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Nikki Haley, South Carolina Governor, Calls for Removal of Confederate Battle Flag

By FRANCES ROBLES and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑAJUNE 22, 2015
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Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, surrounded by lawmakers and activists, called for the Confederate flag be removed from the State Capitol grounds. Credit Joe Raedle/Getty Images


COLUMBIA, S.C. — Flanked by a bipartisan group that included both of her state’s United States senators, Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina on Monday called for removal of a Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol grounds, taking sides on a symbol embraced by the white man accused of killing nine black people last week.

Some in the state will continue to fly the flag on private property, as they have every right to do, “but the State House is different, and the events of this past week call upon us to look at this in a different way,” Ms. Haley said at the State Capitol. “We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer. The fact that people are choosing to use it as a sign of hate is something we cannot stand.”

The governor spoke shortly after the White House announced that President Obama would travel to Charleston on Friday to memorialize the church shooting victims.
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The last time South Carolina lawmakers waged a serious fight over the flag, in 2000, it was seen as a partisan and ideological issue, with conservatives and Republicans generally defending the flag as a symbol of the state’s history. Yet on Monday, the governor stood with a group of politicians and community leaders that included Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, and Representative Mark Sanford, the previous governor — all, like Ms. Haley, self-identified conservative Republicans. ... "

TPFKA@W wrote:If you give it a bit of thought, the British flag is the standard for racism and certainly imperialism, perhaps it should be heaped on the fire with the stars and bars. Of course our own red, white and blue is tainted with a history of treason, and since we slaughtered the indigenous people as the country was established, it too must be burned for the sins it represents.

This is going to be a fabulous fire, let me get my weenie fork.

Sue U wrote:

TPFKA@W wrote:If you give it a bit of thought, the British flag is the standard for racism and certainly imperialism, perhaps it should be heaped on the fire with the stars and bars. Of course our own red, white and blue is tainted with a history of treason, and since we slaughtered the indigenous people as the country was established, it too must be burned for the sins it represents.

This is going to be a fabulous fire, let me get my weenie fork.

Actually, if you give it a bit of thought, we do not fly the British flag from or in front of our government buildings, regardless of our "heritage" as British colonies; we fought a war of liberation to throw off the yoke of British imperialism. The history of the Stars and Stripes may not be immaculate, but it is the symbol of our united country and our national government. The Confederate Battle Flag was at best a symbol of insurrection and war against the United States -- the symbol of another country that attacked us and lost -- which was revived in the mid-20th Century as a symbol of "massive resistance" to the dismantling of Jim Crow and segregationist policies in the wake of the civil rights movement.

It is altogether fitting and proper that the Stars and Bars be relegated to museums as a sad relic of a society that would hold one "race" to be superior to another, and on that basis justify enslavement and discrimination. It is anathema to the fundamental principles of our nation and to American values.

As for Nikki Haley, it's hardly a "bold move," considering that removing the flag is the Legislature's decision, not hers, and she risks absolutely nothing by coming out against a symbol of racism. About as bold as siding with "mom and apple pie."

TPFKA@W wrote:I notice you didn't mention the slaughter our own red, white and blue represents. When I think of it flying over every state capitol and what it symbolizes for native Americans, and as it flies over Hawaii, what pain does it cause? How should we right that?

But what might be the most absurd part of this neo-Confederate “heritage” romanticism is that its advocates are simply glorifying treason.

Remember that time South Carolina attacked Fort Sumter? That’s the literal definition of treason. And I quote Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Not exactly abstract legalese that requires a ton of parsing.

The states that seceded to become the Confederacy were actively engaged in open war against the United States government. A war they started because of the election of a man they deemed “hostile to slavery.” A war they fought to maintain the “heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race.” A war they lost.

But it was a war based on a fundamental social conflict that is still not resolved and simmers under the zeitgeist, rearing its ugly head every so often to remind us it hasn’t gone anywhere. It was not resolved in 1865, not in 1965, and sadly, not in 2015.

The “heritage” of the Confederacy, the enduring belief in Lost Cause romanticism, the invention and adoption of revisionist “traditions” and culture, has become society’s Old Faithful: a cultural geyser that periodically lets off steam; a spectacle at which we ogle and wax poetic about the fragility of our condition. But one day it’ll explode and it’ll be a catastrophe from which we might not recover.

The tragedy of America is that this is all self-inflicted. This trajectory to self-destruction doesn’t have to be the outcome. As Jon Stewart so eloquently pointed out, “al Qaeda… ISIS… they’re not shit on the damage we can apparently do to ourselves on a regular basis.”

The troglodyte that murdered those people in South Carolina wanted to fire the opening shots in a new race war. He is a Confederate in every sense of the word: he is a white supremacist; he is a mass murderer; he is a terrorist; he is a traitor.

The worst part is that he is not some aberration. Oh, we want to comfort and assure ourselves that he is, that he has some mental issue, or that he’s evil, or some other easy excuse that absolves us all of responsibility.

Is that second picture there a recent one?

WHENEVER Abraham Lincoln felt the urge to tell someone off, he would compose what he called a “hot letter.” He’d pile all of his anger into a note, “put it aside until his emotions cooled down,” Doris Kearns Goodwin once explained on NPR, “and then write: ‘Never sent. Never signed.’ ” Which meant that Gen. George G. Meade, for one, would never hear from his commander in chief that Lincoln blamed him for letting Robert E. Lee escape after Gettysburg....

Executive Mansion,
Washington, July 14, 1863.

Major General Meade

I have just seen your despatch to Gen. Halleck, asking to be relieved of your command, because of a supposed censure of mine. I am very--very--grateful to you for the magnificent success you gave the cause of the country at Gettysburg; and I am sorry now to be the author of the slightest pain to you.

But I was in such deep distress myself that I could not restrain some expression of it. I had been oppressed nearly ever since the battles at Gettysburg, by what appeared to be evidences that yourself, and Gen. Couch, and Gen. Smith, were not seeking a collision with the enemy, but were trying to get him across the river without another battle. What these evidences were, if you please, I hope to tell you at some time, when we shall both feel better.

The case, summarily stated is this. You fought and beat the enemy at Gettysburg; and, of course, to say the least, his loss was as great as yours. He retreated; and you did not, as it seemed to me, pressingly pursue him; but a flood in the river detained him, till, by slow degrees, you were again upon him.

You had at least twenty thousand veteran troops directly with you, and as many more raw ones within supporting distance, all in addition to those who fought with you at Gettysburg; while it was not possible that he had received a single recruit; and yet you stood and let the flood run down, bridges be built, and the enemy move away at his leisure, without attacking him.

And Couch and Smith! The latter left Carlisle in time, upon all ordinary calculation, to have aided you in the last battle at Gettysburg; but he did not arrive. At the end of more than ten days, I believe twelve, under constant urging, he reached Hagerstown from Carlisle, which is not an inch over fiftyfive miles, if so much. And Couch's movement was very little different.

Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely.

If you could not safely attack Lee last monday, how can you possibly do so South of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.

I beg you will not consider this a prosecution, or persecution of yourself As you had learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to kindly tell you why.

Abraham Lincoln

Lord Jim wrote:I only checked out this thread because I saw that @W had posted...

I find her points well made and well taken...

I'm not going to get into a lengthy discussion about the absurdity of accusing people of "treason" for fighting for States that left the Union when there was no Constitutional prohibition against them doing so...

I could do so at length, but frankly I'd rather have another colonoscopy than go through that again...

The facts are these:

It is impossible to commit "treason" when one is not a part of the nation that one is accused of committing "treason" against...

When Fort Sumter was fired upon, it was fired upon because it was seen as part of an occupying army on foreign soil...

The citizens of South Carolina were no longer citizens of "The United States"...

The same is true of all the States that joined The Confederacy...

You cannot "betray" a country you are no longer a part of...

The description of them as "traitors" is a revisionist lie...

They were wrong headed, and misguided perhaps, but not "traitors"...

(As I have said before I am very glad that The South did not prevail in "The late Unpleasantness"...)

One must look at the events from the perspective of the times...

And it should also be noted that Northerners were not much less racist than Southerners were at the time...

Even amongst Northern Abolitionists of the time, who believed ( primarily for religious reasons) that slavery was "morally" wrong, very few of them believed that the "African Negro" was the moral or intellectual equal of "the white man"....

See Texas v. White, 1869,

1. Treason.

It isn't a surprise that treason is defined in the Constitution, as the Founders likely wanted to know how our fledgling nation would deal with enemies within its borders.

Article III Section 3 defines treason as:
•Levying war against the United States,
•Adhering to the nation's enemies, or
•Giving our nation's enemies aid and comfort.