The Pledge of Allegiance
Driving to Dinner
“Isn’t it odd,” said Meg, “that kids have to recite a pledge of allegiance to their country in school?”
I hadn’t given it much thought before. “Hey, yeah. The kids are already living in the country. Why do they have to give their allegiance to it? You’d think they’re already allied with their own country. Wasn’t this an anti-communist thing?”
Meg shook her head. “I dunno. I know they added the “under God” part in the ‘50s. ”
I mentally chalked it up as something I need to read up more on.
A Little Background
In 1892, a Christian socialist and Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance, which read as follows:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
According to Bellamy’s own account, “At the beginning of the [eighteen] nineties patriotism and national feeling was at a low ebb. The patriotic ardor of the Civil War was an old story…The time was ripe for a reawakening of simple Americanism and the leaders in the new movement rightly felt that patriotic education should begin in the public schools.”
Bizarrely, the original Pledge of Allegiance was published in the September 8 issue of the popular children’s magazine The Youth’s Companion as part of the National Public-School Celebration of Columbus Day, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas.
By June 29, 1892, President Benjamin Harrison announced Presidential Proclamation 335 making the public school flag ceremony the center of the Columbus Day celebrations. Subsequently, the Pledge was first used in public schools on October 12, 1892, during Columbus Day observances organized to coincide with the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World’s Fair) in Chicago, Illinois.
Besides the Chicago World’s Fair, the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492 was promoted by teachers, preachers, poets, and politicians to teach ideals of patriotism. These patriotic rituals were framed around themes such as support for war, citizenship boundaries, the importance of loyalty to the nation, and celebrating social progress. And promoting the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public events and in schools fit in quite nicely with these nationalistic ideas.
Changes
In 1923, the National Flag Conference called for the words "my Flag" to be changed to "the Flag of the United States", so that new immigrants would not confuse loyalties between their birth countries and the United States. The words "of America" were added a year later.
At a meeting on February 12, 1948 (Lincoln and Darwin’s birthdays), an Illinois attorney named Louis A. Bowman led a Society of the Sons of the American Revolution meeting in swearing the Pledge with two words added, “under God.” Bowman repeated his revised version of the Pledge at other meetings.
In 1951, the Knights of Columbus also began including the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Knights attempted several times to prompt Congress to adopt the Knights’ revised Pledge for the entire nation. President Eisenhower signed the bill with the change into law on Flag Day, June 14, 1954. He stated:
“From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty…. In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.”
(In a similar move two years later, on July 30, 1956, Eisenhower signed into law declaring that the national motto of the United States was “IN GOD WE TRUST.”)
In a letter published in The New York Times on July 14, 2002, Sally Wright, the great-granddaughter of pledge composer Francis Bellamy, wrote that he was a "deeply religious man" but "also a strict believer in the separation of church and state, who opposed parochial schools on the grounds that the state should educate its children." She added: "He intended the pledge to be a unifying statement for those same children. I believe that my great-grandfather got it right. A Pledge of Allegiance that does not include God invites the participation of more Americans."</fo
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Salute
Of course, swearing the Pledge comes with the familiar hand-over-the-heart gesture. Or it has since June 22, 1942. Before that, swearing was accompanied with the Bellamy salute, which was the same as Nazi salute. Congress put an end to that on December 22, 1942 in favor of the hand-over-the-heart one because of the similarity.
Final Version
With “under God” and a few other tweaks to clarify which country we’re pledging to, the final Pledge of Allegiance reads:
"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."
Schools
Since the original intent was to reignite patriotic fervor in the doldrums following the Civil War, the Pledge is still recited mostly by school children. Why? I dunno. Make the dumb kids remember which country they’re in.
This all leads to the following Facebook post that I had the great fortune of reading today. One of my distant friends “liked” a post by Iowa Watchdog which stated:
This had 1,396,611 likes and 52,793 comments.
That’s when I recalled my conversation I had with Meg about the Pledge. I flipped through the comments to hear the “no” side of things. (If you commented, you were saying “no,” remember.)
EH: Um wat if ur foreign
With spelling like that, you probably are foreign. Clearly English isn’t your first language.
TS: Everybody who says no is a fucking Nazi so get the hell outta my country
The second comment I find and Godwin’s Law strikes already?
AEK: Pledge of Allegiance each day for respecting this country’s roots, sacrifices and freedom that is found no where else in this world. One boundary…If you want to abstain or object….go live in another country. It is a pledge to this country…not asking too much at all…
The sentiment “if you don’t want to say the Pledge, immigrate to a different country” also pops up frequently. I wonder if all of these angry patriots have heard of the Bill of Rights’ First Amendment. Just in case, I’ll cite it here. It’s quite short:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I personally object to being forced to immigrate to another country if I choose to not speak (absence of speech is a type of speech), which is protected with the First Amendment. Further, I object to my forcible expulsion under the Establishment clause, since the Pledge states “Under God.” As an atheist, I refuse to pledge myself to a God.
JT: For the bumd ass that said the pledge would corrupt the mines of our children what about all the bull shit the hear on the computors and if you don’t like america you pack your dame bag and go to where ever they will have you. It’s jackasses like you thats ruined our nation. The children are not taught anything the think the world owes them it owes them nothing.
Similar sentiments, but this one’s hilarious.
RD: Because justice is dead the pledge doesn’t mean anything.
That’s an interesting interpretation. I haven’t heard that objection before. I wonder what he’s referring to? I personally think that the U.S. has a fairly competent justice system on the local level; the abuses on the federal level leave me wanting (ex
amples: Ibragim Todashev, who was killed recently by the FBI during a questioning; the massive unwarranted email and Internet surveillance by the NSA).
GD: With all the words, as it was intended!
I wonder if he’s referring to all the words of the original pledge, or one of the four revisions?
PO: yes and should put prayer back in our schools & have Natl. Day of Prayer back at White House. Our country has b een regressing since these have been cut out.
Prayer is in schools. It just can’t be led by teachers. Kids can pray all they want. And sure, Obama has told the National Day of Prayer Task Force to find a private location for their events rather than the East Room of the White House. But he still declared May 2, 2013 to be the National Day of Prayer by Presidential Proclamation.
CC: Nope. "one nation under god" isn’t fair to make the students say if they aren’t religious or they dont agree with it. So as all the other citizens of the united states they should be "free" to choose
Well said. Well, mostly well said. You could have used better grammar.
DT: and a morning prayer!
DJ: Yes, right after they pray!
As Steve Benen said on the Maddow Blog, “I’d note, in case anyone’s forgotten, that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison refused to issue prayer proclamations. I’d like to think they had some familiarity with the values the nation was founded on.”
HM: I think we need to stop listening to those that don’t believe in God. We are the majority anyway.
Stop listening? When did you start?
Math at the Whataburger
Meg and I looked at the poster in the drive-thru window of the Whataburger, which stated: “One nation, under God, indivisible.” (Emphasis as written.)
“When I was growing up, that part of the Pledge reminded me of math,” I said. “How do you suppose the formula would go?”
“Well,” Meg began, “you’d put ‘One nation’ in the denominator and ‘God’ in the numerator.”
One Nation
God
“But it’s indivisible,” I said. “You can’t simply divide ‘One nation’ by ‘God.’”
One Nation = #DIV/0!
God
“That means that God must equal zero,” I concluded. I thought I’d found a clever argument for the non-existence of God, built right into the Pledge.
God = 0
"No, no," Meg said. "It’s One nation under God. That means God is on the top part of the equation and One nation is on the bottom."
___God___
One Nation
"Oh," I said. That still doesn’t make sense. You can’t have One nation equaling zero. That would mean that the Nation equals 0."
1 Nation = 0
Nation = 0/1
Nation = 0
Court Rulings
I thought I might look up the court rulings about being forced to read the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. What if my daughter is told that she needs to recite the Pledge in the classroom?
After divisive court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an eloquent ruling in 1943, which is the prevailing law today, assuring students they do not have to recite or participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. The pledge under dispute in the case was accompanied by a "stiff-arm" salute. Students who did not salute were found guilty of "insubordination" and could be expelled. The Court ruled such abuses unconstitutional.
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: Ari
al”>"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
"We think the actions of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control."
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
So, no. Emma has the constitutional right not to be forced to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance. Nor should a she be singled out, rebuked, told she must stand, or otherwise be penalized for following her freedom of conscience. Nor should students who participate in the pledge, or who volunteer to lead the class in the pledge or to recite it over the intercom, be rewarded or favored over students who don’t participate.
(Paraphrased from: Freedom From Religion Foundation, retrieved June 20, 2013. Source).
In the great tradition of this country, I’ll leave it up to Emma for how she chooses to express her freedom of speech. She can sit. She can stand. She can say the words without “under god” in them, or she can say the full Pledge. It’s entirely up to her—and nobody is going to expel her from the country if she chooses to employ her First Amendment rights.
There was a case regarding the pledge of allegiance about 15 years ago in the Sacramento area. Atheist dad took the school to court over making his daughter join in the pledge. I can’t remember how it turned out, though. I suppose a little googling might turn it up.
Warning Comment
RYN: You’re a prince among men. Thank you.
Warning Comment
My Senior Government teacher asked kids to recite the Pledge one by one. After 8 kids didn’t know it he gave up and explained that by not learning or reciting a part of history we lose it. He agreed no one should be forced to recite it, but it should be known. We then had to write out the Anthem and only 4 or the 32 of us had the whole thing correct.
Warning Comment
Interesting bit of ongoing history. All the idiotic comments subjects like this draw from a general internet audience are deeply discouraging. Let’s see… “one nation” implies n = 1, but g/n being “indivisible” implies that g is not divisible by n, i.e., when g and n are integers, g/n is not an integer. But when g is an integer (e.g. g=1 under monotheism) g/n = 1/1 = 1 which is certainly an integer. Therefore, we arrive at a contradiction and such a situation cannot exist. Thus, we have pledged allegiance to a logically non-existent entity, whatever that means. I’m not sure exactly where this is going, but it doesn’t sound good. Davo
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