The Pledge of Allegiance

The Pledge of Allegiance

A pledge to the country had nothing to do with the Founding Fathers. Colonel George Balch, a veteran of the Civil War, wrote a pledge in 1887, which said: “We give our head and hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag!” A pledge written by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and Christian socialist, wrote the version present-day Americans know as part of a publicity campaign for the Youth’s Companion, a children’s magazine with the largest magazine circulation of the late 1890s.

Bellamy worked for the publication and made the pledge part of a campaign to sell American flags to all public schools in time for the 400^th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival on the American continent. Many of the flags were sold at a discount by children also selling subscriptions to the magazine. Bellamy’s original version said: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The two pledge versions were used by different organizations until Congress adopted Bellamy’s in 1942. “My” was changed to “the” and “of the United States” was added in 1923 during the National Flag Conference.

Under God

Legislation to add “under God” was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Eisenhower on Flag Day of 1954 to differentiate America from other nations, especially those espousing atheistic Communism.

President Eisenhower said in his address, “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim… the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty… 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.”

Controversy

The founding fathers never mentioned or advocated any pledge in a Constitution aimed at freedom of thought and speech and very decidedly advocated a separation between state and religion to guarantee religious freedoms for all. Cases have gone all the way to the Supreme Court in protest and children are no longer required to say the pledge, though only four states no longer include it as a daily exercise.

Francis Bellamy went on to become a successful New York City advertising man, though in 1923 he wrote that the pledge was his favorite. He wrote (according to the Smithsonian Magazine), “This little formula has been pounding away on the impressionable minds of children for a generation.”