The Truth Behind the Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance is considered the prime symbol of American patriotism, after all, almost every citizen can recite it verbatim. But did you know that the Pledge is rooted in socialism, which is the antithesis of the liberty that the American government is supposed to protect?
Francis Bellamy composed the original “Pledge of Allegiance” in 1892. Bellamy was a Baptist minister who had been removed from the pulpit for preaching that socialism was embodied in Jesus. Bellamy was the cousin of Edward Bellamy, whose book Looking Backward was the second-best selling novel of the 19th century behind Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Francis Bellamy
Looking Backward depicted an America in the year 2000 where government regulated every aspect of society, wealth was evenly distributed regardless of merit, and men were conscripted into the “industrial army” to serve the state. Fans of the book formed hundreds of “Nationalist” clubs, where members supported nationalizing the economy at the expense of the states and the people. Francis Bellamy was a founding member of the Boston Nationalists.
Francis Bellamy also expressed views that would be considered virulently racist today. He said, “Where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another every alien immigrant of inferior race may bring corruption to the stock… there are other races, which we cannot assimilate without lowering our racial standard, which should be as sacred to us as the sanctity of our homes.”
When Bellamy’s sermons were rejected, he began indoctrinating children who were not yet exposed to the fact that socialism does nothing but spread misery more evenly. Bellamy teamed up with editors of Youth’s Companion, a prominent magazine that was trying to increase subscriptions by selling American flags to public schools. They worked with President Benjamin Harrison to create a National Public School Celebration in the fall of 1892.
This was one of the biggest patriotic events of the late 19th century. The Celebration coincided with the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which commemorated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World. In buildup to this event, Bellamy published his “Pledge of Allegiance” in a September issue of Youth’s Companion, intended to be ready for public schoolchildren throughout America to recite on Columbus Day, October 12.
The original Pledge read, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Bellamy explained his goal in writing a Pledge: “The time was ripe for a reawakening of simple Americanism and the leaders in the new movement rightly felt that patriotic education should begin in the public schools.”
Thus, Bellamy’s idea to instill patriotism in America was to compel children to proclaim their allegiance to a country in schools where attendance was mandatory. In keeping with his goal of indoctrination, Bellamy wrote the Pledge in language simple enough to be easily recited and remembered for children and adults alike. To achieve maximum impact, Bellamy pushed for all schoolchildren in America to participate. He lobbied “not only the superintendents of education in all the States, but also worked with governors, Congressmen, and even the President of the United States.”
Today, the words “under God” in the Pledge provoke the most controversy. Those words weren’t in the original Pledge; instead, the most controversial word at that time was “indivisible.” Bellamy explained he wanted to stress that America was one nation, and “to make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches.”
The word “indivisible” was intended to disavow prior state attempts to secede by declaring that the Union could not be broken. To Bellamy, the Civil War decided that states could not secede. But an “indivisible” Union was not part of the founding idea of sovereign states voluntarily joining a federal compact. And the “indivisibility” of the Union cannot be settled by force of arms. Might does not make right.
In addition, the ceremony in which the Pledge was to be undertaken eerily foreshadowed the totalitarianism of the 20th century. According to Bellamy, the principal of each school was to ensure that his “pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag.” The salute was “right hand lifted, palm downward,” until “the words, ‘to my Flag,’ the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, towards the Flag…” In the 1940s, this salute was changed to hand-over-heart because of its striking similarity to the Nazi salute to the German flag.
Since Bellamy’s original draft, courts have ruled that nobody can be forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But the fact remains that a government composed of sovereign states should not be sanctioning a salute to the state written by an avowed socialist and nationalist.
Today, the main question is whether the words “under God” should be in the Pledge of Allegiance. But the real question should be, “Why would a country built to protect individual liberty even have a Pledge of Allegiance at all?”
