Who said the pledge of allegiance

First in in the case of Minersville School District v. Over the following decades, there have been legal challenges concerning the use of those two words in the Pledge.

Two recent legal challenges also targeted state constitutions, and not the U. In , the Massachusetts case Jane Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District involved a group of parents, teachers and the American Humanist Association in an action against a school district. It is the concise political word for the Nation — the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clearer, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches.

Before World War II, students acknowledged the Pledge of Allegiance by standing, facing the flag and placing their right arm in front with their palm facing upward, according to the U. Department of Veteran Affairs. The salute eventually changed to one placing the right hand on the front of the left shoulder — thus, crossing their arm over their heart. This is the pledge we recite today. Schools across America have recited the Pledge at the beginning of the school day for over a century.

Some students oppose the practice for reasons of values and religion. Under Washington law, a school is required to lead students in reciting the Pledge, but it must also respect the wishes of students who choose not to join in.

But he was restive in the ministry and, in , accepted a job from one of his Boston congregants, Daniel S. Ford, principal owner and editor of the Youth's Companion , a family magazine with half a million subscribers. Assigned to the magazine's promotions department, the year-old Bellamy set to work arranging a patriotic program for schools around the country to coincide with opening ceremonies for the Columbian Exposition in October , the th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World.

Bellamy successfully lobbied Congress for a resolution endorsing the school ceremony, and he helped convince President Benjamin Harrison to issue a proclamation declaring a Columbus Day holiday. A key element of the commemorative program was to be a new salute to the flag for schoolchildren to recite in unison. But as the deadline for writing the salute approached, it remained undone.

The idea was in part a response to the Civil War, a crisis of loyalty still fresh in the national memory. As Bellamy sat down at his desk, the opening words—"I pledge allegiance to my flag"—tumbled onto paper. Then, after two hours of "arduous mental labor," as he described it, he produced a succinct and rhythmic tribute very close to the one we know today: I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands—one Nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all. Bellamy later added the "to" before "the Republic" for better cadence.

Millions of schoolchildren nationwide took part in the Columbus Day ceremony, according to the Youth's Companion. Bellamy said he heard the pledge for the first time that day, October 21, when "4, high school boys in Boston roared it out together. But no sooner had the pledge taken root in schools than the fiddling with it began.

In , a National Flag Conference, presided over by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, ordained that "my flag" should be changed to "the flag of the United States," lest immigrant children be unclear just which flag they were saluting. The following year, the Flag Conference refined the phrase further, adding "of America. In , the pledge's 50th anniversary, Congress adopted it as part of a national flag code. By then, the salute had already acquired a powerful institutional role, with some state legislatures obligating public school students to recite it each school day.

But individuals and groups challenged the laws.