What if after Union victory that US Congress had outlawed the Stars and Bars?
In later years I rather assume that the Supreme Court would, quite rightly, stike down such a law as contary to the 1st Amendment
What if after Union victory that US Congress had outlawed the Stars and Bars?
What if after Union victory that US Congress had outlawed the Stars and Bars?
I've shocked many of my Black friends by saying this (they expected different of a white boy), but the only appropriate place for the Stars and Bars or the Rebel Flag is a Confederate cemetary. They figured, since I was white, I'd be all about the Rebel Flag, but no. We can't ban it, since it represents the struggle of a large part of our citizenry, but it should only be displayed where appropriate, which most certainly doesn't included places like modern state capitals!
What if after Union victory that US Congress had outlawed the Stars and Bars?
Certain speech is outlawed in the USA in OTL..not much, but some. All that would be neded would be for the court to decide, when it comes before it, that flying the stars and bars is tantamount to urging armed revolt against the United States. Might be a bad decision, but courts can and do make bad decisions.
Almost certainly. Banning the stars and bars would be blatantly unconstitutional.
Also, the Stars and Bars didn't assume it's current meaning - a living symbol of Southern resistance and white Southern pride - until the 1950s or so. Prior to that it was associated mainly with the "Lost Cause" Mythology.
It would be unconstitutional.
I'm from Louisiana myself (grew up south of Lake Charles) and neither I nor most of my friends had a problem with the battle flag and we're all black. I had several white friends who flew it and none of them had a racist bone in their body.
My impression is that in the immediate aftermath of the ACW the stars and bars was not a majort symbol of the racist resistence.
Point of fact the flag used by the "Lost Causers" is not even the Battle Flag as it was square and the one used today is rectangular.The Stars and Bars was already ended by the Confederates in 1863. They then took the Battle Flag (St. Andrew's Cross with stars on red background) and put it in the upper-left corner on a white field. In 1865, they added a red band on the left side to signify the blood spent fighting for the "Cause." So I have to ask, which flag are you banning?
The "Rebel" flag that people fly today is the Confederate Battle Flag. Those of us who watch CW movies will also recognize the US Battle Flag, which put the stars in two circles with four stars at the corners of the upper-left field.
If you're proposing banning the Rebel Battle Flag, I actually agree with you. Those men who died in the 1860s gave their lives for a greater cause than simple racism, and the fact that it's been expropriated now to represent Southern racists disgusts me. I'm a Quebecer whose family comes from Louisiana, and we once drove all the way to Calgary for the Stampede, and the profusion of "Rebel" flags there shocked and disgusted me. I wasn't in Canada anymore, it was like I'd been tele-ported to Texas!
I've shocked many of my Black friends by saying this (they expected different of a white boy), but the only appropriate place for the Stars and Bars or the Rebel Flag is a Confederate cemetary. They figured, since I was white, I'd be all about the Rebel Flag, but no. We can't ban it, since it represents the struggle of a large part of our citizenry, but it should only be displayed where appropriate, which most certainly doesn't included places like modern state capitals!
Point of fact the flag used by the "Lost Causers" is not even the Battle Flag as it was square and the one used today is rectangular.![]()
What we should remember is that the Confederate battle flag, until the 1980's, was largely regarded a geographic symbol as opposed to one of racism, segregation and slavery. As a geographic/regional symbol, it represented a part of the US with a rather large black population.
There's one a few posts above you . . .I have never seen any evidence of Blacks liking the Confderate flag,