Sometimes, I listen to people singing the Star-Spangled Banner – you know, at sports events, stuff like that. Which is great and all, I think it’s a great song, but why do people only sing the first verse?

In this case, it goes like this:

O, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
    And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
    Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

It ends with a question – does the star-spangled banner yet wave? And in a sense, it is a fitting question if you look at the United States of today. Since we omit the next three verses and never sing it, we take out the good stuff from it, bringing to mind Alexis de Tocqueville’s famous comment “America is great because she is good, and when she ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

So it ends with a question – and this question has resounded over America for a great many years. Does the banner yet wave? Is she intact? Is she still there, the beacon of freedom through the world, shining gallantly for liberty and justice as the red, white and blue snaps in the wind?

It was with the same amount of tremor and hesitation that Francis Scott Key watched through the night, seeking indication of whether the British had captured Fort McHenry or not. And the jubilant sight he beheld when the large flag was raised in the early morning is recorded in the following verses.

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
    Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
    In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner!! Oh long may it wave!
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution!
    No refuge could save the hireling and slave
    From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave!
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And it ends with this benediction.

O, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
    Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
    And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

It is a terrible tragedy when the divine intervention in creating a new country, a home for the refugees of the world, is sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. So the question still stands. “Does the star-spangled banner yet wave?”

Maybe Heaven itself will answer that question. “Yet a little while”, a soft voice might whisper in the night, “yet a little while.”

This sonnet, written by Emma Lazarus, is written on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

(“The New Colossus”, Emma Lazarus, 1883)

The Declaration of Independence is one of the corner-stones of American politics. It effectively meant the birth of an independent United States of America, separate from the interests of Great Britain. It was written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, and signed by delegates from the American states at the time, on July 4th, 1776.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Great Britain and the American colonies were at war. The declaration being written explains that these colonies wish to separate from Great Britain, become independent, and wishes to establish in writing the reasons for doing so.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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.

It starts off by giving its view on the state of mankind: That all men are created by the same creator, and in their very nature possesses the undeniable and irrevocable right to life, to liberty, and to pursue their own happiness, in whichever form it may take.

Since these rights are established by the creator, and not given to men by legislation, by government, whether congress, president or king, any government that seeks to either grant or revoke these fundamental rights is in grave danger of overstepping its just and rightful powers. (Modern democracies of Europe take heed!)

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;

The reason for which we have government, then, is for the single purpose of protecting these rights; ensuring that all men have access to them according to their own capacity, and that no-one will deny them these rights. From this, we may logically deduce the necessity of legal bodies, of police and military forces, and of other necessary social services which may be needed to ensure that these rights are not tampered with, nor hindered, in any way.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

In one of the most radical passages of the declaration, the authors give here the just cause for this revolutionary act on their part. That when the government – in this case, the King and representatives of Great Britain – indeed do revoke these rights, they have overstepped their boundaries, and a forceful rejection of this government is imminent.

A long list of transgressions follows, ending with the statement

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

It shows that compromise has been sought, and rejected. Now there remains only path: To cast off the government of Great Britain, to form a government of their own, and to seek out new guards of their freedom and safety.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

And the United States of America was born.

“The winning of freedom is not to be compared to the winning of a game – with victory recorded forever in history. Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men; and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – or else, like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”

(Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army, 34th President of the United States of America)

Written by Elias Lieberman:

I am an American.
My father belongs to the Sons of the Revolution;
My mother, to the Colonial Dames.

One of my ancestors pitched tea overboard in Boston Harbor;
Another stood his ground with Warren;
Another hungered with Washington at Valley Forge.
My forefathers were Americans in the making:
They spoke in her council halls;
They died on her battle-fields;
The commanded her troop-ships;
They cleared her forests.
Dawns reddened and paled.
Staunch hearts of mine beat fast at each new star
In the nation’s flag.
Keen eyes of mine foresaw her greater glory;
The sweep of her seas,
The plenty of her plains,
The man-hives in her billion-wired cities.
Every drop of blood in me holds a heritage of patriotism.
I am proud of my past.
I am an AMERICAN.

I am an American.
My father was an atom of dust,
My mother a straw in the wind,
To His Serene Majesty.

One of my ancestors died in the mines of Siberia;
Another was crippled for life by twenty blows of the knout.
Another was killed defending his home during the massacres.
The history of my ancestors is a trail of blood
To the palace-gate of the Great White Czar.
But then the dream came -
The dream of America.
In the light of the Liberty torch
The atom of dust became a man
And the straw in the wind became a woman
For the first time.
“See”, said my father, pointing to the flag that fluttered near,
“That flag of stars and stripes is yours;
It is the emblem of the promised land.
It means, my son, the hope of humanity.
Life for it – die for it!”
Under the open sky of my new country I swore to do so;
And every drop of blood in me will keep that vow.
I am proud of my future.
I am an AMERICAN.

The civil war had been won. The United States of America remain a single nation, the vileness of slavery was a thing of the past (at least by law), and the nation was saved.

But the president, Abraham Lincoln, who led the north to victory and who was the architect of it all, was assassinated.

In response, the American poet Walt Whitman wrote the following poem, shortly thereafter.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
   But O heart! heart! heart!
      O the bleeding drops of red,
         Where on the deck my Captain lies,
            Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
   Here Captain! dear father!
      This arm beneath your head!
         It is some dream that on the deck,
            You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won:
   Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
      But I, with mournful tread,
         Walk the deck my Captain lies,
            Fallen cold and dead.

(Walt Whitman, 1865)

Whereas, on the 22nd day of September, in the year of our Lord 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

By the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.