We the People of the United States,
actually have two national flags, a military flag and a civil flag for peacetime.
They have several important distinctions and meanings.
Almost all Americans think of the Stars and Stripes "Old Glory" as their only flag.
And IT IS BEAUTIFUL!!
The Stars and Stripes originated as a result of a resolution adopted by
the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia
on June 14, 1777, for use on military installations, on ships, and in
battle, directing 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.
Prior to, during the War for Independence, and after under the Articles
of Confederation, smuggling was seen as a patriotic duty of the citizens
of the thirteen independent and sovereign states, but after the
ratification of the Constitution and the establishment of a new nation,
smuggling needed to be stopped. The new nation depended on the revenue
from customs tariffs, duties and taxes on imported goods in order to
survive.
In 1790, with the customs laws firmly in place, Secretary of the
Treasury Alexander Hamilton set to work devising adequate means of
enforcing the year-old regulations. "A few armed vessels, judiciously
stationed at the entrances of our ports," Hamilton suggested, "might at a
small expense be made useful sentinels of our laws." Congress
concurred, and that year appropriated $10,000 to build and maintain a
fleet of
ten revenue cutters,
which were to be placed under the charge of the customs collectors,
whose responsibilities would be enforcement of the tariff laws. Along
with financial responsibility, Hamilton demanded that the officers be
servants of the people.
"They [the officers] will always keep in mind
that their Countrymen are Freemen and as such are impatient of
everything that bears that least mark of a domineering Spirit."
Nine years later, Congress refined the revenue cutters' role in customs
operations with the passage of the Act of March 2, 1799, known as the
Customs Administration Act. In particular, Congress determined "the
cutters and boats employed in the service of the revenue shall be
distinguished from other vessels by "an ensign and pendant, with such
marks thereon as shall be prescribed and directed by the President of
the United States." Additionally, the Act permitted commanders of
revenue vessels to fire at other vessels failing to respond "after such
pendant and ensign shall be hoisted and a gun fired by such revenue
cutter as a signal." By this act the Revenue Marine (later called the
Revenue Cutter Service) ensign served as the seagoing equivalent of a
policeman's badge, the distinctive sign of the vessel's law enforcement
authority.
The job of designing the distinguishing ensign eventually fell upon
Oliver Wolcott, who had replaced Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the
Treasury in 1795. On June 1, 1799, Wolcott submitted his design to
President John Adams for approval. Wolcott's proposal featured an ensign
of sixteen stripes, alternating red and white, representing the number
of states that had joined the Union by 1799, with the Union to be the
Arms of the United States in dark blue on a white field. It is
significant that Wolcott turned the arrangement of the stripes ninety
degrees to vertical to differentiate the new revenue cutter ensign from
the U.S. Flag, to denote civilian authority under the Treasury
Department, rather than military authority under the War Department.
Through usage and custom, horizontal stripes had become adopted for use
over military posts, and vertical stripes adopted for use over civilian
establishments. The Civil Flag, intended for peacetime usage in custom
house civilian settings, had vertical stripes with blue stars on a white
field. By the Law of the Flag, this design denoted civil jurisdiction
under the Constitution and common law as opposed to military
jurisdiction under admiralty/military law.
Although intended just for Customs house usage, the new Civil Flag
became adopted by both customhouses and merchants, and others who could
afford them, to show their civilian nature and not 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 customhouses to display the Civil Flag.
On May 26, 1913, with the approval of Senate Bill S. 2337, (shortly
after the fraudulent declaration by Secretary of State Philander Knox,
that the 16th Amendment had been ratified, and during the same weeks
that the Federal Reserve system and the IRS were established) the U.S.
Coast Guard absorbed the Revenue Cutter and the Life Saving - Lighthouse
Services, becoming a part of the military forces of the United States,
operating under the Treasury Department in time of peace and as a part
of the Navy, subject to the orders of the Secretary of the Navy, in time
of war.
The Civil Flag used by the cutter service was modified, placing the
Coast Guard insignia on the stripes in the field , and was adopted under
Coast Guard authority, losing it's original significance of civilian
authority, which by then had long been forgotten. As the Federal
government acquired more control over the States and their citizens
during and after World War II, by 1951 the original Civil Flag had been
phased out completely, it's existence left as an artifact of time in a
few old photographs and a rare mention in old books.
Today, the last vestige of the Civil Flag, the U.S. Coast Guard flag,
being under the civil jurisdiction of the Department of Treasury during
peacetime, is identical to the revenue cutter ensign, but with the
service insignia emblazoned on the stripes in the field.
It is still seen as the shoulder patch of U.S. Customs employees but it
too now has the gold fringe signifying Admiralty/Military/Law Merchant
jurisdiction.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The Scarlet Letter,
published in 1850 before the War Between The States has this
description of the U.S. Civil Flag in the introduction, "The Custom
House" ---
Salem Custom House – 1850 | 
Salem Custom House – circa 1900 |
". . . Here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very
enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious
edifice of brick. 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. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen
wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide
granite steps descends towards the street Over the entrance hovers an
enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield
before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled
thunder- bolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary
infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by
the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her
attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and
especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against
intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings.
Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very
moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle;
imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness
of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her
best of moods, and, sooner or later -- oftener soon than late -- is apt
to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her
beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows."
Before 1940, no U.S. flag, civil or military, flew within the
forty-eight states except in federal settings and installations. Only
state flags did. Since the 1935 institution of Social Security and the
Buck Act of 1940, 4 U.S.C.S. Ch. 4 Sec. 104-113,
by clever legal maneuvers the feds have entirely circumvented the U.S.
Constitution, and have overlaid federal territorial jurisdiction on the
sovereign States, bringing them under the admiralty/military
jurisdiction of Law Merchant, the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), the law
of Creditors and Debtors.
Since then the U.S. military flag appears beside, 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. In the last
half century they have more openly declared the military/admiralty law
jurisdiction with the addition of the gold fringe to the flag, the
military flag of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
Such has been the path that has brought us under the Law of the
Military Flag. 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 for ourselves and search for
the truth.
The Flag of Peace
US Civil Flags in 1919 at the end of World War I
US Civil Flag at the Eagle, Alaska custom-house,
on the Yukon River at the Canadian border, circa 1997
Photograph by Walter Kenaston
Reproduction of all or any parts of the above text may be used for general information.
This history is compiled from various governmental and other public domain sources.
This HTML presentation is copyright by Barefoot, November 2000
Mirroring is not Netiquette without the Express Permission of Barefoot
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We the People of the United States,
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