Flag Day in america is often a holiday of honor and national pride, a day to figuratively” rally throughout the flag.” Flag Day have their own origins in the Second Continental Congress. On June 14, 1777, the Congress adopted a flag design, specified as “That the flag of the usa be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that this union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a fresh Constellation.”
The first use of this design ended up being to be the flag carried into battle (the newest War used to be well arrived). The flag was basically carried from the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. During these start of the usa flag, it absolutely was displayed on naval ships and ultimately became accepted and honored with the new United states of america citizens through foreigners at the same time. In flag of USA commanded the naval warship “the Ranger” where the flag was placed. Upon arriving within a French port, the crew of the French naval ships saluted the flag.
The original design is credited to Betsy Ross, and possesses the familiar circle selection of the 13 stars – for the original 13 colonies. Eventually because country grew, the quantity of stars needed to grow too. The following version had 15 stars, as Vermont and Kentucky joined the Union. This new flag came to exist in 1795. The flag experienced numerous iterations as new states were combined with the country. However a concern was brewing over how the flag was being misused.
Ahead of 1897 many opportunists took the nationalistic feelings drilled into the flag’s image as avenues to advertise their wares or political beliefs. The flag took over as the backdrop to advertising and other questionable purposes. For example a marketer could post an additional a flag and wave it around in the crowd.
A shot appeared to obtain federal legislation passed that might ban desecration from the flag. After failing on the federal level, Illinois, South dakota, and Pennsylvania released state laws in 1897 that caused it to be illegal to place any kind of markings on the flag, to use the flag in any kind of marketing, or to mutilate, trample, deface, or defile the flag.
It was not 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 brand new law so that it is illegal to knowingly cast contempt upon any flag of the United States by “publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling on there.”
This law has become challenged more often than not since. The hub from the problem is finding the balance between flag desecration and freedom of speech rights. Within a 1972 decision, the Supreme Court held that Massachusetts can’t prosecute an individual who wore a flag around the seat of his pants. In 1974 the last Court decided that freedom of speech overrode flag desecration in a case involving someone who affixed a peace sign in the flag in protest with the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.
Maybe the thorniest issue of contemporary times could be the use of the words “under God” within the Pledge of Allegiance. In 2002 a Ninth Circuit Federal appeals court decided that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional due to the line “one nation, under God.” In 2004, however, the last Court declined to hear an identical case, thereby leaving the inclusion of “under God” intact within the Pledge of Allegiance for most of the nation.
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