It Is a Grand Old Flag

America is a creedal nation. Our unifying identity is based not on blood or soil but on a shared allegiance to our founding proposition, the earthshaking proposition that all persons are equal by the only measure that matters, each and every one endowed alike by their Creator with unalienable rights that must be respected by all and protected by the government established for that purpose.

This founding proposition is the essence of the idea of America. It defines us as a people. It is the animating force in our ongoing audacious experiment in constitutional republican self-government.

Periodically, we reaffirm our unifying commitment to our nation’s founding proposition by pledging continued allegiance, not to a person or office of authority, but to the symbol of our national unity, the flag of the United States.

The symbolic design of our national flag was first specified in a resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. The Flag Resolution stated simply

That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes,

alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars,

white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.

Over the years, stars have been added to the “union,” or canton, of our flag as states have been added to the union itself. But the basic design and symbolic significance of our flag has been constant: the thirteen original states and all that came after joined together, e pluribus unum, as the United States of America.

Our Pledge of Allegiance was first written in 1885 by Captain George Balch, a Union Army veteran of the Civil War and author of a book on teaching patriotism to children in public schools. It was revised in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and author, to support a magazine campaign celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas and promoting the placement of American flags in classrooms across the country. On October 21, 1892, over ten thousand school children recited

I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands,

one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In the years following 1892, our Pledge of Allegiance was modified several times, most significantly in 1954 when, with the enthusiastic support of President Eisenhower, “under God” was added to highlight the God-given nature of our rights and to dramatically distinguish our system of government from the state-imposed atheism that characterized our communist adversaries in the Cold War. Its current form is familiar to us all, a moving salute to the principles and institutions of our constitutional system of government.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to

the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

              Flag Day, officially designated to commemorate the enactment of the Flag Resolution by the Continental Congress in 1777, has come and gone for another year. But in a very real sense we should consider every day as one appropriate to remember with humble gratitude what the flag truly represents and proudly celebrate our great good fortune to live as free people in a free land. As George M. Cohan, a composer, Broadway producer, and proud patriot reminds us, it’s a grand old flag. Or, as he wrote

You’re a grand old flag, you’re a high flying flag;

And forever, in peace, may you wave.

You’re the emblem of the land I love,

The home of the free and the brave.