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Subscribe to RSSCOLUMBIA, S.C. –Texas Gov. Rick Perry said last week he opposed allowing specialty license plates, featuring the Confederate battle flag in his home state, saying, “We don’t need to be opening old wounds.”
Those words resonate in this crucial primary state, where public placement of the flag remains a controversial issue. But when it comes to politics here, some South Carolinians on both sides of the issue agree with Perry that those wounds, however fresh, should be left alone.
The flag issue came to a head here in July 2000 when, after protracted legislative debate, it was moved from the statehouse dome, its perch since 1962, to a monument just in front of the capital. (The NAACP has upheld an economic boycott of South Carolina tourism since 1999 due to the flag’s presence on statehouse grounds).
That debate coincided with the presidential race here, during which Sen. John McCain changed his opinion of the flag several times before ultimately calling for its removal from the statehouse after he lost the primary to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
But now, even though the Confederate flag still has proponents in the South Carolina statehouse, some of them say Perry’s opposition to the Texas license plates shouldn’t be an issue here during the 2012 primary.
“It’s last Century’s battle. Let’s move forward,” said Republican state Sen. John Courson, a flag supporter, who wrote the 1994 Heritage Act, a compromise proposal to relocate the flag, which would later form the basis of the 2000 compromise.
“The Heritage Act debate was long, very emotional on both sides, and I just don’t think people want to revisit anything like that,” added Courson, who endorsed Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman for the Republican nomination.
Democratic state Sen. Robert Ford, who opposed the flag but worked on the 2000 compromise, noted that the state just kicked off a five-year commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
“Nobody’s even talking about the Confederacy in that light anymore. Not since the celebration started,” said Ford, who is African-American and earlier this year urged other African-Americans to participate in the anniversary events.
“You just don’t add fuel to the fire that’s not even burning,” he added.
While Perry opposes the license plates, he has previously defended the historical value of Confederate symbols. In March 2000 (one month before South Carolina legislators voted to move the flag here) Perry, then Texas lieutenant governor, opposed NAACP-led efforts to remove plaques with Confederate symbols from a state Supreme Court building in Austin.
According to the Associated Press, Perry wrote a letter to the Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans, who supported the plaques. “Although this is an emotional issue, I want you to know that I oppose efforts to remove Confederate monuments, plaques, and memorials from public property,” he wrote.
Perry campaign spokesman Ray Sullivan said that while the plaques have been in the state building for decades, “The license plates have not been approved or implemented. There's a difference between removing decades old plaques and approving new license plates,” Sullivan said in an email to NBC News.
Proceeds from the sale of the proposed license plates, which first needs approval from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, would go to the Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans and be used to erect Confederate monuments after the group has recouped expenses, according to the Washington Post.
Regarding Perry’s positions on the license plates and plaques, South Carolina political strategist Chip Felkel noted that nationally, the Confederate flag carries a bigger political stigma than among Southern states.
“Even people who are staunch supporters of the Confederate battle flag or license plates also recognize the political minefield that that issue represents for a national candidate,” Felkel said.
But the leader of the South Carolina branch of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (which has its own license plate here) said he is not convinced by the argument of political expediency.
“Those who want to take safe positions when it’s politically correct these days to distance themselves from the Confederate flag, the voters themselves will figure it out,” said Mark Simpson, the group’s commander.
South Carolina NAACP president Lonnie Randolph suggested that while Perry’s shift may have been politically motivated, he believed it was a positive change.
“With him supporting [Confederate plaques] at the Supreme Court, but now not supporting license plates, that tells me that maybe he didn’t think he would be running for president one day,” Randolph said, adding, “He understands that if you want to be president, you should want to be a president of all the people, not just of some people.”
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Psst: Ali - there is a great article on Corzine using his political influence to skate on Obama's regulations in the Grey lady.
Might be an interesting read for you.
And remember - Lean Forward, cause Corzine just bent Obama over.
LOL!
HOW TRUE!
And what, pray tell, does that have to do with this article? Go back to your sainted fake news sponsored by the Koch brothers and Murdoch. If you want to discuss this article, do so.
Koch sponsors the New York Times?
Who knew.
But therein lies the rub for the 'Lean Forward' gang - this here was Obama's "guy" using his poltical influence over the democrat regulators for personal gain.
You know - everything that Obama has been railing against.
Classic, right phinehancy?
Why I bet you read and rely on the Grey Lady. Kinda the opposite of Fox, so you'll need to come up with a different argument.
But I do so enjoy that was allyou could come up with. I bet you didn't even give it a thought, right?
Yo! pp...
Are you THAT slow? Spanky's point is that there is certainly stuff going on that is more WORTHY of discussion that this.
But then, the libbies here at FR wouldn't want to focus on anything that my not look good for Pres. Yomama now would they!
Um, guess you told me. Just because it is still a big deal in the south, and Perry is a southern governor, and that was what this article was about, just made since to talk about it. Guess looking for a resonable discussion on the aritcle presented was too much for you.
WOW! I guess you really are that slow.
Even when I spell it out you just don't get.
I won't waste my time anymore... you are obviously hopeless.
(Perhaps the folks at FR are not so hopeless and will take notice of the commentary that we make in requesting more relevant stories... stories that focus on the bigger issue facing our nation. You know... some real investigative stuff.)
Everybody should know how much the stupid people of South Carolina loves the Confederate flag and what it means for them. The Confederate flag was flying high in the Senate until a DEMOCRAT Governor, JIm Hodges, took it down in 2000.
The only reason that the Republican Governor LOST in South Carolina, David Beasly, was because he advocated to bring the stupid flag down. Many people there keep the flag as a symbol of white supremacy, and they are lying if they tell you that they do it because it is "Southern Heritage"
"Heritage" my A****. The Senators De Mint and Graham just rejected many billions of dollars from the Government to help re-vamp the unemployment. All because of their hate for Obama. Never mind the 17,000 jobs that were lost in a State where unemployment ranks 3rd. in the nation.
South Carolina SUCKS.
As every schoolboy knows, it was the DEMOCRATS who put the flag on the statehouse in the first place and a DEMOCRAT Gov (Fritz Hollings) had no problem with it when it went up in 1961 (not 1962) at the start of the Civil War Centennial which South Carolina was commemorating like the rest of the country.
With all the 'other' things going on in our country and the world as a whole.... how is THIS even worth a mention?
Well, I guess if your objective is to stoke the fires of hatred and racism... this is work a look... otherwise... not so much.
(Come on FR... at least try to hide it!)
Yes, this really is an issue as it keeps coming up in state legislatures in the south. And you are correct, it does stoke the fires. But, to bury your head in the sand and think it isn't important to an entire region of this country, go for it.
It is the symbol of a government that copied the Constitution of the United States word for word but for one clause. It expressly encouraged slavery in the Confederat States of America. Thank God this ill conceived experiment failed.
I can understand (I live in the south), folks not wanting to lose their history. That being said, most of the time, people wanting to display the confederate battle flag are doing so for all the wrong reasons (can we say white supremist). And we are no longer a society that stays in one area for a lifetime. People move from place to place, and the display of this is highly offensive to some who move here.
You dork!
If you knew ANYTHING about history you would know that the Civil War was only slavery because Lincoln MADE it about slavery to try to gain support and recruits because early on his forces were LOOSING!
The war was actually about the rights of the states to govern themselves. STATES RIGHTS! THAT is what the war was REALLY about.
Don't believe me... do a little research for once and you will learn that Lincoln wasn't even sure that he would end slavery when the war ended. For the longest time it was 'undecided' as to whether or not the slaves would be freed.
So don't gimme that uneducated BS about how offended you are by that flag.
Look, I know what the war was about. Don't give me your superiority crap. My comment was about how many who live here feel. And how others view the flag today. Get it, TODAY. This isn't a history lesson on states rights (BTW the states rights they were after was to keep slavery). It was also about the differences in society, the arrogant, yankee, big city folks against the rural communities of the south. It was about the different outlook of what we thought the union was supposed to be. So cut your crap. I am so very tired of jerks like you.
Mission Accomplished!
(By the way... that is not very gentlemanly or lady-like... for a southerner)
Sick, you need to read a book called, "Apostles of Disunion." In it, there is lots of documented evidence that before the war the state of South Carolina sent representatives to southern states to encourage seccession in order to preserve slavery. The one and only "states' right" they were discussing was slavery. Stop waving the bloody shirt. If you knew Civil War history, you would know what that means, and join the 21st century.
What is it with southerners and their re-enacting a war that they lost every other weekend, are they going to win it one of these times?
Yeah Forrest - kinda reminds me of harry reid.
He just keeps putting up the crappy Jobs bill. Over and over, same result.
Insane, right?
No Forrest, they won't. I think our problem is not really the outcome of the war, but the reconstruction that happened afterward. It left a lot of bad blood that, unfortunately, still lives. I know it makes no sense, but, that is my take on it.
Grump,
as usual you are off the mark.
My ancestor fought and died in the Civil war, and it is important to honor his sacrifice and remember our history.
Many Northerners participate in historical re enactments of the Civil War also.
My ancestor was an abolitionist, and he died to make other men free, in the cause of freedom.
That doesn mean one should disparage those whose Southern ancestors, also Americans, fought in this struggle.
A point to also remember is the fact it was the poor man of the south fighting. Ones who didn't even own a slave. And those memories, and what happened afterward, makes it hard. Southerners are a proud people. And to be mocked and but down just keeps everything alive.
We don't seem to re-enact any of the other wars we were in, it is the frequency of the re-enactments I find a little strange, I could see a yearly thing, and I don't see how the war or Reconstruction still affects people 150 years later.
Unfortunately, if you go into the rural areas of the south, you will find that generation after generation still talks about the "yankee carpetbagger". And it doesn't help that today, northerners will move down here and take over and mock southern traditions.
@ Forrest
REALLY? Maybe you should chat with phinephancy... sounds like he/she is GREATLY affected by it.
With talk like that it sounds like you would be defending the right to display the Confederate flag. (Are you sure what you stand for on this? Cuz you seem to be flip flopping a bit ;-)
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Perhaps you should talk to some of the libby posters here at FR... they were railing on Haley Barbour the other day... nasty names that they were calling him.
Sorry... my second comment in the post above is about this comment from phinephancy...
Again... let me state:
Perhaps you should talk to some of the libby posters here at FR... they were railing on Haley Barbour the other day... nasty names that they were calling him.
There are lots of men and women who re-enact the Civil War, and many of them are there to remind others of who won and more importantly, who lost. They need to be reminded frequently. Almost every weekend as a matter of fact.
Actually Spanky Reid and Obama are winning that war, Obama's numbers are going up republicans numbers are going down. I guess that makes me a Northerner and you a Southerner for the moment, Yankee Grump, and Spanky Reb, I'm looking forward to some reconstruction.
@Bob: We don't play-act the 1st and 2nd wars, the Spanish American war, the Vietnam war every other weekend - why this war? Yes, Union and Confederate died. But what has that got to do with flying the flag or re-enacting it constantly. You want the ancestors of slaves to get over their issues. Just think about that. Brought here, no understanding of the language, children taken from parents, men and women sold, beaten, legs cut off, hanged. You want them to get over those things, plus then being freed with no where to go, no resources. You want them to get over those things. Right now. 125 years ago, they were freed and you think they should all be just hunkey-dory, however, the white southerners cannot give up the ghost. Maybe you should just move on yourself.
I was born in Virginia. My mother and father were both from Pennsylvania and my father went to work on airport construction in nearby Washington in 1943. Neither had any sort of bigotry. Just because I was born in Virginia does not mean that I wish to remain a part of the "old" south and fly a confederate flag. In fact I feel shame for the people who do this because at this point in time it really means only one thing and you know what that is, and it has nothing to do with our ancestors dying in the civil war.
The Times refuses to connect the dots.
Obama crony and Democratic icon Corzine was meeting with Obama's regulators, and asking (telling?) them not to regulate what he wants to do.
The Times spins this as meaning more regulations are needed.
But as a commenter said:
"So what would be the point of any new regulations when the courts/government agencies are corrupt and not enforcing them to begin with?"
Mr. Perry has a serious problem in that he has, over his political career, a repeated and controversial relationship with Confederate symbols, repeatedly invoking the right of racists, extremists and other groups to display and glorify the flag and other symbols of the vanquished South. For him to embrace this debate is divisive, offensive, and shows a decided lack of leadership and an inability to bring the country together as all proper presidents should. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
That is a good point, mattpfl. And it is one a lot of southern governors have. I find the displaying of it offensive, yet, the one point that I think is missed, is that a lot of us southerners feel put down and mocked by our northern brethren
One little thing that you folks seem to have forgotten...
Just because you find something offensive, does not revoke someone else's right to embrace it.
You see children... we have (as a nation) rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution and protected by our laws.
SO....
If you don't like that flag... don't look at it! But tough nookies trying to take it away!
Again, you miss the point. Most of the people who do display it are doing it for all the wrong reasons. Do you approve of the flying of the Swastika? What if your neighbor displayed it? Would you be okay with that? The confederate flag, for many, represents all the same kind of bad feelings as the swastika does.
phinephancy...
As many great Americans have said in the past...
THAT is the difference between us! You want everyone to be just like you! (In my opinion.. that is un-American)
Reading all the comments on here, I guess I am starting to see why folks here in the south want to keep the battle flag. And why we have a lot of resentment to this day for "yankees".
The South has no reason to resent the damn yankees - Truman, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Gore, Bush (sort of), and Elvis Presley were all from the South, and they pretty much dominated modern America.
phinephancy, remember when reading the comment here to look at who is writting them. They have an agenda to stur the pot and they only speak for themselves just not very well. It works for them to here you make the comment you did. That is what they are looking for to divide us be it north, south, black, white or any other groups. Don't let them fool you into thinking there is or should be resentment. I live in the north and have no issues with the south but I do agree with you it is time to let go of the past and start living in the now. Holding on to a symbol that is based in hate serves no purpose.
You all tell us it was 150year get over be slavery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
The American Civil War is a blight upon American History--is not to celebrate but to mourn.
The American Revolutionary War was a political revolution from which we inherit our notions of Natural and Civil Rights, wounded as they may be. The American Civil War was a symptom of the Industrial Revolution. The country's economy was at first agrarian and resource extraction driven (like much of the third world today). Agriculture in Europe had always depended upon forced labor. Albeit that system was failing in Europe at the time, the manorial system was the first attempt to organize society in colonial America. Most families who descend from the first American colonists actually descend from folks who were brought over as bounded servants. The bonded servants however found it easy to run off to the hills on the frontier (Appalachia) to escape their bonds. For this and other reasons, early colonial agriculture was not that successful. Slavery of Africans began early on and quickly replaced the manorial system (feudalism) but was recognized by most Europeans as regressive and inhuman (slavery happened ironically at a time when humanism was at the forefront of ideas--scribblers such as Hume). Further, it turned out not to be that profitable which was behind much of the abuse (poor working conditions so to speak).
The Civil War erupted out of a long animosity that had played itself out in Congress starting at least 50 years prior to the actual War--post Andrew Jackson who managed to defer it by scapegoating Native Americans (Indian Wars) and by the distraction of the National Banking System (this is what eventually caused many individualists to side with Southern wealth (there never were that many who profited from slavery but States rights and the individualist came to be championed also by the South at the time of the election of Andrew Jackson, who's Presidency changed the nature of government toward democracy from the Republic in the USA (but in an ironic fashion as democracy was still for some but not all little people).
This came to be a struggle between the emerging industrial North and the rural agrarian South. Much of the battle was over taxation and the related balance of trade. Exports came to be controlled by Northern trading houses (the progenitors of Wall Street). America exported tobacco and cotton and other southern agricultural goods. This happened as those purchasing those goods tended to import household goods, tin,and tools in order to pay for the agricultural commodities and these goods were brought into the Northern trading houses -- the factors who had always been present to finance agriculture and by doing so where able to monopolize its trade. I don't recall exactly the structure but an import tax system evolved that was highly favorable to the North and onerous upon the South (who got less in the Exchange accordingly) that was responsible for much of the bellicosity. At the same time, The Abolitionist Movement emerged largely in the North critical of slavery on humanist moral grounds--although it was not strictly Northern. The issue of slavery was then both a political and moral struggle. Politics became polarized over the issue for both real and symbolic reasons. Both sides counted votes as parties alignments aligned over slavery. The Parties struggled as always to count votes in Congress for their side--including by bringing in more States on their side into the Union--a sort of Gerrymandering of New States evolved.
The only good thing about the Civil War is that it is supposedly over.
It is not true that no other sorts of reenactments are held. There are a few Revolutionary War Renactments and plenty of Reenactments of the Calvary killing Indians such as at Custer Wyoming. Recently, a fellow running for Office was found out to have a fondness for dressing as a Nazi which he claimed to be a mere WWII Reenactment Club thing. Unfortunately, reenactments do not really capture the horrors of war and are largely mere immature child's play based on immature fantasies of war (once you've been there you are supposed to 'mature'). And unfortunately, as many have noted, reenactments always tend to carry the flag of some moral sentiment that is behind raising the importance of the need to "reenact". In some cases, that may be good--as it might be a sort of raw patriotism in regards to the American Revolutionary War. However, that invites the other sorts of moral needs not so good--those that are divisive and at root unAmerican--such as that there is some sort of notion of Southern Heritage that needs to be preserved--Southern Heritage as opposed to what is the important matter to consider here.
Most of these reenactments tend to take place on National Parks and Monuments--Battlefield Sites. It is beyond me as to why it is important to commemorate sites where Americans killed one another en masse. If you are fond of war strategy, it would seem to me to be a student of Latin and study Caesar's Gallic Wars would be much more rewarding--albeit it would require some real effort rather than subscribing to a mythology of war that is pure fantasy.
All in all, this issue of the flag is re-emerging because of poor sentiments held barely beneath the skin regarding the current President and the idea that the North is forcing once again issues upon the individualist (and the South still thinks it is the champion of individualism despite Emerson and Whitman being nonSouthern) and the related issue of States rights v. Federalism which divided over the Mason-Dixon Line a century and half ago or before. These issues are much behind the current interest in reenactments which help crystalize certain mythological images in the eyes of the adherents who gather round such events. On the other hand, there is OWS--which has much in common.
This is a disturbing argument on so many levels. Fly it or don't fly it, I don't care. It's all advertisement of one's beliefs. But it will help determine who I will associate. BTW, I won't be striking up a conversation with someone that is hanging a ball sack off their truck hitch either.