Pledge of Allegiance History

After the Civil War patriotism and a national feeling was at a low. Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, in 1892 originally composed the Pledge of Allegiance (Pledge) of the United States (US) for the nation’s youth to express loyalty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America; it simply said “I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and just for all.” Four revisions to the Pledge have been made since (shown in bold italics). From 1892-1923 “I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all”; 1923-24 “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all”; 1924-54 “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all” and its final version in 1954 to now is “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. The Pledge was formally adopted by Congress in 1942.   

Since the 1930s groups have contended that saluting the flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is contrary to their fundamental religious beliefs and a violation of First Amendment. The US Supreme Court (Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 60 S.Ct. 1010) ruled in 1940 that compelling students to salute the flag did not violate religious freedom; the Court stated that the proper recourse for dissent was to try to change the school policy democratically. In 1943 with a 6-3 vote the US Supreme Court (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624) held that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution protected students from being forced to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance in school. The Court primarily relied on the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment rather than the Free Exercise Clause and did not address the effect the compelled salutation and recital ruling had upon their particular religious beliefs, but instead ruled that the state did not have the power to compel speech in that manner for anyone. In October 2009 the Supreme Court would not hear the Frazier v. Smith case of a Florida law that requires all public-school students, Grades K-12, to stand and repeat the Pledge, unless excused in writing by a parent. No reason for the decision was offered but to resolve the case, the justices would have had to clarify the 1943 ruling.

Since adding the words ‘under God’ during the Cold War fight against Communism, there have been several Supreme Court cases: June 25, 1962 (370 U.S. 421, Engel v. Vitale) the Court by a 5-2 ruling struck down New York State's law requiring school officials open the school day with prayer; June 17, 1963 (374 U.S. 203, Abington v. Schrempf) the Court ruled 8-1 that government mandated Bible reading in public schools was unconstitutional; July 5, 1983 (463 U.S. 783, Marsh v. Chambers) by a 6-3 vote the Court permitted the practice of beginning the (Nebraska state) legislative session with a prayer given by a publicly funded chaplain (the practice had been done for many years, it had become a communication of shared values rather than a decidedly religious practice); March 5, 1984 (465 U.S. 668, Lynch v. Donnelly) the Court ruled 5-4 that the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island (RI) could continue to display a nativity scene as part of its Christmas display; June 4, 1985 (472 U.S. 38, Wallace v. Jaffree) the Court decided 6-3 that Alabama's moment of silence statute was unconstitutional; July 3, 1989 (492 U.S. 573, Allegheny County v. ACLU) the Court in a deeply and unusually fragmented decision ruled 5 to 4 (to strike) and 6 to 3 (to uphold) that while the Nativity scene was unconstitutional, the menorah display was not because the ACLU failed to bring up that the menorah is used in religious ceremonies; June 24, 1992 (505 U.S. 577, Lee v. Weisman) the Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that held that “nonsectarian” invocations and benedictions at public secondary school graduations violated the Establishment Clause because high school students even if they were not compelled to attend the graduation ceremony could feel compelled by peer pressure to attend and stand as part of the group and either join in the prayer or maintain a respectful silence out of a sense of compulsion (this approved the student's recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance prior to the prayer) and June 14, 2004 the Court reversed the June 26, 2002 Ninth Circuit Federal Appeals Court’s 2-1 vote in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow dismissing on procedural grounds that a lower court's ruling of a California atheist did not have the legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance (it sidestepped the broader question of whether the pledge itself is constitutional). Note: In a separate case the same Ninth Circuit Court rejected Newdow's challenge to the imprinting of "In God We Trust" on the national money, citing a Supreme Court ruling that the phrase constitutes a national motto and "Not every mention of God or religion by our government or at the government's direction is a violation of the Establishment Clause" (Judge Carlos T. Bea cited tax exemptions for religious groups and Nativity displays on government property that have passed high-court review). On January 12, 2012 a Federal judge ordered a prayer mural removed from a RI public high school. The Court has ruled that students cannot be compelled to recite the Pledge or punished for not doing so. The Pledge was written after the First Amendment (1791) and intended to pull us together as a nation; instead it’s now used to hinder our being a nation united, patriotic with the goal of liberty and justice for all.