[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10355-10356]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   NOTICE OF INTENTION TO OFFER RESOLUTION RAISING A QUESTION OF THE 
                        PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE

  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the clause 
2(a)(1) of rule IX, I rise to give notice of my intent to raise a 
question of the privileges of the House. The form of my resolution is 
as follows:
  Whereas on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first State 
to secede from the Union;
  Whereas on January 9, 1861, Mississippi seceded from the Union, 
stating in its ``Declaration of Immediate Causes'' that ``[o]ur 
position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the 
greatest material interest of the world.'';
  Whereas on February 9, 1861, the Confederate States of America was 
formed with a group of 11 States as a purported sovereign nation and 
with Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as its president;
  Whereas on March 11, 1861, the Confederate States of America adopted 
its own constitution;
  Whereas on April 12, 1861, the Confederate States of America fired 
shots upon Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, effectively 
beginning the Civil War;
  Whereas the United States did not recognize the Confederate States of 
America as a sovereign nation, but rather as a rebel insurrection, and 
took to military battle to bring the rogue states back into the Union;
  Whereas on April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to 
General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, 
effectively, ending the Civil War and preserving the Union;
  Whereas during the Civil War, the Confederate States of America used 
the Navy Jack, Battle Flag, and other imagery as a symbols of the 
Confederate armed forces;
  Whereas since the end of the Civil War, the Navy Jack, Confederate 
battle flag, and other imagery of the Confederacy have been 
appropriated by groups as a symbols of hate, terror, intolerance, and 
as supportive of the institution of slavery;
  Whereas groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist 
groups utilize Confederate imagery to frighten, terrorize, and cause 
harm to groups of people toward whom they have hateful intent, 
including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Jewish Americans;
  Whereas many State and Federal political leaders, including United 
States Senators Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, along with Mississippi 
House Speaker Philip Gunn and other State leaders, have spoken out and 
advocated for the removal of the imagery of the Confederacy on 
Mississippi's state flag;
  Whereas many Members of Congress, including Speaker John Boehner, 
support the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of South 
Carolina's capitol;
  Whereas Speaker John Boehner released a statement on the issue 
saying, ``I commend Governor Nikki Haley and other South Carolina 
leaders in their effort to remove the Confederate flag from Statehouse 
grounds. In his second inaugural address 150 years ago, and a month 
before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln ended his speech 
with these powerful words, which are as meaningful today as when they 
were spoken on the East Front of the Capitol on March 4, 1865: `With 
malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as 
God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we 
are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have 
borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may 
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with 
all nations.''';
  Whereas the House of Representatives has several State flags with 
imagery of the Confederacy throughout its main structures and House 
office buildings;
  Whereas it is an uncontroverted fact that symbols of the Confederacy 
offend and insult many members of the general public who use the 
hallways of Congress each day;
  Whereas Congress has never permanently recognized in its hallways the 
symbols of sovereign nations with whom it has gone to war or rogue 
entities such as the Confederate States of America;
  Whereas continuing to display a symbol of hatred, oppression, and 
insurrection that nearly tore our Union apart and that is known to 
offend many groups throughout the country would irreparably damage the 
reputation of this august institution and offend the very dignity of 
the House of Representatives; and
  Whereas this impairment of the dignity of the House and its Members 
constitutes a violation under rule IX of

[[Page 10356]]

the Rules of the House of Representatives of the One Hundred Fourteenth 
Congress: Now, therefore, be it
  Resolved, That the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall 
remove any State flag containing any portion of the Confederate battle 
flag, other than a flag displayed by the office of a Member of the 
House, from any area within the House wing of the Capitol or any House 
office building, and shall donate any such flag to the Library of 
Congress.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under rule IX, a resolution offered from the 
floor by a Member other than the majority leader or the minority leader 
as a question of the privileges of the House has immediate precedence 
only at a time designated by the Chair within 2 legislative days after 
the resolution is properly noticed.
  Pending that designation, the form of the resolution noticed by the 
gentleman from Mississippi will appear in the Record at this point.
  The Chair will not at this point determine whether the resolution 
constitutes a question of privilege. That determination will be made at 
the time designated for consideration of the resolution.

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