ATTACKING THE CONFEDERATE BATTLE FLAG:
An Example of Northern White Hypocrisy
by Joseph E. Fallon
Those Northern whites who love "the Stars and Stripes" but attack, or condone
the attack, upon the Confederate Battle Flag are engaged in an act of self-
righteous hypocrisy that will come back to haunt them.
The Confederate Battle Flag is incorporated into the State Flags of both
Georgia and Mississippi, and was the inspiration for the designs of the State
Flags of Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida. In its own right, the Confederate
Battle Flag officially flies in an honorary position over the South Carolina
legislature below the U.S. and South Carolina flags.
Opponents of the Confederate Battle Flag allege it is a symbol of slavery,
treason, and sedition. They, therefore, demand it be expunged from the State
Flags and prohibited from being officially displayed.
Other writers have documented how the Southern soldiers who fought under
the Confederate Battle Flag did not fight to protect slavery -- there were fewer
than 350,000 slave owners in a population of more than 5 million whites -- but
to defend their families, homes, and States from a rapacious, invading army.
However, for argument's sake, let us agree that any flag associated with
slavery, treason, and sedition should be banned from being officially displayed
by the federal and State governments of the United States. When can we
expect the official banning of "the Stars and Stripes"?
A far more compelling case can be made against "the Stars and Stripes" as a
symbol of slavery, treason, and sedition than against the Confederate Battle
Flag.
Before examining slavery, the allegations of treason and sedition should first
be addressed. Treason is defined as an overt act in violation of the allegiance
one owes his sovereign or state such as levying war against it, or giving aid or
comfort to its enemies. Sedition is defined as incitement to commit acts for the
purpose of overthrowing one's government. The American Revolutionaries
were guilty of both crimes.
There was no legal right under British law for a colony to secede from the
British Empire. The actions of the American Revolutionaries -- from the Boston
Tea Party, to publishing pamphlets calling for independence, to convening the
Continental Congress, to taking up arms at Lexington and Concord -- were
treasonous and seditious. Their flag, "the Stars and Stripes", therefore, was a
symbol of treason and sedition. Patrick Henry was most candid when he
allegedly declared in his 1765 speech against the Stamp Act: "Caesar had his
Brutus -- Charles the First, his Cromwell -- and George the Third -- may profit
by their example. If this be treason, make the most of fit."
But there is more. The revolutionaries in 1776 represented a minority of the
population of the thirteen colonies -- perhaps as little as twenty percent. So
much for the American Revolution being a "popular" movement.
In many cases, to insure colonial legislatures enacted the "proper" laws, the
revolutionaries often expelled loyalist members. So much for the American
Revolution being a "democratic" movement.
Often, the revolutionaries simply established their own rival local governments.
This second tactic was styled "dual power" or "double sovereignty" by the
Bolsheviks who successfully employed it during the Russian Revolution. So
much for the American Revolution being a model for the emergence of
"democratic" governments elsewhere.
The revolutionaries rejected the British peace proposals of 1778, which, in
effect, would have conceded most of their demands. Instead, they pursued
their war against the United Kingdom with all its faults the most democratic
government in Europe. To win that war, the revolutionaries solicited the
support of France and Spain -- two of the most powerful, anti-democratic
regimes in Europe. So much for the American Revolution being a movement
motivated by the principle of "liberty".
After the success of the American Revolution with the political independence
of the United States officially recognized by London, "the Stars and Stripes"
became the symbol for what is now termed "ethnic cleansing". An estimated
one hundred thousand loyalists, colonists who had been faithful to the British
government during the American Revolution, were forced to flee the new
republic.
But "the Stars and Stripes" did not cease being a symbol of sedition even after
the United States achieved its independence in 1783. Six years later, the first
republic of the United States under the "Articles of Confederation and
Perpetual Union" was overthrown by the Constitutional Convention. The
legitimate government of the United States did not authorize a new
constitution. Its instruction to the Constitutional Convention was explicit "for the
sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation". Under
Article 13 of the Articles of Confederation, no revision was legally permitted
"unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and
be afterward confirmed by the Legislatures of every State."
Despite instructions and procedures, the Constitutional Convention, boycotted
by Rhode Island, illegally drafted a new constitution, which unconstitutionally
declared that ratification by only nine of the thirteen States was necessary for
adoption. Many of the Founding Fathers of the first republic, including
Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and George
Washington, were among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
They were making a habit of engaging in sedition.
Unlike the British Empire in 1776, the right of secession was recognized as a
constitutional right in the United States after 1789. The charges of "treason
and sedition" against the Confederate Battle Flag -- 1861 to 1865 -- are,
therefore, false. The right of secession from the second republic established
by the U.S. Constitution was explicitly asserted as a reserved right of the
States by Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island in their respective ratifications
of that document. The other States acknowledged secession as a
constitutional right when they accepted without any qualifications the
ratifications of Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island. The constitutional right of
a State to secede from the Union was taught at the United States Military
Academy at West Point. The books used were Views of the Constitution by
William Rawle, an abolitionist, and a friend of Franklin and Washington, which
expressly affirmed a State's right to secede and Commentaries on American
Law by James Kent, which implicitly acknowledged the reserved rights of the
States. Historically, the most zealous proponent of secession was
Massachusetts. Massachusetts, and other New England States, threatened to
secede from the United States in 1787, 1796, 1800, 1803, 1811, 1814, and
1845.
Under Abraham Lincoln, it was "the Stars and Stripes", not the Confederate
Battle Flag, that became the symbol of sedition in 1861. Lincoln overthrew the
second republic of the United States established by the U.S. Constitution when
he launched his war against the South. As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the
"Prize Cases, December 1862: "[Congress] cannot declare war against a State
or any number of States by virtue of any clause in the Constitution... [The
President] has no power to initiate or declare war against a foreign nation or a
domestic State…Several of these States have combined to form a new
Confederacy, claiming to be acknowledged by the world as a Sovereign State
… Their right to do so is now being decided by wager of Battle."
"The Stars and Stripes" was the symbol of a regime that made arbitrary
arrests, suspended habeas corpus, curtailed freedom of speech, press, and
assembly. The number of political prisoners has been estimated as high as
38,000. The Legislature of Maryland was overthrown by Lincoln's military. The
Chicago Times was among hundreds of Northern newspapers suppressed for
expressing "incorrect" views. As late as May 18, 1864, Lincoln was ordering his
military to "arrest and imprison…the editors, proprietors and publishers of the
New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce."
Now to the issue of slavery. "The Stars and Stripes" symbolizes a country that
was conceived and established as a slave republic. Boston's Faneuil Hall,
"Cradle of American Independence", had been built by money from the slave
trade. John Hancock of Massachusetts -- President of the Continental
Congress that issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 -- was,
himself, involved in the slave trade.
When the Declaration of Independence was signed, the institution of slavery
was legally sanctioned in all thirteen colonies. There were, in fact, twice as
many slaves in New York than in Georgia.
One of the grievances cited in the Declaration of Independence for the
thirteen colonies seceding from the British Empire was London's policy of
freeing the slaves. Or as the revolutionaries euphemistically phrased it -- "excit
[ing] domestic insurrection".
The defense of slavery opens and closes the American Revolution. Prior to
the Declaration of Independence, revolutionaries overthrew the Royal
Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, because of his proclamation of November
7, 1775 freeing any slave who would fight to defend the government of King
George III.
And in 1783 when the British army withdrew from an independent United
States, at least 18,000 slaves freed by the Crown joined the British exodus.
South Carolina lost as much as one-third of its black population.
During the war, itself, the revolutionaries allied themselves with two of the
largest slave empires -- France and Spain. In the latter case, "the Stars and
Stripes" allied itself with the Inquisition.
Under the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1789, slavery constituted the basis for
taxation and representation in the second republic. This new Constitution not
only legally recognized and protected the institution of slavery, but that of the
slave trade as well. The former was the South's peculiar institution; the latter
was the North's peculiar institution.
The U.S. Constitution recognized slavery in perpetuity unless the Constitution,
itself, was amended, while the existence of the slave trade was guaranteed for,
at least, twenty years. Northern States held a monopoly on the lucrative slave
trade. Therefore, when the slave trade to the United States was outlawed in
1808, the Northern slave ships, flying "the Stars and Stripes", simply smuggled
the slaves into the country. As late as December 1858, a New York City slave
ship smuggled several hundred slaves into Georgia. Under the protection of
"the Stars and Stripes", Northern slave ships sold slaves to Cuba and Brazil.
But, it will be argued by Northern whites that the United States, or at least the
Northern States, evolved. They became "free" States outlawing slavery, and,
thereby, converting "the Stars and Stripes" into a Northern symbol of
opposition to slavery and affirmation that "all men are created equal". Really?
What were the conditions of blacks in the Northern States of the United
States? Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: "[T]he prejudice of the race appears
stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where
slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will
not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every
Southern State…"
A number of Northern States, led by New Jersey, enacted laws forbidding free
blacks from residing in their "free" States. Massachusetts passed a law to flog
blacks that entered that State and remained there longer than two months. In
1853, the Constitution of Indiana declared that "no negro or mulatto shall
come into or settle in the state." That same year, Illinois, "Land of Lincoln",
passed a law "to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state". In
1862, while the Civil War was raging, the citizens of Illinois amended their State
constitution declaring: "No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this
state." In 1857, the Constitution of Oregon stated: "No free negro or mulatto,
not residing in this state at the time of adoption [of this constitution]… shall
come, reside, or be within this state."
Northern "free" States had already enacted laws disenfranchising their existing
free black populations. New Jersey initiated this policy in 1808, followed by
Connecticut in 1814, Rhode Island in 1822 and Pennsylvania 1838. By 1860,
only five of twenty-four Northern "free" States allowed free blacks to vote.
Immediately after the Civil War, laws to enfranchise blacks were rejected by
eight of those Northern States.
Then there was the lucrative Northern business of kidnapping free blacks
living in Northern "free" States and selling them into slavery. New York was a
major center of this activity.
Between July 13-16, 1863, shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, New York City
was the scene of one of the worst race riots in United States history, the
infamous "draft riots", in which an estimated one thousand blacks, possible
more, were murdered.
Northern whites will protest what about the Civil War? "The Stars and Stripes"
was the flag of freedom. The war was a war to end slavery and establish racial
equality throughout the United States. Really?
In his First Inaugural Address, on March 4, 1861, Lincoln reiterated his
position: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right
to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
On September 11, 1861, Lincoln countermanded General Fremont's order
freeing the slaves in Missouri. Eight months later, on May 19, 1862, he
countermanded General Hunter's order freeing the slaves in Georgia, Florida,
and South Carolina.
On August 14, 1862, Lincoln spoke to a delegation of blacks at the White
House on his proposal that blacks should leave the United States and colonize
some other land. His reason: "But even when you cease to be slaves, you are
yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race… It is
better for us both [black and white], therefore, to be separated… I suppose
one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored
man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it… This is (I speak in
no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case… If intelligent colored
men, such as are before me, would move in this matter, much might be
accomplished…The place I am thinking about for a colony is in Central
America".
A week later, in a letter to Horace Greeley dated August 22, 1862, Lincoln
wrote: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I
could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by
freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."
In his Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862, Lincoln urged
Congress to adopt constitutional amendments to postpone final emancipation
until January 1, 1900 and to ship "free colored persons, with their own
consent" out of the country.
On February 3, 1865, at the Hampton Roads Conference, Lincoln and
Secretary of State, William Seward, met official representatives of the
Confederate Government to discuss terms for ending the war. Lincoln
supported Seward's proposal that the Southern States quickly rejoin the Union
so that the 13th Amendment -- abolishing slavery -- then pending before
Congress could be voted down.
Northern whites will claim "the Stars and Stripes", nevertheless, became a
symbol of liberty when Lincoln issued his own "Emancipation Proclamation"
freeing the slaves. His Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave. It
applied only to those areas of the Confederacy still in rebel hands. As
Lincoln's own Secretary of State, William Seward, declared, with disgust, "We
show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot
reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." The
Emancipation Proclamation stated: "all persons held as slaves within any
State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in
rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, and forever
free". Under its terms, slavery remained legally intact in the slave States that
remained "loyal" to the Union -- Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri --
and in those portions of the Confederacy under Union occupation. When West
Virginia, through the intervention of an invading Union Army, seceded from
Virginia and was unconstitutionally admitted into the United States on June 20,
1863, six months after the final Emancipation Proclamation was issued, it
entered as a -- slave State.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a propaganda devise. As Lincoln
explained to a delegation of clergy on September 13, 1862, nine days before
his preliminary proclamation was issued: "I view this matter as a practical war
measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it
may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." Lincoln countermanded the
earlier emancipation proclamations issued by his Generals Fremont and
Hunter because he believed their decrees would increase Northern opposition
to his war. But with the demise of the Confederacy nowhere in sight, Lincoln
then decided to employ "emancipation" as a military necessity.
His Emancipation Proclamation sought two objectives. Internationally, it was to
dissuade the United Kingdom and France from recognizing the independence
of the Confederate States of America. As Lincoln explained, the proclamation:
"would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something
more than ambition." "Domestically", it was to incite slaves to murder
defenseless white women and children on the farms and in the cities of the
Confederacy, thereby, resulting in the disintegration of the Confederate
Armies as individual soldiers abandon the field to return home to save the lives
of their families. The Emancipation Proclamation was a call not for liberty, but
for a race war and genocide. Lincoln admitted this to those visiting clerics in
September 1862. He proclaimed: "I have a right to take any measure which
may best subdue the enemy; nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, in
view of possible consequences of insurrection and massacre at the South."
In issuing his Emancipation Proclamation as an incitement for slaves to
massacre Southern white women and children, Lincoln was continuing his
policy of deliberately violating international rules of war -- rules that had
evolved over the course of centuries to limit the scope of war's death and
destruction. "The Stars and Stripes", under Lincoln, became a symbol of total
war against the innocent. Food and medicine were declared to be contraband.
Women and children, the sick and the elderly were considered legitimate
targets of war.
Lincoln's policy was enunciated in "Instructions for the Government of Armies
of the United States in the Field" (General Orders, No. 100, 1863). Among the
acts declared to be lawful were subjecting Southern non-combatants to the
"hardships of war", starving Southern non-combatants, and bombarding
places housing Southern women and children.
In a letter dated January 31, 1864, General W.T. Sherman elaborated on how
all Southerners may be treated under these instructions. He wrote: "the
Government of the United States has…any and all rights which they may
choose to enforce war, to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their every
thing…to the petulant and persistent secessionist, why death is mercy, and the
quicker he or she is disposed of, the better". Six months later, June 21, 1864,
Sherman added Southern white children to that "class of people…who must be
killed or banished".
With this official license to kill and destroy, wanton destruction -- including
raping, pillaging, plundering, and arson on unprecedented scales -- was
unleashed upon Georgia and the Carolinas by General Sherman, upon the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by General Sheridan and upon the western
counties of Missouri by General Ewing.
Under Lincoln, "the Stars and Stripes" became a symbol of political
assassination as well. The instructions found on the body of Colonel Dahlgren
after he and many of his men were killed in their failed raid on Richmond,
March 3, 1864, revealed his mission was to assassinate President Jefferson
Davis and the entire Confederate cabinet.
But, back to the issue of slavery. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
declared all the slaves in areas of the Confederacy still in rebel hands "forever
free". But what happened to those "freed" slaves when they finally came under
the protection of "the Stars and Stripes"? They were told by the North they
could now "choose" their employers and that they must be "paid" for their
labor. But in reality, "freed" slaves were often re-enslaved by the North under
the fiction of a one-year work contract. Many slaves were forced to work on
plantations operated by Northerners, or Southerners who had taken the oath
of allegiance to the U.S. government. They could suffer a loss of pay or rations
for acts of laziness, disobedience or insolence. They were often required to
obtain a pass if they wished to leave the plantation. And they were subject to
provost marshals who were employed to insure that the "freed" slaves
displayed "faithful service, respectful deportment, correct discipline and
perfect subordination". Other slaves "freed" by Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation found themselves forced to build installations and fortifications
for the Union Army.
What of the approximately 180,000 blacks, mostly Southern slaves, who
rushed to join the Union army, Northern whites will ask? Did they not fight for
freedom under "the Stars and Stripes"? Did they?
In May 1862, Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Chase received this report:
"The negroes were sad…Sometimes whole plantations, learning what was
going on, ran off to the woods for refugee…This mode of [enlistment by]
violent seizure is repugnant."
In a communiqué to General Ulysses S. Grant, General John A. Logan noted:
"A major of colored troops is here with his party capturing negroes, with or
without their consent….They are being conscripted."
From Tennessee, General Rousseau to General Thomas: "Officers in
command of colored troops are in constant habit of pressing all able-bodied
slaves into the military service of the U.S."
From Virginia, 1864, General Innis N. Palmer to General Butler: "The negroes
will not go voluntarily, so I am obliged to force them…The matter of collecting
the colored men for laborers has been one of some difficulty…They must be
forced to go,…this may be considered a harsh measure, but…we must not
stop at trifles."
From South Carolina, August 16, 1864, General Hunter, (the same officer who
had earlier issued an emancipation order that was countermanded by Lincoln)
issued an order from the headquarters of the Department of the South at
Hilton Head declaring: "All able-bodied colored men between the ages of
eighteen and fifty within the lines of the Department of the South, who have
had an opportunity to enlist voluntarily and refused to do so, shall be drafted
into the military services of the United States, to serve as non-commissioned
officers and soldiers in the various regiments and batteries now being
organized in the Department."
From the Memoir of General W.T. Sherman; "When we reached Savannah we
were beset by ravenous State Agents from Hilton Head, South Carolina, who
enticed and carried away our servants and the corps of pioneers [i.e. laborers]
…On one occasion my own aide-de-camp…found at least a hundred poor
negroes shut up in a house and pen, waiting for night, to be conveyed
stealthily to Hilton Head. They appealed to him for protection alleging that they
had been told they must be soldiers...I knew that the State Agents were more
influenced by the profit they derived from the large bounties than by any love
of country or of the colored race."
As late as February 7, 1865, Lincoln wrote to Lieutenant-Colonel Glenn
operating in Kentucky, that "Complaint is made to me that you are forcing
negroes into the military service, and even torturing them".
This is the history of "the Stars and Stripes" those Northern whites who attack,
or condone the attack, upon the Confederate Battle Flag choose to ignore.
If as these Northern whites demand the Confederate Battle Flag should be
banned on the ground it is a symbol of a country which recognized slavery as
a legal institution, what of "the Stars and Stripes"? The Confederate States of
America existed for just four years. By the logic of their argument, "the Stars
and Stripes" must be banned because it, too, is a symbol of a country which
also recognized slavery as a legal institution. And not for four years, but for
eighty-five years prior to the birth of the Southern Confederacy -- and for more
than half a year after that Confederacy had been crushed.
Northern whites should not dismiss the idea that "the Stars and Stripes" could
be banned. In October 1996, in an article for The Atlantic Monthly, Conor
Cruise O'Brien, called for the removal of Thomas Jefferson from the pantheon
of American heroes because the author of the Declaration of Independence
was a "racist". That same month, in the Washington Times, Richard Grenier,
after comparing Jefferson to Nazi Gestapo chief, Heinrich Himmler, demanded
that the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC be demolished "stone by
stone". In November 1997, the black-controlled New Orleans school board had
George Washington's name removed from a local elementary school because
Washington was a slave owner.
Well, "the Stars and Stripes" was the flag of Washington and Jefferson. If
official recognition can be withdrawn from two of the Founding Fathers, why
not withdraw it from their flag as well? Such a demand, in fact, has already
been made. "The Stars and Stripes" was temporally removed from two
schoolrooms -- one in California, the other in Michigan -- in response to the
demand of Third World militants who claimed that the flag was a symbol of
"racism" and "oppression".
As Third World immigration undemocratically transforms the United States from
a European-American majority nation into a European-American minority
nation, the demand to ban "the Stars and Stripes" -- because it is a symbol of
"racism", "oppression", "white supremacy", "Eurocentrism", "exclusion",
"intolerance", etc. -- will grow.
If, or when, the "Stars and Stripes" is banned, Northern whites will have no one
to blame but themselves. For in their unjustified attack upon the Confederate
Battle Flag, they have provided the very arguments that most effectively
undermine the legitimacy of "the Stars and Stripes".
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Back
An Example of Northern White Hypocrisy
by Joseph E. Fallon
Those Northern whites who love "the Stars and Stripes" but attack, or condone
the attack, upon the Confederate Battle Flag are engaged in an act of self-
righteous hypocrisy that will come back to haunt them.
The Confederate Battle Flag is incorporated into the State Flags of both
Georgia and Mississippi, and was the inspiration for the designs of the State
Flags of Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida. In its own right, the Confederate
Battle Flag officially flies in an honorary position over the South Carolina
legislature below the U.S. and South Carolina flags.
Opponents of the Confederate Battle Flag allege it is a symbol of slavery,
treason, and sedition. They, therefore, demand it be expunged from the State
Flags and prohibited from being officially displayed.
Other writers have documented how the Southern soldiers who fought under
the Confederate Battle Flag did not fight to protect slavery -- there were fewer
than 350,000 slave owners in a population of more than 5 million whites -- but
to defend their families, homes, and States from a rapacious, invading army.
However, for argument's sake, let us agree that any flag associated with
slavery, treason, and sedition should be banned from being officially displayed
by the federal and State governments of the United States. When can we
expect the official banning of "the Stars and Stripes"?
A far more compelling case can be made against "the Stars and Stripes" as a
symbol of slavery, treason, and sedition than against the Confederate Battle
Flag.
Before examining slavery, the allegations of treason and sedition should first
be addressed. Treason is defined as an overt act in violation of the allegiance
one owes his sovereign or state such as levying war against it, or giving aid or
comfort to its enemies. Sedition is defined as incitement to commit acts for the
purpose of overthrowing one's government. The American Revolutionaries
were guilty of both crimes.
There was no legal right under British law for a colony to secede from the
British Empire. The actions of the American Revolutionaries -- from the Boston
Tea Party, to publishing pamphlets calling for independence, to convening the
Continental Congress, to taking up arms at Lexington and Concord -- were
treasonous and seditious. Their flag, "the Stars and Stripes", therefore, was a
symbol of treason and sedition. Patrick Henry was most candid when he
allegedly declared in his 1765 speech against the Stamp Act: "Caesar had his
Brutus -- Charles the First, his Cromwell -- and George the Third -- may profit
by their example. If this be treason, make the most of fit."
But there is more. The revolutionaries in 1776 represented a minority of the
population of the thirteen colonies -- perhaps as little as twenty percent. So
much for the American Revolution being a "popular" movement.
In many cases, to insure colonial legislatures enacted the "proper" laws, the
revolutionaries often expelled loyalist members. So much for the American
Revolution being a "democratic" movement.
Often, the revolutionaries simply established their own rival local governments.
This second tactic was styled "dual power" or "double sovereignty" by the
Bolsheviks who successfully employed it during the Russian Revolution. So
much for the American Revolution being a model for the emergence of
"democratic" governments elsewhere.
The revolutionaries rejected the British peace proposals of 1778, which, in
effect, would have conceded most of their demands. Instead, they pursued
their war against the United Kingdom with all its faults the most democratic
government in Europe. To win that war, the revolutionaries solicited the
support of France and Spain -- two of the most powerful, anti-democratic
regimes in Europe. So much for the American Revolution being a movement
motivated by the principle of "liberty".
After the success of the American Revolution with the political independence
of the United States officially recognized by London, "the Stars and Stripes"
became the symbol for what is now termed "ethnic cleansing". An estimated
one hundred thousand loyalists, colonists who had been faithful to the British
government during the American Revolution, were forced to flee the new
republic.
But "the Stars and Stripes" did not cease being a symbol of sedition even after
the United States achieved its independence in 1783. Six years later, the first
republic of the United States under the "Articles of Confederation and
Perpetual Union" was overthrown by the Constitutional Convention. The
legitimate government of the United States did not authorize a new
constitution. Its instruction to the Constitutional Convention was explicit "for the
sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation". Under
Article 13 of the Articles of Confederation, no revision was legally permitted
"unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and
be afterward confirmed by the Legislatures of every State."
Despite instructions and procedures, the Constitutional Convention, boycotted
by Rhode Island, illegally drafted a new constitution, which unconstitutionally
declared that ratification by only nine of the thirteen States was necessary for
adoption. Many of the Founding Fathers of the first republic, including
Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and George
Washington, were among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
They were making a habit of engaging in sedition.
Unlike the British Empire in 1776, the right of secession was recognized as a
constitutional right in the United States after 1789. The charges of "treason
and sedition" against the Confederate Battle Flag -- 1861 to 1865 -- are,
therefore, false. The right of secession from the second republic established
by the U.S. Constitution was explicitly asserted as a reserved right of the
States by Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island in their respective ratifications
of that document. The other States acknowledged secession as a
constitutional right when they accepted without any qualifications the
ratifications of Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island. The constitutional right of
a State to secede from the Union was taught at the United States Military
Academy at West Point. The books used were Views of the Constitution by
William Rawle, an abolitionist, and a friend of Franklin and Washington, which
expressly affirmed a State's right to secede and Commentaries on American
Law by James Kent, which implicitly acknowledged the reserved rights of the
States. Historically, the most zealous proponent of secession was
Massachusetts. Massachusetts, and other New England States, threatened to
secede from the United States in 1787, 1796, 1800, 1803, 1811, 1814, and
1845.
Under Abraham Lincoln, it was "the Stars and Stripes", not the Confederate
Battle Flag, that became the symbol of sedition in 1861. Lincoln overthrew the
second republic of the United States established by the U.S. Constitution when
he launched his war against the South. As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the
"Prize Cases, December 1862: "[Congress] cannot declare war against a State
or any number of States by virtue of any clause in the Constitution... [The
President] has no power to initiate or declare war against a foreign nation or a
domestic State…Several of these States have combined to form a new
Confederacy, claiming to be acknowledged by the world as a Sovereign State
… Their right to do so is now being decided by wager of Battle."
"The Stars and Stripes" was the symbol of a regime that made arbitrary
arrests, suspended habeas corpus, curtailed freedom of speech, press, and
assembly. The number of political prisoners has been estimated as high as
38,000. The Legislature of Maryland was overthrown by Lincoln's military. The
Chicago Times was among hundreds of Northern newspapers suppressed for
expressing "incorrect" views. As late as May 18, 1864, Lincoln was ordering his
military to "arrest and imprison…the editors, proprietors and publishers of the
New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce."
Now to the issue of slavery. "The Stars and Stripes" symbolizes a country that
was conceived and established as a slave republic. Boston's Faneuil Hall,
"Cradle of American Independence", had been built by money from the slave
trade. John Hancock of Massachusetts -- President of the Continental
Congress that issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 -- was,
himself, involved in the slave trade.
When the Declaration of Independence was signed, the institution of slavery
was legally sanctioned in all thirteen colonies. There were, in fact, twice as
many slaves in New York than in Georgia.
One of the grievances cited in the Declaration of Independence for the
thirteen colonies seceding from the British Empire was London's policy of
freeing the slaves. Or as the revolutionaries euphemistically phrased it -- "excit
[ing] domestic insurrection".
The defense of slavery opens and closes the American Revolution. Prior to
the Declaration of Independence, revolutionaries overthrew the Royal
Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, because of his proclamation of November
7, 1775 freeing any slave who would fight to defend the government of King
George III.
And in 1783 when the British army withdrew from an independent United
States, at least 18,000 slaves freed by the Crown joined the British exodus.
South Carolina lost as much as one-third of its black population.
During the war, itself, the revolutionaries allied themselves with two of the
largest slave empires -- France and Spain. In the latter case, "the Stars and
Stripes" allied itself with the Inquisition.
Under the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1789, slavery constituted the basis for
taxation and representation in the second republic. This new Constitution not
only legally recognized and protected the institution of slavery, but that of the
slave trade as well. The former was the South's peculiar institution; the latter
was the North's peculiar institution.
The U.S. Constitution recognized slavery in perpetuity unless the Constitution,
itself, was amended, while the existence of the slave trade was guaranteed for,
at least, twenty years. Northern States held a monopoly on the lucrative slave
trade. Therefore, when the slave trade to the United States was outlawed in
1808, the Northern slave ships, flying "the Stars and Stripes", simply smuggled
the slaves into the country. As late as December 1858, a New York City slave
ship smuggled several hundred slaves into Georgia. Under the protection of
"the Stars and Stripes", Northern slave ships sold slaves to Cuba and Brazil.
But, it will be argued by Northern whites that the United States, or at least the
Northern States, evolved. They became "free" States outlawing slavery, and,
thereby, converting "the Stars and Stripes" into a Northern symbol of
opposition to slavery and affirmation that "all men are created equal". Really?
What were the conditions of blacks in the Northern States of the United
States? Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: "[T]he prejudice of the race appears
stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where
slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers, and white painters will
not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every
Southern State…"
A number of Northern States, led by New Jersey, enacted laws forbidding free
blacks from residing in their "free" States. Massachusetts passed a law to flog
blacks that entered that State and remained there longer than two months. In
1853, the Constitution of Indiana declared that "no negro or mulatto shall
come into or settle in the state." That same year, Illinois, "Land of Lincoln",
passed a law "to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state". In
1862, while the Civil War was raging, the citizens of Illinois amended their State
constitution declaring: "No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this
state." In 1857, the Constitution of Oregon stated: "No free negro or mulatto,
not residing in this state at the time of adoption [of this constitution]… shall
come, reside, or be within this state."
Northern "free" States had already enacted laws disenfranchising their existing
free black populations. New Jersey initiated this policy in 1808, followed by
Connecticut in 1814, Rhode Island in 1822 and Pennsylvania 1838. By 1860,
only five of twenty-four Northern "free" States allowed free blacks to vote.
Immediately after the Civil War, laws to enfranchise blacks were rejected by
eight of those Northern States.
Then there was the lucrative Northern business of kidnapping free blacks
living in Northern "free" States and selling them into slavery. New York was a
major center of this activity.
Between July 13-16, 1863, shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, New York City
was the scene of one of the worst race riots in United States history, the
infamous "draft riots", in which an estimated one thousand blacks, possible
more, were murdered.
Northern whites will protest what about the Civil War? "The Stars and Stripes"
was the flag of freedom. The war was a war to end slavery and establish racial
equality throughout the United States. Really?
In his First Inaugural Address, on March 4, 1861, Lincoln reiterated his
position: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right
to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
On September 11, 1861, Lincoln countermanded General Fremont's order
freeing the slaves in Missouri. Eight months later, on May 19, 1862, he
countermanded General Hunter's order freeing the slaves in Georgia, Florida,
and South Carolina.
On August 14, 1862, Lincoln spoke to a delegation of blacks at the White
House on his proposal that blacks should leave the United States and colonize
some other land. His reason: "But even when you cease to be slaves, you are
yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race… It is
better for us both [black and white], therefore, to be separated… I suppose
one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored
man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it… This is (I speak in
no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case… If intelligent colored
men, such as are before me, would move in this matter, much might be
accomplished…The place I am thinking about for a colony is in Central
America".
A week later, in a letter to Horace Greeley dated August 22, 1862, Lincoln
wrote: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I
could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by
freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."
In his Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862, Lincoln urged
Congress to adopt constitutional amendments to postpone final emancipation
until January 1, 1900 and to ship "free colored persons, with their own
consent" out of the country.
On February 3, 1865, at the Hampton Roads Conference, Lincoln and
Secretary of State, William Seward, met official representatives of the
Confederate Government to discuss terms for ending the war. Lincoln
supported Seward's proposal that the Southern States quickly rejoin the Union
so that the 13th Amendment -- abolishing slavery -- then pending before
Congress could be voted down.
Northern whites will claim "the Stars and Stripes", nevertheless, became a
symbol of liberty when Lincoln issued his own "Emancipation Proclamation"
freeing the slaves. His Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave. It
applied only to those areas of the Confederacy still in rebel hands. As
Lincoln's own Secretary of State, William Seward, declared, with disgust, "We
show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot
reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." The
Emancipation Proclamation stated: "all persons held as slaves within any
State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in
rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, and forever
free". Under its terms, slavery remained legally intact in the slave States that
remained "loyal" to the Union -- Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri --
and in those portions of the Confederacy under Union occupation. When West
Virginia, through the intervention of an invading Union Army, seceded from
Virginia and was unconstitutionally admitted into the United States on June 20,
1863, six months after the final Emancipation Proclamation was issued, it
entered as a -- slave State.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a propaganda devise. As Lincoln
explained to a delegation of clergy on September 13, 1862, nine days before
his preliminary proclamation was issued: "I view this matter as a practical war
measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it
may offer to the suppression of the rebellion." Lincoln countermanded the
earlier emancipation proclamations issued by his Generals Fremont and
Hunter because he believed their decrees would increase Northern opposition
to his war. But with the demise of the Confederacy nowhere in sight, Lincoln
then decided to employ "emancipation" as a military necessity.
His Emancipation Proclamation sought two objectives. Internationally, it was to
dissuade the United Kingdom and France from recognizing the independence
of the Confederate States of America. As Lincoln explained, the proclamation:
"would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something
more than ambition." "Domestically", it was to incite slaves to murder
defenseless white women and children on the farms and in the cities of the
Confederacy, thereby, resulting in the disintegration of the Confederate
Armies as individual soldiers abandon the field to return home to save the lives
of their families. The Emancipation Proclamation was a call not for liberty, but
for a race war and genocide. Lincoln admitted this to those visiting clerics in
September 1862. He proclaimed: "I have a right to take any measure which
may best subdue the enemy; nor do I urge objections of a moral nature, in
view of possible consequences of insurrection and massacre at the South."
In issuing his Emancipation Proclamation as an incitement for slaves to
massacre Southern white women and children, Lincoln was continuing his
policy of deliberately violating international rules of war -- rules that had
evolved over the course of centuries to limit the scope of war's death and
destruction. "The Stars and Stripes", under Lincoln, became a symbol of total
war against the innocent. Food and medicine were declared to be contraband.
Women and children, the sick and the elderly were considered legitimate
targets of war.
Lincoln's policy was enunciated in "Instructions for the Government of Armies
of the United States in the Field" (General Orders, No. 100, 1863). Among the
acts declared to be lawful were subjecting Southern non-combatants to the
"hardships of war", starving Southern non-combatants, and bombarding
places housing Southern women and children.
In a letter dated January 31, 1864, General W.T. Sherman elaborated on how
all Southerners may be treated under these instructions. He wrote: "the
Government of the United States has…any and all rights which they may
choose to enforce war, to take their lives, their homes, their lands, their every
thing…to the petulant and persistent secessionist, why death is mercy, and the
quicker he or she is disposed of, the better". Six months later, June 21, 1864,
Sherman added Southern white children to that "class of people…who must be
killed or banished".
With this official license to kill and destroy, wanton destruction -- including
raping, pillaging, plundering, and arson on unprecedented scales -- was
unleashed upon Georgia and the Carolinas by General Sherman, upon the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by General Sheridan and upon the western
counties of Missouri by General Ewing.
Under Lincoln, "the Stars and Stripes" became a symbol of political
assassination as well. The instructions found on the body of Colonel Dahlgren
after he and many of his men were killed in their failed raid on Richmond,
March 3, 1864, revealed his mission was to assassinate President Jefferson
Davis and the entire Confederate cabinet.
But, back to the issue of slavery. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
declared all the slaves in areas of the Confederacy still in rebel hands "forever
free". But what happened to those "freed" slaves when they finally came under
the protection of "the Stars and Stripes"? They were told by the North they
could now "choose" their employers and that they must be "paid" for their
labor. But in reality, "freed" slaves were often re-enslaved by the North under
the fiction of a one-year work contract. Many slaves were forced to work on
plantations operated by Northerners, or Southerners who had taken the oath
of allegiance to the U.S. government. They could suffer a loss of pay or rations
for acts of laziness, disobedience or insolence. They were often required to
obtain a pass if they wished to leave the plantation. And they were subject to
provost marshals who were employed to insure that the "freed" slaves
displayed "faithful service, respectful deportment, correct discipline and
perfect subordination". Other slaves "freed" by Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation found themselves forced to build installations and fortifications
for the Union Army.
What of the approximately 180,000 blacks, mostly Southern slaves, who
rushed to join the Union army, Northern whites will ask? Did they not fight for
freedom under "the Stars and Stripes"? Did they?
In May 1862, Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Chase received this report:
"The negroes were sad…Sometimes whole plantations, learning what was
going on, ran off to the woods for refugee…This mode of [enlistment by]
violent seizure is repugnant."
In a communiqué to General Ulysses S. Grant, General John A. Logan noted:
"A major of colored troops is here with his party capturing negroes, with or
without their consent….They are being conscripted."
From Tennessee, General Rousseau to General Thomas: "Officers in
command of colored troops are in constant habit of pressing all able-bodied
slaves into the military service of the U.S."
From Virginia, 1864, General Innis N. Palmer to General Butler: "The negroes
will not go voluntarily, so I am obliged to force them…The matter of collecting
the colored men for laborers has been one of some difficulty…They must be
forced to go,…this may be considered a harsh measure, but…we must not
stop at trifles."
From South Carolina, August 16, 1864, General Hunter, (the same officer who
had earlier issued an emancipation order that was countermanded by Lincoln)
issued an order from the headquarters of the Department of the South at
Hilton Head declaring: "All able-bodied colored men between the ages of
eighteen and fifty within the lines of the Department of the South, who have
had an opportunity to enlist voluntarily and refused to do so, shall be drafted
into the military services of the United States, to serve as non-commissioned
officers and soldiers in the various regiments and batteries now being
organized in the Department."
From the Memoir of General W.T. Sherman; "When we reached Savannah we
were beset by ravenous State Agents from Hilton Head, South Carolina, who
enticed and carried away our servants and the corps of pioneers [i.e. laborers]
…On one occasion my own aide-de-camp…found at least a hundred poor
negroes shut up in a house and pen, waiting for night, to be conveyed
stealthily to Hilton Head. They appealed to him for protection alleging that they
had been told they must be soldiers...I knew that the State Agents were more
influenced by the profit they derived from the large bounties than by any love
of country or of the colored race."
As late as February 7, 1865, Lincoln wrote to Lieutenant-Colonel Glenn
operating in Kentucky, that "Complaint is made to me that you are forcing
negroes into the military service, and even torturing them".
This is the history of "the Stars and Stripes" those Northern whites who attack,
or condone the attack, upon the Confederate Battle Flag choose to ignore.
If as these Northern whites demand the Confederate Battle Flag should be
banned on the ground it is a symbol of a country which recognized slavery as
a legal institution, what of "the Stars and Stripes"? The Confederate States of
America existed for just four years. By the logic of their argument, "the Stars
and Stripes" must be banned because it, too, is a symbol of a country which
also recognized slavery as a legal institution. And not for four years, but for
eighty-five years prior to the birth of the Southern Confederacy -- and for more
than half a year after that Confederacy had been crushed.
Northern whites should not dismiss the idea that "the Stars and Stripes" could
be banned. In October 1996, in an article for The Atlantic Monthly, Conor
Cruise O'Brien, called for the removal of Thomas Jefferson from the pantheon
of American heroes because the author of the Declaration of Independence
was a "racist". That same month, in the Washington Times, Richard Grenier,
after comparing Jefferson to Nazi Gestapo chief, Heinrich Himmler, demanded
that the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC be demolished "stone by
stone". In November 1997, the black-controlled New Orleans school board had
George Washington's name removed from a local elementary school because
Washington was a slave owner.
Well, "the Stars and Stripes" was the flag of Washington and Jefferson. If
official recognition can be withdrawn from two of the Founding Fathers, why
not withdraw it from their flag as well? Such a demand, in fact, has already
been made. "The Stars and Stripes" was temporally removed from two
schoolrooms -- one in California, the other in Michigan -- in response to the
demand of Third World militants who claimed that the flag was a symbol of
"racism" and "oppression".
As Third World immigration undemocratically transforms the United States from
a European-American majority nation into a European-American minority
nation, the demand to ban "the Stars and Stripes" -- because it is a symbol of
"racism", "oppression", "white supremacy", "Eurocentrism", "exclusion",
"intolerance", etc. -- will grow.
If, or when, the "Stars and Stripes" is banned, Northern whites will have no one
to blame but themselves. For in their unjustified attack upon the Confederate
Battle Flag, they have provided the very arguments that most effectively
undermine the legitimacy of "the Stars and Stripes".
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