go an ocean away. The CSA would still have had a bitter adversary across their long border and plenty of unsettled land to fight over. This type of threat usually turns the best of governments into a tyranny (look at the USA today!)
So I doubt that a "better" CSA would have arisen. More likely it would have split up a bit as the issue of succession had been settled in the positive. Some states would have eventually returned to the Union and the rest would have waged endless war like happened in Europe over the next century.
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
I agree that it can be a symbol of rebellion, but you cannot deny it as a symbol of freedom either. How else can you explain people waving it as the Berlin wall was being torn down? It certainly may not be seen as a symbol of freedom to some people, but is by many, and that is what I was saying. Rebellion against opression and freedom aresomewhatlinked anyway. It takes the former to have the latter in most cases.
I don't necessarily agree that the USA would have continued to be a bitter adversary, although there would have been some land disputes and skirmishes, no doubt. Perhaps I am giving the CSA too much credit and you are giving it too little credit. It matters little really, as it is all just speculation about something we can never be sure about. Your opinion on the post-war CSA is similar to that of many alternative histories I have read on the topic,predictably focused on the negative.
You are correct about the CSA Army. A more honorable and pugnacious bunch would be extrememly hard to find. That is why I stand up and defend their flag and their reputation, as everyone else tries to run them and everything southern down, for no good reason.
I don't necessarily agree that the USA would have continued to be a bitter adversary, although there would have been some land disputes and skirmishes, no doubt. Perhaps I am giving the CSA too much credit and you are giving it too little credit. It matters little really, as it is all just speculation about something we can never be sure about. Your opinion on the post-war CSA is similar to that of many alternative histories I have read on the topic,predictably focused on the negative.
You are correct about the CSA Army. A more honorable and pugnacious bunch would be extrememly hard to find. That is why I stand up and defend their flag and their reputation, as everyone else tries to run them and everything southern down, for no good reason.
taken from:
Sacher, John M. 1970-
"A Very Disagreeable Business": Confederate Conscription in Louisiana
Civil War History - Volume 53, Number 2, June 2007, pp. 141-169
"In October 1862, Robert Carter, a wealthy planter living in Concordia Parish, in the fertile cotton-growing delta along the Mississippi River in northeast Louisiana, faced conscription into the Confederate army. Rather than enter the service, Carter, whose family owned two plantations and 194 slaves, contracted with Frederick W. Scheuber to serve as his substitute. As a German, Scheuber was not subject to Confederate conscription and therefore could serve in someone else's place. Carter possessed both the motives and the means to avoid military service. In addition to wanting to escape the dangers inherent in life in the army, Carter possibly feared both losing control of his slaves and exposing his family to the enemy, especially with the Union army, as part of its attack on Vicksburg, less than fifty miles north of his home. With Carter's wealth exceeding $120,000, his agreement to pay Scheuber $2,500 at the end of the war and to provide Scheuber's wife with $20.83 per month (10 percent per year) until that time would not prove an insurmountable financial burden. Although Scheuber may have needed the money, he did not live to see the end of the war, perishing at Berwick Bay in April 1863, less than one year after signing his contract with Carter. During Scheuber's time of service, Carter paid the money to three of the German's female relatives, but it remains unclear whether he paid the full amount upon Scheuber's death. (1)
The story of men such as Robert Carter and Frederick Scheuber illustrates the dramatic impact of Confederate conscription on Southerners and the effect that variables such as wealth, ethnicity, and the proximity of the Union army played in their decisions regarding the draft. From the beginning of the Civil War, Confederate leaders recognized that fighting a nation with superior manpower necessitated mobilizing as great a percentage of the South's white male population as possible. For the first year of the conflict, the Confederacy relied on one-year volunteers. It became quickly apparent, however, that the army needed more men and that it needed them to fight for more than a single year. Thus, in April 1862, as many of the original volunteers' enlistments were set to expire, the Confederate Congress passed, and President Jefferson Davis signed, a national conscription act. This measure lengthened volunteers' enlistments from one year to the duration of the war and called for a draft of all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. (2)
Historians who take aim at Confederate conscription face a moving target. First, Congress modified conscription policy several times, and thus the reactions it engendered changed as well. The age range expanded, and Congress repeatedly altered the exemption policy. Among the most significant of these adjustments were the addition of an exemption for owners of twenty slaves in October 1862 and ending substitution in January 1864. Second, a variety of factors, including wealth, ethnicity, and gender, could shape one's attitude toward the policy and toward those who resisted it. Third, Southerners' impressions of the measure varied based on where they lived, particularly on their family's proximity to the Union army. An area safely within Confederate lines might accept conscription, but if later that home front faced Union occupation or simply lost the protection of the Confederate army, men might be much less willing to leave their families to fight. In order to assess the impact of all of these variables and gain a fuller understanding of conscription, one can focus on the measure's impact on the individual states of the Confederacy. Historians have examined conscription policy in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and elsewhere, but no one has made a thorough examination of conscription in Louisiana. (3)
In some respects, conscription in Louisiana paralleled that in other Southern states: Louisiana's governors, both Thomas Overton Moore (1860-64) and his successor Henry Watkins Allen (1864-65), squabbled with the national government in Richmond over state sovereignty; the various draft exemptions caused friction between rich and poor, especially slaveholders and nonslaveholders; and the attitudes of civilians toward the draft demonstrated the conflicting demands of battlefront and the home front. In other aspects, Louisianans experienced the draft differently from other Confederates. From 1862 onward, the Union army occupied key parts of the state, most important New Orleans, the state's largest city, which had no peer elsewhere in the South. Also, Louisiana's significant foreign-born and Cajun populations complicated the conscription process with some of the former group exempt from the provisions of the act and with the latter often having very little attachment to the Confederacy.
On a practical level, the combination of conscription and volunteering clearly mobilized a tremendous percentage of Louisiana's white male population. The numbers, however, do not tell the whole story. The few extant figures are incomplete, and the Union's occupation of various parts of the state complicates the equation. Nonetheless, in enforcing conscription, Confederate officials experienced some success. They formed conscription camps in Monroe, Tangipahoa (Camp Moore), and outside of New Iberia (Camp Pratt). For most of the Civil War, the Confederate command divided Louisiana between two administrative units. The Florida Parishes, the region of the state east of the Mississippi River and north of Lake Pontchartrain, were part of the Department of the Gulf, while the rest of Louisiana was part of the Trans-Mississippi Department. Situated in the latter department, Camp Pratt, two miles north of New Iberia, received the majority of the state's conscripts. (4)
At the end of 1862, Louisiana native General Richard Taylor, emphasizing the army's recruiting success in Louisiana, proclaimed that in northern Louisiana few conscripts could be found with "nearly the whole population between eighteen and thirty-five having volunteered." State officials and state documents buttress the idea that the combination of volunteering and the draft had motivated a substantial number of Louisianans to join the war effort. Partial state records indicate that by the end of 1862 (only eight months after the draft had begun), 8,690 of the approximately 40,000 Louisianans in the armed service were conscripts, and that number reflects only the thirty-eight parishes (out of a total of forty-eight) that reported results. Two years later, in his annual message to the legislature, Governor Moore proclaimed that Louisiana had provided 52,000 troops to the Confederacy, an exceptional number for a partially occupied state whose largest prewar vote total had been 50,511. Local officials in Moore's home parish of Rapides concurred. A Rapides newspaper claimed in 1862 that the parish had answered the call with more than 500 conscripts; the following year it added that "the conscript act means nothing to Rapides," as all the men in the parish had already joined the war effort. (5)
Other accounts, however, conflict with this picture of a united front of adult, white male Louisianans volunteering or accepting conscription as Confederates. In October 1863, future governor Allen offered a very different assessment of the situation in southwest Louisiana. He lamented that "the country here is full of deserters and runaway conscripts.... I am told they number 8,000." Another officer described as many as 1,500 conscripts and deserters hidden in just three of the Florida Parishes, and yet another suggested that the woods of Sabine Parish contained two hundred draft dodgers. Although these reports may have exaggerated the problem, they indicate that parts of the state served as havens for those resisting conscription. Perhaps the mixed message of Assistant Adjutant General S. S. Anderson best demonstrates the difficulty of relying on numbers alone to judge the success of conscription. He reported that "by sending a single company into one of the parishes of Louisiana, 400 conscripts were obtained." Any optimism engendered by that phrase is quickly tempered by his admission that this success occurred only after "shooting four of their number." (6)
In attempting to reconcile these diverse views of conscription's success in Louisiana, one must consider where and when these officials described the process. In When the Yankees Came, Stephen V. Ash creates a useful model for understanding the interaction between Southerners and the Union army. He contends that the occupied South should be seen as three regions: garrisoned towns that faced a constant Union army presence; no-man's-lands, which lay beyond Confederate control but lacked the day-to-day occupation of Union troops; and Confederate frontiers where the Confederacy had authority but which were not immune to Union incursions. Not only does his discussion accurately depict many Louisianans' wartime experiences, but it also proves very helpful in understanding the varied reactions to conscription policies within the Pelican State. Over the course of the Civil War, the area of Louisiana subject to Confederate authority contracted with the northwest migration of the capital from Baton Rouge to Opelousas in 1862 and to Shreveport the following year being a good benchmark of the shrinking of Confederate Louisiana. The precise boundaries of Union occupation varied from month to month, but regardless of the exact location of enemy units, many Louisianans felt that the Confederate government had abdicated its responsibility for their protection, and consequently they resisted conscription into the Confederate army. (7)
In April 1862, the same month that the Confederate Congress passed the first conscription act, the Union army captured New Orleans, which not only served as the state's business center but also contained nearly half of the state's white population. For the rest of the conflict, the Union military, first under Benjamin Butler and later under Nathaniel P. Banks, governed the city. Southern men in the city were beyond the reach of Confederate conscription officers, and its Union-controlled newspapers railed against the conscription process. After securing New Orleans, the Union army occupied other areas of the state, including Baton Rouge and the Bayou Lafourche region, and in both 1863 and 1864 federals invaded up the Red River. Additionally, the Union army's efforts to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, led to an occupation of northeast Louisiana beginning in 1862. (8)
Therefore, throughout the three years of Confederate conscription, most of Louisiana's draft-eligible men remained in garrisoned towns, no-man's-lands, or on the Confederate frontier. Both General Taylor's assessment and the state's official conscription report for 1862 demonstrate the impact of Union occupation on Confederate conscription. In November 1862 Taylor informed the secretary of war that the parishes where it was "most difficult to execute the conscription law are the river parishes from Carroll down and the Gulf parishes from New Orleans to the Sabine River [the border with Texas]." All of these parishes had either already suffered from or were vulnerable to future Union invasion. According to the state's 1862 annual conscription report, ten of the forty-eight parishes filed no conscription returns with six of these (Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. Charles, and St. John) in the immediate vicinity of occupied New Orleans and two others (Madison and Carroll) on the Mississippi River opposite Vicksburg. (9)
Fearing Confederate conscription more than the Union army, some Louisianans fled to garrisoned towns and received Union passports. In Baton Rouge, Mira Cooper, a Confederate loyalist, complained of "white contrabands" who escaped to the enemy's lines to avoid service in the Confederate army. An unrepentant rebel, she considered these men "a step below contempt." A Union soldier based there agreed that both men and women entered in the former capital in order to buy goods and that they willingly took a loyalty oath to do so. This type of escape route, however, was fraught with peril. According to Governor Moore, Louisianans who returned from Union lines and then tried to use either Union passports or evidence of having taken a loyalty oath in order to avoid Confederate conscription would be treated as traitors. Ironically, men who fled into garrisoned regions to avoid Confederate conscription could find themselves subject to the Union draft instead. In the Lafourche region, the Union army required military-age men to take an oath of allegiance in order to avoid arrest and to keep their..."
Sacher, John M. 1970-
"A Very Disagreeable Business": Confederate Conscription in Louisiana
Civil War History - Volume 53, Number 2, June 2007, pp. 141-169
"In October 1862, Robert Carter, a wealthy planter living in Concordia Parish, in the fertile cotton-growing delta along the Mississippi River in northeast Louisiana, faced conscription into the Confederate army. Rather than enter the service, Carter, whose family owned two plantations and 194 slaves, contracted with Frederick W. Scheuber to serve as his substitute. As a German, Scheuber was not subject to Confederate conscription and therefore could serve in someone else's place. Carter possessed both the motives and the means to avoid military service. In addition to wanting to escape the dangers inherent in life in the army, Carter possibly feared both losing control of his slaves and exposing his family to the enemy, especially with the Union army, as part of its attack on Vicksburg, less than fifty miles north of his home. With Carter's wealth exceeding $120,000, his agreement to pay Scheuber $2,500 at the end of the war and to provide Scheuber's wife with $20.83 per month (10 percent per year) until that time would not prove an insurmountable financial burden. Although Scheuber may have needed the money, he did not live to see the end of the war, perishing at Berwick Bay in April 1863, less than one year after signing his contract with Carter. During Scheuber's time of service, Carter paid the money to three of the German's female relatives, but it remains unclear whether he paid the full amount upon Scheuber's death. (1)
The story of men such as Robert Carter and Frederick Scheuber illustrates the dramatic impact of Confederate conscription on Southerners and the effect that variables such as wealth, ethnicity, and the proximity of the Union army played in their decisions regarding the draft. From the beginning of the Civil War, Confederate leaders recognized that fighting a nation with superior manpower necessitated mobilizing as great a percentage of the South's white male population as possible. For the first year of the conflict, the Confederacy relied on one-year volunteers. It became quickly apparent, however, that the army needed more men and that it needed them to fight for more than a single year. Thus, in April 1862, as many of the original volunteers' enlistments were set to expire, the Confederate Congress passed, and President Jefferson Davis signed, a national conscription act. This measure lengthened volunteers' enlistments from one year to the duration of the war and called for a draft of all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. (2)
Historians who take aim at Confederate conscription face a moving target. First, Congress modified conscription policy several times, and thus the reactions it engendered changed as well. The age range expanded, and Congress repeatedly altered the exemption policy. Among the most significant of these adjustments were the addition of an exemption for owners of twenty slaves in October 1862 and ending substitution in January 1864. Second, a variety of factors, including wealth, ethnicity, and gender, could shape one's attitude toward the policy and toward those who resisted it. Third, Southerners' impressions of the measure varied based on where they lived, particularly on their family's proximity to the Union army. An area safely within Confederate lines might accept conscription, but if later that home front faced Union occupation or simply lost the protection of the Confederate army, men might be much less willing to leave their families to fight. In order to assess the impact of all of these variables and gain a fuller understanding of conscription, one can focus on the measure's impact on the individual states of the Confederacy. Historians have examined conscription policy in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and elsewhere, but no one has made a thorough examination of conscription in Louisiana. (3)
In some respects, conscription in Louisiana paralleled that in other Southern states: Louisiana's governors, both Thomas Overton Moore (1860-64) and his successor Henry Watkins Allen (1864-65), squabbled with the national government in Richmond over state sovereignty; the various draft exemptions caused friction between rich and poor, especially slaveholders and nonslaveholders; and the attitudes of civilians toward the draft demonstrated the conflicting demands of battlefront and the home front. In other aspects, Louisianans experienced the draft differently from other Confederates. From 1862 onward, the Union army occupied key parts of the state, most important New Orleans, the state's largest city, which had no peer elsewhere in the South. Also, Louisiana's significant foreign-born and Cajun populations complicated the conscription process with some of the former group exempt from the provisions of the act and with the latter often having very little attachment to the Confederacy.
On a practical level, the combination of conscription and volunteering clearly mobilized a tremendous percentage of Louisiana's white male population. The numbers, however, do not tell the whole story. The few extant figures are incomplete, and the Union's occupation of various parts of the state complicates the equation. Nonetheless, in enforcing conscription, Confederate officials experienced some success. They formed conscription camps in Monroe, Tangipahoa (Camp Moore), and outside of New Iberia (Camp Pratt). For most of the Civil War, the Confederate command divided Louisiana between two administrative units. The Florida Parishes, the region of the state east of the Mississippi River and north of Lake Pontchartrain, were part of the Department of the Gulf, while the rest of Louisiana was part of the Trans-Mississippi Department. Situated in the latter department, Camp Pratt, two miles north of New Iberia, received the majority of the state's conscripts. (4)
At the end of 1862, Louisiana native General Richard Taylor, emphasizing the army's recruiting success in Louisiana, proclaimed that in northern Louisiana few conscripts could be found with "nearly the whole population between eighteen and thirty-five having volunteered." State officials and state documents buttress the idea that the combination of volunteering and the draft had motivated a substantial number of Louisianans to join the war effort. Partial state records indicate that by the end of 1862 (only eight months after the draft had begun), 8,690 of the approximately 40,000 Louisianans in the armed service were conscripts, and that number reflects only the thirty-eight parishes (out of a total of forty-eight) that reported results. Two years later, in his annual message to the legislature, Governor Moore proclaimed that Louisiana had provided 52,000 troops to the Confederacy, an exceptional number for a partially occupied state whose largest prewar vote total had been 50,511. Local officials in Moore's home parish of Rapides concurred. A Rapides newspaper claimed in 1862 that the parish had answered the call with more than 500 conscripts; the following year it added that "the conscript act means nothing to Rapides," as all the men in the parish had already joined the war effort. (5)
Other accounts, however, conflict with this picture of a united front of adult, white male Louisianans volunteering or accepting conscription as Confederates. In October 1863, future governor Allen offered a very different assessment of the situation in southwest Louisiana. He lamented that "the country here is full of deserters and runaway conscripts.... I am told they number 8,000." Another officer described as many as 1,500 conscripts and deserters hidden in just three of the Florida Parishes, and yet another suggested that the woods of Sabine Parish contained two hundred draft dodgers. Although these reports may have exaggerated the problem, they indicate that parts of the state served as havens for those resisting conscription. Perhaps the mixed message of Assistant Adjutant General S. S. Anderson best demonstrates the difficulty of relying on numbers alone to judge the success of conscription. He reported that "by sending a single company into one of the parishes of Louisiana, 400 conscripts were obtained." Any optimism engendered by that phrase is quickly tempered by his admission that this success occurred only after "shooting four of their number." (6)
In attempting to reconcile these diverse views of conscription's success in Louisiana, one must consider where and when these officials described the process. In When the Yankees Came, Stephen V. Ash creates a useful model for understanding the interaction between Southerners and the Union army. He contends that the occupied South should be seen as three regions: garrisoned towns that faced a constant Union army presence; no-man's-lands, which lay beyond Confederate control but lacked the day-to-day occupation of Union troops; and Confederate frontiers where the Confederacy had authority but which were not immune to Union incursions. Not only does his discussion accurately depict many Louisianans' wartime experiences, but it also proves very helpful in understanding the varied reactions to conscription policies within the Pelican State. Over the course of the Civil War, the area of Louisiana subject to Confederate authority contracted with the northwest migration of the capital from Baton Rouge to Opelousas in 1862 and to Shreveport the following year being a good benchmark of the shrinking of Confederate Louisiana. The precise boundaries of Union occupation varied from month to month, but regardless of the exact location of enemy units, many Louisianans felt that the Confederate government had abdicated its responsibility for their protection, and consequently they resisted conscription into the Confederate army. (7)
In April 1862, the same month that the Confederate Congress passed the first conscription act, the Union army captured New Orleans, which not only served as the state's business center but also contained nearly half of the state's white population. For the rest of the conflict, the Union military, first under Benjamin Butler and later under Nathaniel P. Banks, governed the city. Southern men in the city were beyond the reach of Confederate conscription officers, and its Union-controlled newspapers railed against the conscription process. After securing New Orleans, the Union army occupied other areas of the state, including Baton Rouge and the Bayou Lafourche region, and in both 1863 and 1864 federals invaded up the Red River. Additionally, the Union army's efforts to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, led to an occupation of northeast Louisiana beginning in 1862. (8)
Therefore, throughout the three years of Confederate conscription, most of Louisiana's draft-eligible men remained in garrisoned towns, no-man's-lands, or on the Confederate frontier. Both General Taylor's assessment and the state's official conscription report for 1862 demonstrate the impact of Union occupation on Confederate conscription. In November 1862 Taylor informed the secretary of war that the parishes where it was "most difficult to execute the conscription law are the river parishes from Carroll down and the Gulf parishes from New Orleans to the Sabine River [the border with Texas]." All of these parishes had either already suffered from or were vulnerable to future Union invasion. According to the state's 1862 annual conscription report, ten of the forty-eight parishes filed no conscription returns with six of these (Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. Charles, and St. John) in the immediate vicinity of occupied New Orleans and two others (Madison and Carroll) on the Mississippi River opposite Vicksburg. (9)
Fearing Confederate conscription more than the Union army, some Louisianans fled to garrisoned towns and received Union passports. In Baton Rouge, Mira Cooper, a Confederate loyalist, complained of "white contrabands" who escaped to the enemy's lines to avoid service in the Confederate army. An unrepentant rebel, she considered these men "a step below contempt." A Union soldier based there agreed that both men and women entered in the former capital in order to buy goods and that they willingly took a loyalty oath to do so. This type of escape route, however, was fraught with peril. According to Governor Moore, Louisianans who returned from Union lines and then tried to use either Union passports or evidence of having taken a loyalty oath in order to avoid Confederate conscription would be treated as traitors. Ironically, men who fled into garrisoned regions to avoid Confederate conscription could find themselves subject to the Union draft instead. In the Lafourche region, the Union army required military-age men to take an oath of allegiance in order to avoid arrest and to keep their..."
Piggy
Newbie
jaxvid said:
What do you think the South was rebelling against?
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
Menelik, I don't know what your point was for posting that, but I assume you know that Federal conscripts could and often did buy their way out of fighting. On both sides, you could hire substitutes. The Union had 118,000 of those.
In March 1863 Congress passed the Enrollment Act, making all able-bodiedmen age 20-45 eligible for the draft.The federal government also offered a $300 bounty for three-year enlistments.Edited by: Colonel_Reb
In March 1863 Congress passed the Enrollment Act, making all able-bodiedmen age 20-45 eligible for the draft.The federal government also offered a $300 bounty for three-year enlistments.Edited by: Colonel_Reb
Colonel_Reb
Hall of Famer
Associated Press - January 4, 2008 2:44 PM ET
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - An assistant fire chief has been demoted after allegedly appearing in a 13-year-old video that a Jackson firefighters' union official claimed made fun of blacks.
Fire Chief Vernon Hughes said at a news conference today (Friday) that he had concluded that the person who appeared on tape was Assistant Chief Todd Chandler, despite Chandler's insistence that he was not in the videotape.
Hughes said Chandler's was demoted to captain and reassigned to the division that supplies air tanks to firefighters.
The videotape, made in 1994, is a video tour of Station 12. One clip shows a Confederate flag on a blackboard. Then comes a segment showing a firefighter, who Local 87 firefighters union President Brandon Falcon said is Chandler. The firefighter uses phrases and gestures associated with derogatory stereotyping of blacks as he imitates a black firefighter.
Falcon, who distributed the videotape to several media outlets, would not say who gave it to him. Chandler is a 22-year veteran of the fire department. Chandler has 18 months to go before he can retire, according to Melton.
City Council President Leslie Burl McLemore said Hughes' decision was appropriate "and is something that probably should have been done earlier."
"As president of the City Council, I applaud (Hughes). That's something that shouldn't be tolerated. And I'm sure the citizens of Jackson, all of us, are very proud and pleased the chief made the positive decision that he made."
The 372-member department now is about 72 percent black, Hughes said. The department's goal is 400 firefighters in the near future, the chief said.
Letter to the editor of the Tennessean
After reading your article on NASCAR's slump I thought I would share a reason for this decline that was obviously overlooked in your report. Political correctness!
I was a life-long race fan until the mid 90s. I come from a family of racers who could always be seen at the Nashville Raceway and other small tracks around the hills of Tennessee. I wore my driver's NASCAR licensed shirt, watched and attended NASCAR races religiously, bought products advertised on the side of the cars and so forth.
My friends and I would get together every weekend to watch the race, along with criticizing one driver over another. We were not hockey fans, or football fans, nor any other sport fans, we were NASCAR fans! Pure and simple. Sure we kept up with other sports but racing ruled.
Then it all began to change. Political correctness reared its ugly head in 1994 when NASCAR banned the Sons of Confederate Veterans Thunderbird from entering the Daytona 500 because the car had a (gasp) Confederate flag on the hood! Despite NASCAR's beliefs most of its fan base are very patriotic conservative thinking people who despise the growing corporate America�s push to spread the political correctness that permeates our society like a cancer.
NASCAR turned its back on its Southern roots in many ways when it embraced the greed of corporate America then. The NASCAR board of directors fail to recognize that people are growing sick of corporate America's ruination of our great country with everything from politically correct decisions to job loss. Not to mention the inferior poison products forced on us from China. All in the name of the bottom line to show the share holders with no concern for the well being of America or the delivery of quality products.
More people are realizing this every year and more people will stop spending their hard-earned money on a sport that holds big business above them. And they will continue to walk away just as I did 10 years ago.
latimes.com-American Idol hopeful.
2. Kristy Lee Cook, 23, Selma, Ore.
Backstory: According to her audition video, Kristy lives in a log cabin in Oregon -- the same one she's been in since she was 9. She likes horses and cage fighting, and she had to sell one of her horses to make it to the audition. Awww...
Career: A bit of creeping on the Web reveals Kristy to be more than just the cage-fighter next door. She has appeared in commercials for Sprite, Pier 1 and more, and she is signed with the Kim Dawson Agency for modeling.
Controversy: "Idol" sleuths have already unearthed one of Kristy's old music videos, in which she croons in front of a Confederate flag.
www.charlotte.com
NAACP official seeks removal of flag
YORK -- Steve Love wants the flag flying in front of Exchange Publishers in downtown York to be taken down.The flag is half state flag and half a version of the Confederate flag. It flies beside an American flag in front of the building.
Love, president of the Western York County NAACP, has fielded numerous calls complaining about the flag, so he said he asked the antique gun magazine's owner, Brett Boyd, to remove it.
Love said he considers the flag offensive -- a symbol of racism -- but Boyd said it's a part of history and he doesn't intend to offend anybody.
As the NAACP chapter prepares for Saturday's Martin Luther King Parade, which will probably roll right past Boyd's business, Love hopes he can do something to make sure the flag won't be flying that day. -- The (York) Enquirer-Herald
Southern Avenger
<H2 =Contenter>The NAACP Tries to Stay Relevant by Reigniting Confederate Flag Fight</H2>
<DIV =post-content>
First SC NAACPPresident Lonnie Randolph accuses Rudy Giuliani of being too cozy with the South's most famous symbol (an accusation absurd enough to make your head spin) and now this.Like the Republican Party and abortion or the Southern Poverty Law Center and the virtually non-existentKu Klux Klan -the NAACP secretly never really wants the Confederate flag to go away, as it gives them both a reason to exist and to rile up the rank-and-file. From the Charlotte Observer:
COLUMBIA -Leaders of the South Carolina NAACP will re-ignite their effort to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds this month.
They hope the presence of two Democratic presidential front-runners adds weight to the annual rally.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are scheduled to attend the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday march and rally Jan. 21, just days before Democrats in this early primary state go to the polls.
The NAACP hopes the candidates and the national attention they'll bring will spotlight the divisive flag that flutters alongside one of the city's busiest streets.
"America is a mean country and South Carolina is a meaner state," said Lonnie Randolph, president of the state chapter of the NAACP. "For the government of this state to continue to endorse bigotry, racism and white supremacy, we are going to continue to raise our voice and speak out against it."
I'm quite sure Barack Obama, Hillary Clintonand JohnEdwards will fall in line and say what's expected of them. Most of the Republicans are just as bad.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - An assistant fire chief has been demoted after allegedly appearing in a 13-year-old video that a Jackson firefighters' union official claimed made fun of blacks.
Fire Chief Vernon Hughes said at a news conference today (Friday) that he had concluded that the person who appeared on tape was Assistant Chief Todd Chandler, despite Chandler's insistence that he was not in the videotape.
Hughes said Chandler's was demoted to captain and reassigned to the division that supplies air tanks to firefighters.
The videotape, made in 1994, is a video tour of Station 12. One clip shows a Confederate flag on a blackboard. Then comes a segment showing a firefighter, who Local 87 firefighters union President Brandon Falcon said is Chandler. The firefighter uses phrases and gestures associated with derogatory stereotyping of blacks as he imitates a black firefighter.
Falcon, who distributed the videotape to several media outlets, would not say who gave it to him. Chandler is a 22-year veteran of the fire department. Chandler has 18 months to go before he can retire, according to Melton.
City Council President Leslie Burl McLemore said Hughes' decision was appropriate "and is something that probably should have been done earlier."
"As president of the City Council, I applaud (Hughes). That's something that shouldn't be tolerated. And I'm sure the citizens of Jackson, all of us, are very proud and pleased the chief made the positive decision that he made."
The 372-member department now is about 72 percent black, Hughes said. The department's goal is 400 firefighters in the near future, the chief said.
Letter to the editor of the Tennessean
After reading your article on NASCAR's slump I thought I would share a reason for this decline that was obviously overlooked in your report. Political correctness!
I was a life-long race fan until the mid 90s. I come from a family of racers who could always be seen at the Nashville Raceway and other small tracks around the hills of Tennessee. I wore my driver's NASCAR licensed shirt, watched and attended NASCAR races religiously, bought products advertised on the side of the cars and so forth.
My friends and I would get together every weekend to watch the race, along with criticizing one driver over another. We were not hockey fans, or football fans, nor any other sport fans, we were NASCAR fans! Pure and simple. Sure we kept up with other sports but racing ruled.
Then it all began to change. Political correctness reared its ugly head in 1994 when NASCAR banned the Sons of Confederate Veterans Thunderbird from entering the Daytona 500 because the car had a (gasp) Confederate flag on the hood! Despite NASCAR's beliefs most of its fan base are very patriotic conservative thinking people who despise the growing corporate America�s push to spread the political correctness that permeates our society like a cancer.
NASCAR turned its back on its Southern roots in many ways when it embraced the greed of corporate America then. The NASCAR board of directors fail to recognize that people are growing sick of corporate America's ruination of our great country with everything from politically correct decisions to job loss. Not to mention the inferior poison products forced on us from China. All in the name of the bottom line to show the share holders with no concern for the well being of America or the delivery of quality products.
More people are realizing this every year and more people will stop spending their hard-earned money on a sport that holds big business above them. And they will continue to walk away just as I did 10 years ago.
latimes.com-American Idol hopeful.
2. Kristy Lee Cook, 23, Selma, Ore.
Backstory: According to her audition video, Kristy lives in a log cabin in Oregon -- the same one she's been in since she was 9. She likes horses and cage fighting, and she had to sell one of her horses to make it to the audition. Awww...
Career: A bit of creeping on the Web reveals Kristy to be more than just the cage-fighter next door. She has appeared in commercials for Sprite, Pier 1 and more, and she is signed with the Kim Dawson Agency for modeling.
Controversy: "Idol" sleuths have already unearthed one of Kristy's old music videos, in which she croons in front of a Confederate flag.
www.charlotte.com
NAACP official seeks removal of flag
YORK -- Steve Love wants the flag flying in front of Exchange Publishers in downtown York to be taken down.The flag is half state flag and half a version of the Confederate flag. It flies beside an American flag in front of the building.
Love, president of the Western York County NAACP, has fielded numerous calls complaining about the flag, so he said he asked the antique gun magazine's owner, Brett Boyd, to remove it.
Love said he considers the flag offensive -- a symbol of racism -- but Boyd said it's a part of history and he doesn't intend to offend anybody.
As the NAACP chapter prepares for Saturday's Martin Luther King Parade, which will probably roll right past Boyd's business, Love hopes he can do something to make sure the flag won't be flying that day. -- The (York) Enquirer-Herald
Southern Avenger
<H2 =Contenter>The NAACP Tries to Stay Relevant by Reigniting Confederate Flag Fight</H2>
<DIV =post-content>
First SC NAACPPresident Lonnie Randolph accuses Rudy Giuliani of being too cozy with the South's most famous symbol (an accusation absurd enough to make your head spin) and now this.Like the Republican Party and abortion or the Southern Poverty Law Center and the virtually non-existentKu Klux Klan -the NAACP secretly never really wants the Confederate flag to go away, as it gives them both a reason to exist and to rile up the rank-and-file. From the Charlotte Observer:
COLUMBIA -Leaders of the South Carolina NAACP will re-ignite their effort to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds this month.
They hope the presence of two Democratic presidential front-runners adds weight to the annual rally.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are scheduled to attend the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday march and rally Jan. 21, just days before Democrats in this early primary state go to the polls.
The NAACP hopes the candidates and the national attention they'll bring will spotlight the divisive flag that flutters alongside one of the city's busiest streets.
"America is a mean country and South Carolina is a meaner state," said Lonnie Randolph, president of the state chapter of the NAACP. "For the government of this state to continue to endorse bigotry, racism and white supremacy, we are going to continue to raise our voice and speak out against it."
I'm quite sure Barack Obama, Hillary Clintonand JohnEdwards will fall in line and say what's expected of them. Most of the Republicans are just as bad.
Yeah, it seems like the government is stirring up a lot of racial trouble right now to get people's minds off the ecnonomy and wars. Added to that, a few nasty race riots would give them a better excuse to bring in tighter police state controls.
jaxvid said:
Thank you Jaxvid. It is totally lame for "yankees" to fly or wear the Confederate flag. And another good point by Jaxvid with dumbass northerners wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots. It looks like they're dressing up for Halloween or something. You cannot wear cowboy gear if you live in a state where it has the potential in any given winter to go below 0 degrees(all the states up north). I always laugh at these stupid northerns trying to be like Texans. Your NOT a Texan or anywhere near it so stop wearing your stupid cowboy hats!
Piggy
Newbie
Colonel_Reb said:
I, too find such a statement to be a bit over-the-top. The fact of the matter is it was the North that was trampling on the USA Constitution and the Constitution of the CSA was virtually a replica of that Constitution. When the search for a flag for the new nation was conducted many of the delegates suggested that the USA get a new flag since it was them that was violating the Constitution on which the USA was founded.
As you mentioned the Confederate Battle Flag was flown when the shackles of the tyranny of communism were thrown off with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. It was also flown by the people of Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Ukraine and other former nations that were under the same imprisonment of communism under the old Soviet Union. Quebec has used that flag in its efforts to secede from Canada. The Confederate Flag is not simply a "Southern" symbol, but a universal symbol for liberty and independence from tyranny.
The Confederate Battle Flag is a Christian flag. It's the cross of St. Andrew. It's the Greek "chi" (x) in "Christ." The Alabama State Flag is a St. Andrews Cross. Few see the connection! Therefore no one tries to get rid of that Flag. But it's virtually the same flag in different colors.
There were many flags of the CSA, but there were five main flags. One of them, as I'm sure you're aware you are flying as your avatar. That is the Third National Flag of the CSA. We could fly the "Bonnie Blue" and few would be the wiser. The South was fighting against the very tyranny that the North is now experiencing. The War of Northern Aggression didn't free anyone. It just made everyone a slave. It's the same tyranny that has birthed this "caste" system in sports that so many on this list are railing against.
To relegate the "Confederate Flag" as something only Southerners should display is to say, IMHO you either don't understand what the flag stands for or you are against what it represents.