Restricted Confederate Flag Proposals

Brendan

Corporal
Joined
Aug 11, 2008
Location
Colorado
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A couple Confederate flag proposals recorded in a 1917 book published by the National Geographic Society provide a fascinating look into the Secessionist mindset of the 1860s:

...Jan. 2, 1862, a Richmond correspondent wrote in the Charleston Mercury:
"Quite a number of new fangled flags are exhibited in the windows of the Despatch office at Richmond. The latest, which is gotten up with great care and neatness, represents in tri-colors, three equal horizontal bars; lower black, middle purple, upper white with stars in it. The black bar is designed to notify mankind that the confederacy sprung from black republicanism. Hah! how would a buzzard sitting on a cotton bale with a chew of tobacco in his mouth a little n*** in one claw, and a palmetto tree, answer? Nothing could be more thoroughly and comprehensively southern."...

March 6, 1862. The Charleston (South Carolina), Mercury proposed a flag, divided diagonally (see plate ix), half white and half black, and argued: " It is unlike the ensign of any other nation and especially unlike that of the Yankee nation. Those that imagine a flag should be symbolical will find in the colors of this one, white and black, an obvious significance. Such a standard would typify our faith in the peculiar institution, and be an enduring mark of our resolve to retain that institution while we exist as a free and independent people. For maritime uses this proposed flag, although it discards the everlasting Yankee stars, and the worn out combinations of red, white and blue, would be distinguishable at as great a distance as any other that can be devised."
What I did not realize, however (how have I missed this??), is that William T. Thompson's rationale for the official design of the second national flag ("The Stainless Banner") was itself overtly ****:

"Our idea is simply to combine the present battle flag with a pure white standard sheet; our southern cross, blue, on a red field, to take the place on the white flag that is occupied by the blue union in the old United States flag or the St. George's cross in the British flag. As a people, we are fighting to maintain the heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause."
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Source: https://archive.org/details/ourflagnumberwit00nati
 
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