Opinion ID: 136984
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Pledge of Allegiance reads:

Text: 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. 4 U. S. C. § 4. As part of an overall effort to codify and emphasize existing rules and customs pertaining to the display and use of the flag of the United States of America, see H. R. Rep. No. 2047, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1942); S. Rep. No. 1477, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1942), Congress enacted the Pledge on June 22, 1942. Pub. L. 623, ch. 435, § 7, 56 Stat. 380, former 36 U. S. C. § 1972. Congress amended the Pledge to include the phrase under God in 1954. Act of June 14, 1954, ch. 297, § 7, 68 Stat. 249. The amendment's sponsor, Representative Rabaut, said its purpose was to contrast this country's belief in God with the Soviet Union's embrace of atheism. 100 Cong. Rec. 1700 (1954). We do not know what other Members of Congress thought about the purpose of the amendment. Following the decision of the Court of Appeals in this case, Congress passed legislation that made extensive findings about the historic role of religion in the political development of the Nation and reaffirmed the text of the Pledge. Act of Nov. 13, 2002, Pub. L. 107-293, §§ 1-2, 116 Stat. 2057-2060. To the millions of people who regularly recite the Pledge, and who have no access to, or concern with, such legislation or legislative history, under God might mean several different things: that God has guided the destiny of the United States, for example, or that the United States exists under God's authority. How much consideration anyone gives to the phrase probably varies, since the Pledge itself is a patriotic observance focused primarily on the flag and the Nation, and only secondarily on the description of the Nation. The phrase under God in the Pledge seems, as a historical matter, to sum up the attitude of the Nation's leaders, and to manifest itself in many of our public observances. Examples of patriotic invocations of God and official acknowledgments of religion's role in our Nation's history abound. At George Washington's first inauguration on April 30, 1789, he stepped toward the iron rail, where he was to receive the oath of office. The diminutive secretary of the Senate, Samuel Otis, squeezed between the President and Chancellor Livingston and raised up the crimson cushion with a Bible on it. Washington put his right hand on the Bible, opened to Psalm 121:1: `I raise my eyes toward the hills. Whence shall my help come.' The Chancellor proceeded with the oath: `Do you solemnly swear that you will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of your ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?' The President responded, `I solemnly swear,' and repeated the oath, adding, `So help me God.' He then bent forward and kissed the Bible before him. M. Riccards, A Republic, If You Can Keep It: The Foundation of the American Presidency, 1700-1800, pp. 73-74 (1987). Later the same year, after encouragement from Congress, [3] Washington issued his first Thanksgiving proclamation, which began: Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favorand whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me `to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.' 4 Papers of George Washington 131: Presidential Series (W. Abbot & D. Twohig eds. 1993). Almost all succeeding Presidents have issued similar Thanksgiving proclamations. Later Presidents, at critical times in the Nation's history, have likewise invoked the name of God. Abraham Lincoln, concluding his masterful Gettysburg Address in 1863, used the very phrase under God: It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before usthat from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotionthat we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vainthat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedomand that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 1 Documents of American History 429 (H. Commager ed. 8th ed. 1968). Lincoln's equally well-known second inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1865, makes repeated references to God, concluding with these famous words: With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Id., at 443. Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress in April 1917, to request a declaration of war against Germany. He finished with these words: But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts,for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right for such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. 2 id., at 132. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, taking the office of the Presidency in the depths of the Great Depression, concluded his first inaugural address with these words: In this dedication of a nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us! May He guide me in the days to come! 2 id., at 242. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would himself serve two terms as President, concluded his Order of the Day to the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force on D-Daythe day on which the Allied Forces successfully landed on the Normandy beaches in Francewith these words: Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking, http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/DDay/SoldiersSailorsAirmen.pdf (all Internet materials as visited June 9, 2004, and available in Clerk of Court's case file). The motto In God We Trust first appeared on the country's coins during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, acting under the authority of an Act of Congress passed in 1864, prescribed that the motto should appear on the two cent coin. The motto was placed on more and more denominations, and since 1938 all United States coins bear the motto. Paper currency followed suit at a slower pace; Federal Reserve notes were so inscribed during the decade of the 1960's. Meanwhile, in 1956, Congress declared that the motto of the United States would be In God we Trust. Act of July 30, 1956, ch. 795, 70 Stat. 732. Our Court Marshal's opening proclamation concludes with the words `God save the United States and this honorable Court.' The language goes back at least as far as 1827. O. Smith, Early Indiana Trials and Sketches: Reminiscences (1858) (quoted in 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 469 (rev. ed. 1926)). All of these events strongly suggest that our national culture allows public recognition of our Nation's religious history and character. In the words of the House Report that accompanied the insertion of the phrase under God in the Pledge: From the time of our earliest history our peoples and our institutions have reflected the traditional concept that our Nation was founded on a fundamental belief in God. H. R. Rep. No. 1693, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1954). Giving additional support to this idea is our national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner, adopted as such by Congress in 1931. 36 U. S. C. § 301 and Historical and Revision Notes. The last verse ends with these words: 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! http://www.bcpl.net/~etowner/anthem.html. As pointed out by the Court, California law requires public elementary schools to conduc[t] . . . appropriate patriotic exercises at the beginning of the schoolday, and notes that the giving of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America shall satisfy the requirements of this section. Cal. Educ. Code Ann. § 52720 (West 1989). The School District complies with this requirement by instructing that [e]ach elementary school class recite the [P]ledge of [A]llegiance to the [F]lag once each day. App. 149-150. Students who object on religious (or other) grounds may abstain from the recitation. West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943) (holding that the government may not compel school students to recite the Pledge). Notwithstanding the voluntary nature of the School District policy, the Court of Appeals, by a divided vote, held that the policy violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it impermissibly coerces a religious act. Newdow v. U. S. Congress, 328 F. 3d 466, 487 (CA9 2003). To reach this result, the court relied primarily on our decision in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992). That case arose out of a graduation ceremony for a public high school in Providence, Rhode Island. The ceremony began with an invocation and ended with a benediction, both given by a local rabbi. The Court held that even though attendance at the ceremony was voluntary, students who objected to the prayers would nonetheless feel coerced to attend and to stand during each prayer. But the Court throughout its opinion referred to the prayer as an explicit religious exercise, id., at 598, and a formal religious exercise, id., at 589. As the Court notes in its opinion, the Pledge of Allegiance evolved as a common public acknowledgment of the ideals that our flag symbolizes. Its recitation is a patriotic exercise designed to foster national unity and pride in those principles. Ante, at 6. I do not believe that the phrase under God in the Pledge converts its recital into a religious exercise of the sort described in Lee. Instead, it is a declaration of belief in allegiance and loyalty to the United States flag and the Republic that it represents. The phrase under God is in no sense a prayer, nor an endorsement of any religion, but a simple recognition of the fact noted in H. R. Rep. No. 1693, at 2: From the time of our earliest history our peoples and our institutions have reflected the traditional concept that our Nation was founded on a fundamental belief in God. Reciting the Pledge, or listening to others recite it, is a patriotic exercise, not a religious one; participants promise fidelity to our flag and our Nation, not to any particular God, faith, or church. [4] There is no doubt that respondent is sincere in his atheism and rejection of a belief in God. But the mere fact that he disagrees with this part of the Pledge does not give him a veto power over the decision of the public schools that willing participants should pledge allegiance to the flag in the manner prescribed by Congress. There may be others who disagree, not with the phrase under God, but with the phrase with liberty and justice for all. But surely that would not give such objectors the right to veto the holding of such a ceremony by those willing to participate. Only if it can be said that the phrase under God somehow tends to the establishment of a religion in violation of the First Amendment can respondent's claim succeed, where one based on objections to with liberty and justice for all fails. Our cases have broadly interpreted this phrase, but none have gone anywhere near as far as the decision of the Court of Appeals in this case. The recital, in a patriotic ceremony pledging allegiance to the flag and to the Nation, of the descriptive phrase under God cannot possibly lead to the establishment of a religion, or anything like it. When courts extend constitutional prohibitions beyond their previously recognized limit, they may restrict democratic choices made by public bodies. Here, Congress prescribed a Pledge of Allegiance, the State of California required patriotic observances in its schools, and the School District chose to comply by requiring teacher-led recital of the Pledge of Allegiance by willing students. Thus, we have three levels of popular government  the national, the state, and the local  collaborating to produce the Elk Grove ceremony. The Constitution only requires that schoolchildren be entitled to abstain from the ceremony if they chose to do so. To give the parent of such a child a sort of heckler's veto over a patriotic ceremony willingly participated in by other students, simply because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the descriptive phrase under God, is an unwarranted extension of the Establishment Clause, an extension which would have the unfortunate effect of prohibiting a commendable patriotic observance.