Copyright 2001. The Lazy 'C' - All rights reserved.
US Flag
The United States Civil Flag
A little known fact about the history of Old Glory, is her sister, the almost forgotten Civil Flag of the United States.
The first authorization of a U.S. flag came about on June 14th, 1777, when Congress directed that a U.S. flag consist of 13 stripes, alternating red and white; that a union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation. Through usage, horizontal stripes were adopted for use over military posts and vertical stripes adopted for use over civilian posts. Most flag purchase orders were for the military version by the Federal government. Out paced by military purchases, civil flag orders were almost non-existent as the cost was far more than most Americans could afford. Sightings of the Civilian Flag were rarely seen until U.S. Customs adopted the Civil Flag in it's enforcement of tax collection and inspection in ports as opposed to acts of war against merchant ships.
In 1790, Alexander Hamilton proposed armed shipping vessels to enforce customs duties in the nations shipping ports. Congress agreed and appropriated $10,000 to maintain 10 revenue cutters (ships) to be placed under the charge of customs collectors.
On March 2, 1799, Congress revised the duties of revenue cutters and added authority to fire upon other vessels if such vessels did not respond to a cutter's flag and a gun shot warning. On June 1, 1799, Oliver Wolcott, Hamilton's successor, submitted his flag design to President John Adams. His proposal defined the new Customs Flag with 16 stripes, one stripe for each State that had joined the Union by 1799 and turned the stripes vertical to show the civil nature of it's use as opposed to a military nature. For the Union, Wolcott proposed using the Arms of the United States, the American Bald Eagle, over a white field. The final version was approved on August 1st, 1799. Although intended just for the Customs Office, the new civilian flag became adopted by custom houses and merchants to show their civilian nature as opposed to being under military control. The practice of using the Customs Flag as a Civil Flag became encoded in law in 1874 when Treasury Secretary William. A. Richardson required all custom houses to fly the Civil Flag.
In 1915, the U.S. Coast Guard became an independent bureau from the Treasury Department, absorbing the Revenue Cutter Service. The Civil Flag used by the cutter service was modified and adopted under Coast Guard authority, losing it's original significance of civilian authority, which by then, had been long forgotten as the Federal government acquired more control over the States and their citizens. By 1951, the original Customs Civil Flag had been phased out completely with another redesign.
It is believed by some historians that the Civil Flag was discontinued after the Civil War when the federal government imposed military governments in the States and disbanded civilian government. As a show of it's power over the States, Civil Flags were discontinued and Old Glory became the sole emblem representing the People of the United States of America, united under military (or admiralty) rule. [It is also said that the U. S. Flag was not allowed to be carried by the cavalry until after the Civil War. Perhaps land forces could not carry a naval flag until after the federal government brought naval authority onto the land.]
For over 100 years, the Civilian U.S. Flag was flown by a select citizenry that could afford to buy them. While most were of the design of the Customs Bureau and it's American Eagle, many continued to adorn the original look from 1777 with a constellation of stars on a blue field and with red and white vertical stripes. By 1900, the Civil Flag had all but disappeared except for the occasional use by the government's revenue cutters and more recently, the Coast Guard with a modified design. By 1980, nearly all documentation of the Civil Flag had been omitted in school text books and it's existence left as a mystery in a few old photographs and a rare mention in classic books.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's book The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, the introduction, titled "The Custom House," includes this description:
"From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military post of Uncle Sam's government, is here established."
Detracters have tried to assert that Nathaniel Hawthorne somehow saw a military U.S. flag drooping on a calm day and mistook the stripes as running vertically and then carelessly wrote the quoted line above. The truth is that college educated Hawthorne worked two jobs in a customs house: the first starting as a Boston Custom House measurer in 1839, being dismissed after three years from his job with the Salem Custom House; the second time, in 1845, he was appointed surveyor of the Boston Custom House by President James Polk, but was dismissed from this post when Zachary Taylor became president (1849). It was after these experiences that he wrote his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne would have been well acquianted with the verticle stripes of the customs flag flying "in breeze or calm."
History book publishers contribute to the public's miseducation by always picturing the flag in military settings, creating the impression that the one with horizontal stripes is the only one there is. They don't actually lie; they just tell half the truth. For example, the "first American flag" they show Betsy Ross sewing at George Washington's request, was for the Revolution - of course it was military.
The U.S. government hasn't flown the civil flag since the Civil War.
You may recall in the old Westerns, "Old Glory" has her stripes running sideways and a military yellow fringe. Most of these films are historically accurate about that; their stories usually took place in the territories still under military law and not yet states. Before WWII, no U.S. flag, civil or military, flew within the forty-eight states (except in federal settings); only state flags did. Since then, the U.S. government seems to have decided the supposedly sovereign states are its territories too, so it asserts its military power over them under the "law of the flag."
Today the U.S. military flag appears alongside, or in place of, the state flags in nearly all locations within the states. All of the state courts and even the municipal ones now openly display it. This should have raised serious questions from many citizens long ago, but we've been educated to listen and believe what we are told, not to ask questions, or think or search for the truth.
Civilian Merchant Appraisers from 1919
The Mystery of the Forgotten U.S. Flag Revealed.
Original at: http://www.outlawslegal.com/organic/flag.htm
Original at: http://www.outlawslegal.com/organic/flag.htm