Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge for the observance of the 400th Anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. He was an assistant to the editor of The Youth’s Companion magazine, the leading family magazine of its day. His job was to promote patriotism and the flying of the flag over the public schools. He was made Chairman of the executive committee in the National Education Association for the National Public School Celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He felt every public and private school in the land should fly the flag. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute – his ‘Pledge of Allegiance.’
Bellamy visited President Benjamin Harrison in Washington to ask him to endorse the idea of a flag over every school house and the teaching of patriotism in all the schools. On June 21st, 1892 President Harrison signed the Proclamation that said “Let the National Flag float over every school house in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship!”
The only well know American Flag Salute at the time was written in 1889 by Colonel Balch, and had been first used on the Flag Day, June 14th. His salute went as follows: “We give our heads and out hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one Flag.”
Bellamy decided that the new words for a salute should be more than just a Salute, it should be a vow of allegiance. This was to be a vow of loyalty for what the flag stood for – a “Republic” founded after the American Revolution which means a nation without a king and does not necessarily imply a democracy.
Bellamy wondered what the basic national doctrines or ideals were that the nation stood for? The high cost of the Civil War suggested three words: “one nation, indivisible.” He was tempted to use the slogan of the French Revolution: “liberty, fraternity, equality.” But “fraternity” was not soon to be recognized or agreed on and the word “equality” would be unacceptable to the state superintendents of education in a society that denied the vote and most civil rights to blacks and women.
The words “Liberty” and “justice” that he used are in the Preamble to the Constitution. Among the purposes in establishing the Constitution was a desire to “establish justice” and to “secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and out prosperity.” The words, “liberty” and “equality” are in the fifteenth and sixteenth amendments to the Constitution. Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment says “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The concept of equality did not appear in American constitutional law until adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment by the states in 1868 and Americans showed little interest in enforcing the spirit of liberty and equality until well after World War II. The word, “equality,” had been in the Declaration of Independence – and in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which identified the United States as a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Thus, “liberty and justice” were non-controversial and acceptable and plenty for one nation to accomplish. Bellamy felt that if “for all” was added these last two words implied the spirit of equality and fraternity – two words he did not dare include because the pledge had to be approved by the NEA’s Executive Committee of Superintendents of Education.
When Bellamy finished writing the Pledge in August 1892, he showed it to James B. Upham, editor of The Youth’s Companion, who liked it and was first printed in Youth’s Companion on September 8, 1892. Here are the now famous, original words:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
Mr. Upham suggested a salute that was used by many states up until World War II. Bellamy first heard the Pledge recited by the students in Boston on the morning of October 21st. It probably followed the program’s recommended procedure: “At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil give the Flag a military salute – right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, towards the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side. Then, still standing, as the instruments strike a chord, all will sing “America, My Country ‘tis of Thee.”
At the second National Flag Conference held in Washington, DC on Flag Day, 1924, under the leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the Pledge’s words, ‘my Flag,’ to ‘the Flag of the United States of America.’ Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.
A further change, after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, was made in the Pledge by House Joint Resolution 243 approved by President Eisenhower on June 14, 1954. This amended the language, by adding the words “under God,” so that it now reads “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
(c) Patriotic Expressions and Patriotic Minute 2008
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