Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1800_7lho.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

we  find  that  some  evidence  favors  Boston,  and  other  evi-
dence favors Shurtleff. 

To begin, we look to the history of flag flying, particularly
at the seat of government.  Were we to consider only that
general history, we would find that it supports Boston. 

Flags  are  almost  as  old  as  human  civilization.  Indeed, 
flags  symbolize  civilization.  From  the  “primordial  rag
dipped in the blood of a conquered enemy and lifted high on
a stick,” to the feudal banner bearing a lord’s coats of arms,
to  the  standards  of  the  Aztecs,  nearly  every  society  has 
taken  a  piece  of  cloth  and  “endow[ed]  it,  through  the  cir-
cumstances of its display, with a condensed power” to speak 
for the community.  W. Smith, Flags Through the Ages and 
Across the World 1–2, 32, 34 (1975).  Little wonder that the 
Continental  Congress,  seeking  to  define  a  new  nation, 
“[r]esolved”  on  June  14,  1777,  “[t]hat  the  Flag  of  the  . . . 
United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white:
that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, rep-
resenting a new constellation.”  8 Journals of the Continen-
tal Congress 1774–1789, p. 464 (W. Ford ed. 1907).  Today,
the American flag continues to symbolize our Nation, a con-
stellation of 50 stars standing for the 50 States. 

Other  contemporary  flags,  both  state  and  local,  reflect
their  communities.  Boston’s  flag,  for  instance,  bears  the 
city’s seal and motto rendered in blue and buff—the colors 
of  the  Continental  Army’s  Revolutionary  War  uniforms. 
See Symbols of the City of Boston, City of Boston (July 16, 
2016),  https://www.boston.gov/departments/tourism-sports- 
and-entertainment/symbols-city-boston  (Symbols  of  Bos-
ton).

Not just the content of a flag, but also its presence and 
position have long conveyed important messages about gov-
ernment.  The early morning sight of the stars and stripes
above Fort McHenry told Francis Scott Key (and, through
his poem, he told the rest of us) that the great experiment—