the globe, has advanced its banner for liberty,
law, and national prosperity. This nation has a banner, too; and
wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes,
for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced
in it. Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went forth
upon the sea carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for the
captive, and such glorious tidings.

The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the morning stars of
God, and the stripes upon it were beams of morning light. As at early
dawn the stars stand first, and then 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 the flag comes, and
men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no rampant lion and
fierce eagle, but only light, and every fold significant of liberty.

The history of this banner is all on one side. Under it rode Washington
and his armies; before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the
highlands at West Point; it floated over old Fort Montgomery. When
Arnold would have surrendered these valuable fortresses and precious
legacies, his night was turned into day, and his treachery was driven
away by the beams of light from this starry banner. It cheered our army,
driven from New York, in their solitary pilgrimage through New Jersey.
It streamed in light over Valley Forge and Morristown. It crossed the
waters rolling with ice at Trenton; and when its stars gleamed in the
cold morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency
of the nation. And when, at length, the long years of war were drawing
to a close, underneath the folds of this immortal banner sat Washington
while Yorktown surrendered its hosts and our Revolutionary struggles
ended with victory.

Let us, then, twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our country's
flag about our heartstrings; and looking upon our homes and catching the
spirit that breathes upon us from the battle-fields of our fathers, let
us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and
forever, stand by the Stars and Stripes. They have been unfurled from
the snows of Canada to the plains of New Orleans, in the halls of the
Montezumas and amid the solitud