Month: July 2014

The Pledge of allegiance at 60

The Pledge of Allegiance is actually older than 60; it was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a minister and social reformer who was given the assignment by Daniel Sharp Ford, editor of the magazine Youth’s Companion, published in Boston. The year before, in 1891, the magazine had sponsored a campaign to sell American flags to public schools so each classroom could have one; in 1892, as part of the myriad celebrations and memorializations of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, Youth’s Companion wanted to provide a salute to those flags that could be used in the classroom.

As a minister, socialist, and reformer, Bellamy wanted the pledge to focus a new generation of Americans on social justice and economic equality of opportunity. He wrote this short text:

I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

This pledge, quickly titled “The Pledge of Allegiance”, was immediately popular, and began to be used in schools across the country. In 1923, in fears that immigrants would think that “my flag” meant the flag of their country of origin, new text was added over Bellamy’s objections:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You can see Bellamy’s point: if you say “the flag of the United States of America”, then adding “the republic for which it stands” is unnecessarily redundant. When you just said “the flag”, then you had to specify the American republic for which it stood. But that was the least of the changes to Bellamy’s pledge.

Before the text was changed, the manner of reciting it was revised. Originally, one was supposed to recite the pledge in this posture:

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This was called the “Bellamy Salute”. By the early 1930s, it was uncomfortably like the Nazi salute, and although it took awhile—1942 to be exact—the federal government finally issued the directive to place one’s right hand over one’s heart when saying the Pledge, rather than extend it in a by-now fascist gesture.

In 1954, the final change came, and that’s what we comment on today: 2014 is the 60th anniversary of the addition of “under God” to the Pledge. The Catholic organization Knights of Columbus led a petition to add these words to the Pledge during the Cold War, to differentiate the U.S. from godless Communist nations, and President Eisenhower signed the measure, saying “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 and war.”

So now the pledge 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.

This is the version most Americans know today; it’s how we at the HP grew up reciting it. In fact, few know or would believe that “under God” wasn’t always in the Pledge. But it’s a sad anniversary, we think; adding “under God” as a “spiritual weapon” seems incongruous, and to insert religious faith into a statement of loyalty to the U.S. goes against the principles of its founding documents. The Pledge has often been mis-used since September 11th as a loyalty test: anyone who won’t recite it or has qualms with its use in public schools is a traitor. But the Founders strictly and explicitly forbid loyalty tests in the U.S. If you were born here or were naturalized as a citizen, you are a citizen, and you cannot be forced to “prove” your loyalty on pain of losing privileges, goods, or your life.

So we like to recite the first revised Pledge, which is about upholding the founding principles of this nation: We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Of course, we don’t force anyone else to do it our way—that would be un-American.

What kind of car would Thomas Cromwell drive?

We are big fans of Alan Partridge here at the HP, so when we found this clip of him asking callers to his radio show what kind of car Thomas Cromwell would have driven, we were knocked out.

At last someone who understands the Puritan mindset. And the wonderful reveal at the end that Alan thought they were talking about Oliver Cromwell the whole time… a common mistake. If only every historian had a Sidekick Simon to help us out with those details before we get up to the podium.

Animation of U.S. territorial acquisitions 1750-present

We happened upon a very interesting animation of how the 13 colonies grew out of the imperial claims of France, Britain, and Spain, then later Russia; out of inter-colony conflicts; wars; and the general rush of white settlement at the expense of American Indian claims. The sagas of today’s Canada and Mexico are included too. Check it out here.

The Declaration of Independence misread

Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, has come to the conclusion that the most famous line in the Declaration of Independence, and perhaps in all American documentary history, is not what we think it is.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

That’s the way we learn it. But Allen has convincing evidence that in the original document there was no period after “happiness”, which means that first line should read like this:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

In their regular waves of anti-government passion, which recur throughout our history, Americans often claim that the federal government in Washington interferes with our “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness”, and even that the federal government—or the bare concept of having a federal government—is at odds with Americans being able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. But if the Declaration’s famous line has no period (as Allen seems to prove), then the only way Americans can pursue those rights given by God to all people is if they institute a government that derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

This is how we have always seen it at the HP: what makes America great is not, as is so often suggested, “our freedoms”. It is the fair, representative, democratic government that makes those freedoms possible, that makes preserving those freedoms its first priority and understands them as its reason for being. Without a fair and free government, we cannot long maintain any national, political, or individual freedoms we currently possess. In our posts “What are the freedoms we have as Americans?” parts 1 and 2, we put it this way:

“Many Americans have come to see our individual freedoms as the wellspring from which national freedom is born, and thus individual freedoms are the most important. But these individual freedoms come from our government, from the Constitution, and last only as long as we have our national freedom. Without national freedom, there is no individual freedom, and national freedom only lasts as long as we have political freedom. Giving up our right to vote—for refusing or failing to vote is tantamount to giving up that right—is a dangerous step toward losing national and individual freedom. Once we stop demanding that our government really represent us, our democracy is crippled, and then the nation is open to outside threats. If individual freedoms are seen as separate from or at odds with national and political freedom, then we begin to prioritize our liberty to do whatever we want at the expense of national safety.

Individual freedom is really our freedom to live up to the founding principles of our nation. It’s our freedom to speak and worship and serve our country as we each see fit, and not really the freedom to be lazy and uninvolved and prioritizing our own choices over other people’s choices. It is the freedom to live together as one without having to be the same, not the freedom to push our own ways at the expense of everyone else’s.

Political freedom is our freedom to have a democracy, to be represented accurately in the federal government, and to preserve the individual freedoms we enjoy.

National freedom is the end result of the first two freedoms, because we who value our individual and political freedom will not allow our country to be destroyed by outside forces—or by those Americans who don’t believe in the full triad of freedoms.”

The idea that the Founders did not want us to have a strong government is ludicrous. Their whole aim in breaking away from Great Britain was to create a new kind of government—the government was the point, the goal, the prize, the crowning achievement of the United States. They would create a government that was democratic and representative, strong but flexible, responsive yet authoritative enough to enforce its laws (which would be written by popularly elected representatives of the people). Without that kind of government, there could be no guarantees of life, liberty, or happiness. As Jack Rakove of Stanford puts it in the New York Times article on Allen’s quest to remove the inaccurate period from the Declaration puts it, “Are the parts [of the Declaration] about the importance of government part of one cumulative argument, or—as Americans have tended to read the document—subordinate to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’?”

It takes energy to maintain a fair and free government. Energy on the part of citizens. We are so often lacking that kind of energy, particularly in the new millennium. George Washington warned us in his Farewell Address that the greatest threat to American life, liberty, happiness, and the government that provides them all comes from within America itself:

“The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for [the government] is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”

Washington urges us to love our democracy and our democratic government, and to remember that it is a painfully new kind of government, and there are going to be many people—outside the U.S. and even within it, your fellow citizens—who don’t believe it will really work. They will try to tear it down, and tell you you’re crazy to defend it. You’ve got to remember that being united under your unique government is your greatest treasure. Forget the things that make you different, like religion or customs and focus on what you have in common, what you share that no other people on earth share: a democratic government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

That’s why we are quick to believe there was no period after “happiness” in the original Declaration of Independence. The Founders knew that good, tireless government was the only safeguard of life, liberty, and happiness. As the Fourth of July approaches, we would do well to remind ourselves of that fact.