"Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"

The first few sentences descibe my experience, but about a decade earlier. From Caitlin Flanagan, "The Indivisible America":

.... Each week there was a different Pledge of Allegiance monitor, and that person walked importantly to the front of the room and stood beneath the flag. The monitor’s hand was placed (more or less) over the monitor’s heart, a signal for all of us to look alive. A single clap rang out as 22 small hands clapped (more or less) over 22 hearts. The monitor started, and we all joined in.

We looked at the flag and said the Pledge, and it was similar to saying prayers you’ve learned by heart. Any single day might not have an effect, but day after day, the words soaked into me. They taught me that I was an American; that America was a good place; and that the flag—our flag—was to be respected.

This wasn’t taking place in some deep red state; this was Berkeley, California, in 1968. ....

People often felt then the way we sometimes feel now: that the country would unravel altogether, victim of more hatred than one nation could stand. That assumption was then as it is now: juvenile. America is good at hanging on until better days come around. It’s written throughout our history. ....

The first version of the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1885 by George Thatcher Balch, who had been a Union officer himself and went on to write a book about teaching patriotism to children. Seven years later, it was revised and promoted by a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy. Why would this weird little sentence (6-year-olds pledging themselves to the state?) have seemed so important that it quickly spread to American public schools? Because it was written a few decades after the end of the Civil War, and it included the word that so few children understand but that everyone who said it each morning remembers all of their lives: indivisible.

When I see our flag flying, at the post office or the library or any kind of civic building, it means that America is still steady, that the world is still in its place.

I grew up around plenty of people who believed the flag’s presence was oppressive, possibly even fascist. But the time to worry isn’t when you see the American flag flying at parks and DMVs and hospitals. The time to worry is when you don’t see any American flags at all. .... (more)

The illustration by N.C. Wyeth is from a 1918 schoolbook. I'll fly my flag on the Fourth because of the principles expressed in the words of the Pledge:

"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."

Caitlin Flanagan, "The Indivisible America," The Free Press, July 2, 2026.

Another Glorious Fourth

Allen C. Guelzo:

‘How long ago is it—80-odd years?” Abraham Lincoln asked the crowd that had marched to the White House to celebrate the twin Union victories in the Civil War, at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. When he stood on the portico of the executive mansion to ask that question on July 7, 1863, it had actually been 87 years “since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal.’ ” Now, he wondered, wasn’t there something almost providential to be seen in how “a gigantic Rebellion...which is an effort to overthrow the principle that all men were created equal,” had met with two stunning defeats on that anniversary? ....

“When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that ‘all men are created equal’ a self-evident truth,” Lincoln wrote in 1855. No longer. Although the Fourth of July “has not quite dwindled away,” he wrote, now it is good for nothing more than “burning fire-crackers!” As he said in 1857, what was the point of celebrating the Fourth if the Declaration was now treated as “mere rubbish—old wadding left to rot on the battlefield”?

But then, in quick order, came Lincoln’s election to the presidency in November 1860, the secession of the slave states to form the Southern Confederacy, and the attack on the U.S. garrison in Fort Sumter. When Lincoln called Congress into special session in 1861 to deal with the emergency, the date he selected for its assembling was July 4. And no wonder, since the Confederacy represented a direct repudiation of everything the Fourth of July once stood for. The war, he said at the special session, “presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy—a government of the people, by the same people—can, or cannot, maintain its territorial integrity, against its own domestic foes.”

No wonder Lincoln was so jubilant in 1863 when news of the Union triumph at Gettysburg (on July 3) and the surrender of the Confederate citadel of Vicksburg (on July 4) clustered around the Fourth. The rebellion that denied “all men are created equal” had now “turned tail and run,” as Lincoln said during his July 7 speech. But the ultimate vindication of the Fourth of July would come four months later, at the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg for the Union dead of the battle....

From the moment of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln made it clear that Americans trace their origin not to a race, a heritage or a religion, but to the creed enunciated on the Fourth of July—that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The close of the Civil War was, in large measure, Lincoln’s victory. But it was also the victory of the Fourth of July, and that victory is with us still. (more)

Allen C. Guelzo, "Abraham Lincoln Remade the Fourth of July," WSJ Opinion, July 1, 2026.

Half educated

I taught secondary U.S. History in public schools for thirty-five years. When I started, we did teach subject matter that slighted things like racism, labor strife, and the more unsavory aspects of American colonialism. It got better, though. Textbooks improved, but, more importantly, teachers learned, and teaching became more balanced. But then the pendulum swung too far, became far too cynical...and it hasn't swung back yet. Howard Zinn was part of the problem — his textbook, A People's History of the United States, became for many the textbook. From WSJ Opinion today: 

...[I]ts message could be summarized in two words: America stinks. The author believed most history textbooks offered only a whitewashed “nationalist glorification of country,” he told the New York Times. In response, he oversimplified the story in the opposite direction. America’s Founding Fathers? Just wealthy white men guarding their fortunes. Abraham Lincoln? A half-hearted abolitionist who was concerned about protecting “the interests of the very rich.” World War II? Sure, the Nazis were bad, Zinn concedes, but the U.S. and her allies didn’t really “represent something significantly different.”

A People’s History reads like a cross between a children’s book and a prosecutor’s brief. America’s downtrodden masses are uniformly brave and heroic; its leaders are one-dimensional villains. The author catalogs our nation’s every moral failure and unfulfilled promise. Every American should know about the evils of slavery and other stains on our past. But Zinn’s indictment scrupulously avoids the positive parts of the story. Other historians, including many on the left, slammed the book’s lack of context or nuance. "A People’s History is bad history, albeit gilded with virtuous intentions,” wrote historian Michael Kazin. “What he did was take all the guys in white hats and put them in black hats, and vice versa,” added Princeton’s Sean Wilentz after Zinn’s death in 2010. ....

[A]dherents to Zinn’s ideology flatter themselves that they bravely see through the pro-American propaganda on which they were raised. That’s a joke. The era of simplistically patriotic textbooks ended decades ago. It takes no courage to spout the anti-American platitudes of A People’s History or the 1619 Project. That worldview is now the default for most half-educated young Americans.

Recently, this America Worst sentiment has grown white hot on the left. ....

But the populist right marinates in anti-Americanism as well. Tucker Carlson boosts vile claims that the U.S. government engineered the 9/11 attacks even as he defends Vladimir Putin. Podcast bros revive Zinn’s old debate about whether the Allies were the real villains of World War II. At both extremes, America’s enemies get a more sympathetic treatment than the U.S. itself does. .... (more)

James B. Meigs, "Howard Zinn’s Horrible History," The Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2016.

Law, not partisanship

My impression is that those who passionately disagree with Supreme Court decisions do so usually because of their policy preferences, not the law. And that is true of partisans on both the left and the right. In "The Greatness of the Constitution Shines in the Birthright Citizenship Case," law professor Jed Rubenfeld considers the arguments made by both the majority and the dissenters in that case, as well as some of the other cases decided recently. If you are inclined to celebrate or deplore the consequences of the decisions, but not consider the reasoning by which they were found, I commend his summary of the arguments.  Toward the end, he writes:

I hope that even those who disagree will see Barbara as a victory for the country and the Constitution. Democrats have declared a constitutional crisis since Trump’s first days in office. They ceaselessly portray the Supreme Court as kowtowing to the administration, giving the president unlimited power to run roughshod over constitutional rights.

Barbara shows once again that American constitutionalism is strong. There is no crisis. As it did in the tariffs case, the Court stood against the president on one of his signature measures. And it did so on a matter of core constitutional principle. I have no doubt that the administration will obey the Supreme Court’s command, as it has in every case thus far.

Since Monday, the Court has issued a spate of important decisions, and for anyone not blinded by partisanship, those decisions show the justices working diligently and effectively to honor the rule of law.

Yesterday, in the mail-in ballots case, the Court again rebuffed the president, allowing states to accept ballots up to five days after the election. The right was furious. In Slaughter, the Court embraced the concept of the “unitary executive,” giving the president the power to fire any agency commissioner at will. The left was infuriated. But in Cook, the Court refused to let the president define as he pleases the kind of “cause” that justifies the firing of a Federal Reserve member. Critics will tabulate only whether the Court came out their preferred way. But all these decisions were rooted in close readings of statutory and constitutional language. I don’t agree with all these decisions, but I see law in them, not partisan politics, and that is a great thing for the country.

On Tuesday, in addition to Barbara, the Court ruled that states may ban biological males from competing on girls’ sports teams, and it found that certain campaign finance restrictions applied to political parties violated the First Amendment. For myself, the trans cases are a victory for common sense and for girls, while the campaign finance case mistakenly conflates money with speech. But even when we disagree with the Court, I hope—on this last decision day of the Supreme Court’s term, and as we celebrate 250 years of American independence—we can see and respect the genius of American constitutionalism. .... (more)

Jed Rubenfeld, "The Greatness of the Constitution Shines in the Birthright Citizenship Case," The Free Press, June 30, 2026.