South Carolina Politicians Defend Compromise Over Confederate Flag
Revisiting the issue could open “Pandora's box,” says U.S. Representative and former governor Mark Sanford.
The South Carolina and American flags fly at half mast as the Confederate flag unfurls below at the Confederate Monument June 18, 2015 in Columbia, S.C.
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As officials across South Carolina decried the massacre of nine people in a historic black church as a hate crime, some of the state's politicians defended a delicate status quo over flying the the Confederate flag in the state capital.
U.S. Representative Mark Sanford, a Charleston Republican and former governor, said re-examining a 2000 compromise that allows the Confederate flag to fly not on the state house in Columbia but on a nearby memorial could be divisive.