We the people love and honor the Stars and Stripes but have not learned its entire truth
A painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (circa 1920) of Betsy Ross and George Washington (far left)
Americans love our flag. We show it at concerts and stadiums to commemorate, as well as times during the national tragedy to demonstrate our resolve.
We now have our schoolchildren pledge allegiance to it; we now have consecrated it within our national anthem; we have actually any occasion, Flag Day, to honor it every June 14, also get it on prominent display when it comes to Fourth of July.
Yet the iconography and reputation for the US banner, specially its early history, are infused with misconception and misrepresentation. Listed below are five of the very predominant urban myths.
Myth # 1: Betsy Ross made 1st US banner.
The Betsy Ross tale is considered the most piece that is tenacious of concerning the banner. There merely isn't any legitimate historical proof — letters, diaries, paper reports, bills of purchase — that Ross (then referred to as Elizabeth Claypoole) either made or had a submit creating the US banner before it made its first in 1777.
The tale cropped up in 1870, very nearly a century following the very first banner ended up being 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 single proof: affidavits from loved ones. The iconic 1893 artwork of Ross sitting in her Philadelphia parlor utilizing the sunlight beaming straight down on the banner inside her lap is really a scene devised by Charles H. Weisgerber, the musician and business owner custom writing whom profited through the Betsy Ross legend.
While Ross did make flags in Philadelphia into the late 1770s, it's all but sure that the tale about her producing the flag that is american a misconception.
As President Woodrow Wilson, whom presided throughout the very very first formal Flag that is national Day June 14, 1916, is believed to have replied when expected their thoughts in the tale: "Would so it had been real."
Library of Congress
Much symbolism happens to be caused by them, however the colors of this US banner have never really had almost any formal imprimatur.
Myth # 2. The red, white and colors that are blue American sacrifice.
No law that is federal resolution or professional order exists supplying the state basis for the flag’s colors — or their meaning. The closest thing to a reason will be the terms of Charles Thomson, the assistant of this Continental Congress, who had been instrumental within the design associated with the Great Seal of this united states of america.
Thomson’s are accountable to Congress on June 20, 1782, a single day the seal had been approved, included a description associated with the colors, just like those who work in the banner: "White signifies purity and purity. Red and Blue . Signifies vigilance, justice and perseverance."
Various documents that are official proclamations — including one by President Ronald Reagan marking 1986 because the "12 months associated with the Flag" — have echoed that reasoning.
Nevertheless the colors don't have, nor have actually they ever endured, any imprimatur that is official. Historians believe that the employment of red, white and blue when you look at the Stars and Stripes is due to the inescapable fact that these were the colors for the very first banner associated with the United states colonies, the Continental Colors. And there's small question where the red, white and blue for the Continental Colors came from: the Union Jack associated with 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 government figures.
The pledge had been compiled by mag editor Francis Bellamy in 1892 for the public that is nationwide celebration associated with 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing. In 1898, through the Spanish-American War, nyc became the state that is first mandate that public college students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each college time. Numerous states implemented suit, additionally the pledge stayed a basic of this day by day routine in several schools until 1988, whenever it became a problem within the presidential campaign.
Vice President George H.W. Bush criticized their opponent, Democrat Michael Dukakis, for vetoing a bill as governor of Massachusetts that will have needed the pledge become recited in public places schools. Dukakis stated he did therefore after being encouraged that the legislation had been unconstitutional.
During the height for the campaign, on Sept. 13, 1988, the pledge ended up being recited on the ground for the House of Representatives when it comes to first-time. Republican people of the House, who had 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 there after, the pledge will be recited at the beginning of company each time that the home was at session.
The Senate would not begin day-to-day recital associated with pledge until June 24, 1999. Since that time, the pledge is actually area of the opening rituals of almost all state and regional bodies that are governmental.
Based on the Supreme Court, guidelines banning banner burning violate free message.
Myth # 4: its unlawful to burn off the US banner.
It absolutely was unlawful until 1989, if the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in Texas v. Johnson that burning the banner is a kind of symbolic message protected by the very first Amendment.
The outcome included Gregory Lee Johnson, member associated with the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, that has burned the banner throughout a protest in the 1984 Republican National Convention. He had been convicted of breaking Texas’s flag-desecration law, fined $2,000 and sentenced to a year in prison. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction, governing that Johnson ended up being working out their First Amendment directly to freedom of message.
The Supreme Court’s choice invalidated a 1968 nationwide flag-desecration legislation, in addition to comparable guidelines in 48 states (all except Wyoming and Alaska). As a result, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act, but that law was additionally challenged and finished up in the Supreme Court. The court in 1990 basically affirmed its previous ruling, saying that any legislation banning flag burning violated free message.
Those choices resulted in a movement that is national amend the Constitution to create banner desecration unlawful. The key sound for the reason that work happens to be the people Flag Alliance, that was created in 1994 by the American Legion. Proposed amendments have actually show up frequently inside your home and Senate subsequently but have actually yet to get support that is sufficient.
This shirt that is patriotic violates Flag Code tips.
Myth number 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 "to promote purposes." It continues to alert from the display or sale of any "article of product . Upon which shall happen printed, painted, connected, or perhaps put a representation of" the banner to "advertise, call focus on, decorate, mark, or differentiate the substance or article on which so placed."
This means, whenever you wear a banner T-shirt or cap while reclining for a us banner coastline towel near your US banner camping seat, you will be breaking the Flag Code. The rule, that was used during the National that is first Flag in Washington in 1923, is a component associated with legislation of this land. However it is perhaps not enforced, neither is it enforceable. It's merely a collection of instructions, permitting Us americans understand what to accomplish — and just just just what never 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 flag-embossed t-shirt on Independence Day — or just about any other time of the season.
