Thou hast given a banner to
them that fear thee, that it
may be displayed because of
the truth.
Psalm 60:4
As at the early dawn the stars shine forth even while it grows light, and then, as the sun advances, that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense white striving together, and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so on the American flag, stars and beams of many-colored light shine out together. And wherever this flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no ramping lions and no fierce eagle; no embattled castles, or insignia of imperial authority: they see symbols of light. It is the banner of Dawn. It means Liberty....
Our Flag carries American ideas, American history and American feelings. Beginning with the Colonies, and coming down to our time, in its sacred heraldry, in its glorious insignia, it has gathered and stored chiefly this supreme idea: Divine right of liberty in man. Every color means liberty; every thread means liberty; every form of star and beam or stripe of light means liberty: not lawlessness, not license; but organized institutional liberty--liberty through law, and laws for liberty!. . .
. . .It is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the government. It is the free people that stand in the government of the Constitution.
*Excerpt from The Christian History of the Constitution by Verna M. Hall, FACE, p. 317
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