Alabama Debates Removing Confederate Flag From Coat of Arms

[discocrisco01]

Source: Associated Press


The coat of arms consists of a shield with the Confederate battle flag and the flags of Great Britain, France, Spain and the United States - intended to serve as a symbol of nations that have held sovereignty over Alabama.

Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/alabama/articles/2021-05-01/alabama-debates-removing-confederate-flag-from-coat-of-arms

[TreasonousBastard]

1. That's a tough one. Maybe get rid of them all.

[mwooldri]

13. A new coat of arms IMO.

The College of Arms I'm sure would be happy to assist Alabama in generating a new suitable coat of arms.

[abqtommy]

2. Hey Alabama! It's 2021, not 1921!

[CTyankee]

3. Hire a designer to come up with a better idea for the flag design.

I would suggest hiring a woman of color to redesign it.

[csziggy]

6. They are not talking about the Alabama state flag, but about the coat of arms

The Alabama flag:

The flag of the State of Alabama shall be a crimson cross of St. Andrew on a field of white. The bars forming the cross shall be not less than six inches broad, and must extend diagonally across the flag from side to side." – (Code 1896, §3751; Code 1907, §2058; Code 1923, §2995; Code 1940, T. 55, §5.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Alabama

The Alabama coat of arms:

The official description, in heraldic language, is laid out in the Code of Alabama, Section 1-2-2:[2]

Arms: quarterly, the first azure three fleur de lis or (for France); second quarterly first and fourth gules a tower tripple towered or, second and third argent a lion rampant gules (for Spain); third azure a saltire argent and gules over all a cross of the last fimbriated of the second (for Great Britain); fourth gules of a saltire azure, fimbriated argent 13 mullets of the last (for the Confederacy); at center in escutcheon chief azure paly argent and gules 13 (for United States) arms supported by two American eagles displayed. Crest: A full rigged ship proper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Alabama

[lastlib]

8. Is the ship to commemorate the slave trade?

asking for a friend.....

[csziggy]

10. The Wikipedia article covers that

"The crest of the coat represents a ship (the "Badine&quot which brought the French colonists who established the first permanent European settlements in the state."

So, no, it does not represent the ships that brought slaves to Alabama.

[COL Mustard]

14. But What's Up With That Left-Facing Eagle?

We don't need no durn liberal eagle on our state coat of arms!!! They should both be facing to the RIGHT!!!

[The Jungle 1]

4. Only in America would anyone celebrate treason.

[jimfields33]

7. Nobody knew about this coat of arms.

Get rid of it. It won’t be missed. I’ve lived in about 10 states and never wondered about the state coat of arm.

[ancianita]

9. Enough in AL do for this change to rise to the 19th C level of 'debate,' though.

Forcing themselves to leave the comfort of the old identity bubble is almost an existential crisis that can get triggered by such a change.

[LanternWaste]

24. Yo man, apparently some did know.

Try not to project your own lack of knowledge onto others... doing so is irrational.

[jaxexpat]

5. Alabama is a tough nut to crack. It's in their basic education.

I worked with a guy from Alabama who swore that the land Arlington cemetery is on was "illegally confiscated" from Robert E Lee.
I asked him what would have been the more suitable punishment for a person who led bloody revolt against his country since Lincoln had removed execution from the options. There was much sputtering and disbelief. He could not, would not see the logic or justice, much less the mercy in the solution.

And yes, I understand that the burial of dead soldiers had been ongoing since earlier in that war as a "finger" to the Confederacy and a retort to Lee's treason and betrayal of his oath. That was the basis of his opinion regarding the legality of the confiscation. The fact of war, the wages of war, if you will, escaped him totally. He no more grasped the absoluteness of war or understood that war was the ultimate enemy of civilization than he could see his own complicity in the propaganda. These crackers are hard headed.

[csziggy]

11. Robert E. Lee never owned Arlington Estate and it had been abandoned before the government seized it

Arlington Estate was established by George Washington's adopted grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, to be a living memorial to the first president. Custis's daughter, Mary, married U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant Robert E. Lee in 1831. When he died, Custis left the estate to his daughter Mary Custis Lee for the duration of her life, and upon her death, her eldest son would inherit the property. Robert E. Lee served as the executor of his father-in-law's will and never owned the property.

After the Lees abandoned the property at the start of the Civil War, the U.S. Army seized Arlington Estate on the morning of May 24, 1861 to defend Washington, D.C. From the property's heights, rifled artillery could range every federal building in the nation's capital. The estate was seized not to punish the Custis-Lee family, but rather for its strategic value. Three forts were built on the property during the Civil War: Fort Cass/Rosslyn, Fort Whipple/Fort Myer and Fort McPherson (currently Section 11 of the cemetery). Beginning in June 1863, a large Freedman’s Village, established for freed and escaped slaves, was established in what today are Sections 3, 4, 8, 18 and 20.
https://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explore/History-of-Arlington-National-Cemetery

[jaxexpat]

18. I sit absolutely corrected. Thank you.

[paleotn]

20. Partially corrected. See below.

Official US government history blurbs, even today, are sanitized so as to...Oh my God!!....not offend southerners. For those of us who love truth, unsanitized, that burns my buns.

[paleotn]

19. Strategic, yes.

High ground across the river, overlooking DC. Confederate occupation would have made much of DC untenable. The idea to use it as a military cemetery came later in 1864. Quarter Master General Montgomery Meigs proposed it as punishment. Sec. of War Stanton approved and burials commenced. Meigs intent was to make the mansion unlivable. But, the big issue was property taxes imposed by Congress in 1862 on formerly Confederate property then under Union occupation. Not only that, the rightful owners of said property had to pay the taxes in person. Few Confederates were willing to cross Union lines to do so, including Mary Custis Lee, the legal owner of Arlington. So, the estate was legally confiscated and sold at auction to the federal government in 1864. After the war, Mary Lee fought the confiscation all the way to SCOTUS, but lost.

The official Arlington history appears to be the cleaned up version, aimed at not offending those of a southern bent.

[csziggy]

23. I have no problem with the cleaned up version

And no objection to taxing Confederate property to get it out of traitor's hands.

My mother's side of the family is all from Alabama with a number of Confederate enlistees. My great great grandfather died in Tennessee when his only son was only a few months old. His father enlisted as an old man since so many of his sons had died or been injured on the Confederate side. After the war ended, a different ggg-grandfather asked to have his rights restored - he lost sons and sons in law and claimed to be the support for thirteen grandchildren - three of his daughters and two of his daughters in law lost their husbands and returned to his farm to raise their children.

I have no sympathy for any of them. They became well off due to the labor of slaves and did not deserve the wealth they accumulated that way. All became close to destitute after they had to work for themselves and still remain poor.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. Just remove that treasonous confederate nonsense out of there

and replace with their own state flag.

Bars without the stars.

[TomSlick]

15. Not a terrible idea but the Alabama flag is not without its history.

The flag was adopted during the Jim Crow era and almost certainly is meant to suggest the so called Confederate Battle Flag.

It's interesting to me that the Alabama statue refers to the saltire as "a crimson cross of St. Andrew on a field of white." The problem is, a red saltire on a field of white is a St. Patrick's cross. Of course, there could be no reference to any thing Irish in the Alabama flag statute in 1895.

[BumRushDaShow]

16. Oh I'm sure that flag may need a change at some point in the future

although they seem to be able to skate an immediate "obvious" and explicit connotation (being starless).

Perhaps they could do like MS did and have a contest. They could even get an entry like MS did that looked like this -

[TomSlick]

17. I LIKE IT!

[paleotn]

21. BWAAAHAHAHAHA!!!

Perfect!

[heckles65]

25. Sorry, Vermont already gets dibs on that flag

[BumRushDaShow]

26. Maybe one of these?

[paleotn]

22. At least they're debating it and not digging in their heals.

Fitting I guess that they can't get over their former insurrection when so many of them support the later.

[twodogsbarking]

27. Give it up.

You lost.

[mdbl]

28. did someone finally tell them the civil war is over?

[heckles65]

29. Why is this even debated?

Black OR white, the vast majority of Alabamans were better off with the slaveholders' defeat.

[artemisia1]

30. What is there to debate? Trash it. /nt