Flag Day in the United States is a holiday of honor and national pride, a day to figuratively” rally around the flag.” Flag Day has its own origins inside the Second Continental Congress. On June 14, 1777, the Congress adopted a flag design, specified as “That the flag of america be thirteen stripes, alternate white and red; that the union be thirteen stars, white in the blue field, representing a brand new Constellation.”
The original use of this design ended up being function as the flag carried into battle (the brand new War was still being well arrived). The flag was basically carried in the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. In these beginning of the United States flag, it absolutely was shown on naval ships and ultimately became accepted and honored from the new U . s . citizens through foreigners at the same time. In 1778 Captain Paul Jones commanded the naval warship “the Ranger” on what the flag was placed. Upon arriving within north america , the crew from the French naval ships saluted the flag.
The initial design is credited to Betsy Ross, and contains the familiar circle variety of the 13 stars – for the original 13 colonies. Eventually since the country grew, the amount of stars were required to grow too. The next version had 15 stars, as Vermont and Kentucky joined the Union. This new flag came into being in 1795. The flag experienced numerous iterations as new states were added to the country. However an issue was brewing over the way the flag was being misused.
Just before 1897 a number of opportunists took the nationalistic feelings instilled in the flag’s image as avenues to advertise their wares or political views. The flag took over as the backdrop to advertising or any other questionable purposes. For instance a marketer could post an add-on a flag and wave it around within a crowd.
A shot was developed to acquire federal legislation passed that would ban desecration from the flag. After failing at the federal level, Illinois, South dakota, and Pennsylvania brought out state laws in 1897 that managed to get illegal to place any kind of markings about the flag, to use the flag in any kind of marketing, or to mutilate, trample, deface, or defile the flag.
It wasn’t until 1968 that flag desecration became federal law. A flag was burned in The big apple City’s Central Park to protest the Vietnam War. Congress then passed a whole new law rendering it illegal to knowingly cast contempt upon any flag of the usa by “publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling on there.”
This law continues to be challenged many times since. In the middle with the dilemma is choosing the balance between flag desecration and freedom of speech rights. In a 1972 decision, the final Court held that Massachusetts couldn’t prosecute someone who wore a flag about the seat of his pants. In 1974 the final Court decided that freedom of speech overrode flag desecration inside a case involving someone who affixed a peace sign within the flag in protest with the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.
Perhaps the thorniest issue of the latest times may be the use of the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. In 2002 a Ninth Circuit Federal appeals court decided that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because of the line “one nation, under God.” In 2004, however, the last Court declined to hear a similar case, thereby leaving the inclusion of “under God” intact in the Pledge of Allegiance for some of the nation.
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