We the everyone loves and honor the Stars and Stripes but haven’t learned its entire truth
A painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (circa 1920) of Betsy Ross and George Washington (far left)
Americans love our banner. We show it at concerts and stadiums to commemorate, as well as times during the nationwide tragedy to exhibit our resolve.
We now have our schoolchildren pledge allegiance to it; we now have consecrated it inside our anthem that is national have actually any occasion, Flag Day, to honor it every June 14, also contain it on prominent display when it comes to Fourth of July.
Yet the iconography and reputation for the flag that is american particularly its very very early history, are infused with misconception and misrepresentation. Listed below are five of the very most predominant urban myths.
Myth # 1: Betsy Ross made the initial American banner.
The Betsy Ross story is the most tenacious little bit of fiction relating to the flag. There just isn’t any legitimate historical proof — letters, diaries, newsprint records, bills of sale — that Ross (then referred to as Elizabeth Claypoole) either made or possessed a turn in designing the US banner before it made its debut in 1777.
The tale cropped up in 1870, nearly a century following the flag that is first supposedly sewn, whenever William Canby, Ross’ grandson, told the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia that his grandmother made the banner at George Washington’s behest. Canby’s evidence that is sole affidavits from members of the family. The iconic 1893 artwork of Ross sitting in the sun to her Philadelphia parlor beaming straight straight down in the flag inside her lap is really a scene designed by Charles H. Weisgerber, the artist and business owner whom profited through the Betsy Ross legend.
While Ross did make flags in Philadelphia into the belated 1770s, it’s all but sure that the tale about her creating the US banner is a misconception.
As President Woodrow Wilson, whom presided on the very first formal nationwide Flag Day on June 14, 1916, is believed to have replied when expected their thoughts from the tale: “Would it had been real.”
Library of Congress
Much symbolism happens to be related to them, but the colors regarding the flag that is american never ever had any type of formal imprimatur.
Myth number 2. write my paper The red, white and colors that are blue American sacrifice.
No law that is federal resolution or administrator order exists supplying the state cause for the flag’s colors — or their meaning. The thing that is closest to a description will be the terms of Charles Thomson, the assistant associated with the Continental Congress, who was simply instrumental within the design regarding the Great Seal of this usa.
Thomson’s are accountable to Congress on June 20, 1782, your day the seal had been authorized, included a description associated with the colors, just like those who work in the banner: “White signifies purity and purity. Red and Blue . means vigilance, perseverance and justice.”
Various formal papers and proclamations — including one by President Ronald Reagan marking 1986 due to the fact “12 months of this Flag” — have actually echoed that thinking.
Nevertheless the colors would not have, nor have actually they ever endured, any formal imprimatur. Historians genuinely believe that making use of red, white and blue when you look at the Stars and Stripes is due to the reality that these were the colors of this first banner associated with the American colonies, the Continental Colors. And there’s doubt that is little the red, white and blue of this Continental Colors came from: the Union Jack for the great britain.
Users of the Electoral university recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Myth # 3: The Pledge of Allegiance is definitely recited in Congress as well as other bodies that are governmental.
The pledge had been compiled by mag editor Francis Bellamy in 1892 for a public that is nationwide party of this 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing. In 1898, throughout the Spanish-American War, ny became the state that is first mandate that public college students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each college time. Numerous states observed suit, and also the pledge stayed a basic of this day by day routine in lots of schools until 1988, whenever it became a concern within the campaign that is presidential.
Vice President George H.W. Bush criticized their opponent, Democrat Michael Dukakis, for vetoing a bill as governor of Massachusetts that will have required the pledge become recited in public areas schools. Dukakis stated he did therefore after being encouraged that the statutory legislation ended up being unconstitutional.
In the height of this campaign, on Sept. 13, 1988, the pledge had been recited on the ground for the House of Representatives for the first-time. Republican people in the homely house, who have been into the minority, offered an answer to this impact, also it ended up being accepted by Speaker Jim Wright, a Democrat. Wright ruled that after that, the pledge could be recited from the beginning of company each that the House was in session day.
The Senate would not begin daily recital regarding the pledge until June 24, 1999. Since that time, the pledge became the main opening rituals of the majority of state and regional bodies that are governmental.
In accordance with the Supreme Court, laws and regulations banning flag burning violate free message.
Myth number 4: it really is unlawful to burn off the flag that is american.
It absolutely was unlawful until 1989, as soon as the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in Texas v. Johnson that burning the banner is a kind of symbolic message protected by the initial Amendment.
The actual situation included Gregory Lee Johnson, a known member of this Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, who’d burned the banner throughout a protest in the 1984 Republican National Convention. He had been convicted of breaking Texas’s flag-desecration legislation, fined $2,000 and sentenced up to an in jail year. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction, governing that Johnson had been working out their First Amendment directly to freedom of message.
The Supreme Court’s choice invalidated a 1968 flag-desecration that is national, along with comparable guidelines in 48 states (all except Wyoming and Alaska). In reaction, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act, but that legislation has also been challenged and ended up in the Supreme Court. The court in 1990 really affirmed its previous ruling, saying that any legislation banning flag burning violated speech that is free.
Those choices resulted in a nationwide motion to amend the Constitution which will make banner desecration unlawful. The best sound for the reason that work happens to be the Citizens Flag Alliance, that has been created in 1994 because of the American Legion. Proposed amendments have actually show up frequently in the home and Senate ever since then but have yet to get support that is sufficient.
This shirt that is patriotic violates Flag Code directions.
Myth # 5: It really is okay to put on a Stars-and-Stripes T-shirt.
The U.S. Flag Code frowns from the utilization of the banner “for advertising purposes.” It continues on to warn contrary to the purchase or display of every “article of product . Upby which shall were printed, painted, connected, or perhaps put a representation of” the banner to “advertise, call awareness of, decorate, mark, or differentiate the substance or article on which so placed.”
Quite simply, whenever you wear a flag T-shirt or cap while reclining for a us banner coastline towel near your US banner camping seat, you might be breaking the Flag Code. The rule, that was drafted during the National that is first Flag in Washington in 1923, is a component associated with the legislation associated with the land. However it is maybe maybe maybe not enforced, neither is it enforceable. It really is simply a couple of directions, permitting People in america know very well what to accomplish — and exactly just just what not to do — with our red, white and blue emblem that is national.
There is absolutely no Flag Police. You won’t be arrested for using a t-shirt that is flag-embossed Independence Day — or just about any time of the season.
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