"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." ~Pledge Of Allegiance
"We take the star from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty." ~George Washington.
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God." ~George Washington
"A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth." ~Henry Ward Beecher
"If anyone, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him - it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known - the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties." ~Henry Ward Beecher
"It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the men whose people have been here many generations." ~Henry Cabot Lodge
"Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" ~Francis Scott Key
"Off with your hat, as the flag goes by!
And let the heart have its say;
You're man enough for a tear in your eye
That you will not wipe away."
~Henry Cuyler Bunner
When Freedom from her mountain-height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us.
~Joseph Rodman Drake
