The Pledge Myth

People can make almost anything sound sinister if they start with a scary premise and end with a confident conclusion. We slow down and do the unglamorous work: dates, documents, and plain context. That’s how we handle a question we keep hearing, especially in Christian civic circles, about whether repeating the Pledge of Allegiance is “idolatry” or a socialist setup. We trace the real history of the pledge, including why it was created in the 1890s, who actually drove the idea, and how the words and the salute changed over time through public use and Congress.

Then we pivot from civic myths to practical policy questions listeners are asking right now. Transactional gold and silver sounds like a niche topic until you connect it to constitutional money, the gold and silver language in the Constitution, and the everyday reality of inflation. We talk through the basic concept of gold-backed spending, why people are pushing for state-level options, and why experts like Kevin Freeman have become go-to resources for understanding how these systems work in the real world.

We also take on a claim popularized by documentaries and modern “history” narratives: that the Iroquois Confederacy significantly shaped the U.S. Constitution. We challenge the evidence people cite, explain what Franklin actually meant in his Albany Plan comments, and put the spotlight back on what the founders themselves quoted and relied on, especially Madison’s role in the Constitutional Convention.

If you care about faith, culture, and the Constitution, subscribe, share this with a friend who loves a good debate, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s a civic claim you’ve heard lately that you want us to fact-check?

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] It's Thursday, which means it's Foundations of Freedom Thursday here on The WallBuilders Show. Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. We're taking on hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And on Thursdays, we let you pick the topic, but you've got to send in an email. You do that at radio at wallbuilders.com, radio@wallsbuilders.com. And you can pick whatever topic you like. It can be a question about some of the things going on in our government right now. It could be something around the world. A lot of people ask about constitutional application to some of things that are happening or maybe the meaning of a phrase in the Constitution. So, whatever's on your mind, send that into radio@wallsbuilders.com. We'll get to as many of those as we can today. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And first up guys is Tim. Well, another Tim, Tim Bonnell sent in a question saying, I'm a biblical citizenship coach with a question about Christians repeating the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. It was brought up that it wasn't created until the late 1890s by a socialist trying to ensnare Christ followers under blood guilt for lifting up an idol pledging allegiance to an image that represents an entity. Does WallBuilders have a position on this? I couldn't find it specifically on your website. Thank you, Tim. Tim thank you for sending in that question. I don't know guys. That sounds really scary. So what is the I know it is you know was, I think, we talked about the pledge with Bill Federer or somebody recently in terms of when we added, you know "under God" in '54 with Eisenhower and all that but I don't t know when it actually started. So, was it a socialist, and were they ensnaring Christ followers under blood guilt for lifting up an idol, pledging allegiance? 

David Barton [00:01:40] Well, we can go back and I can tell you the story of it, and I'll just tell you right up front, this is one of those things that we see very often, unfortunately, oftentimes out of the conservative community. I'm not talking about this coach, I'm just talking about the rumor, and it's a thing where I'm reminded in the Bible where the scripture says, don't call everything conspiracy that they call conspiracy. And so I've heard this multiple times about saying the pledge is a conspiracy, subvert kids to socialism. And they're pledging not to the nation, but to a different idol is exactly what he brought out is what I've heard several times. So let me just take, take back and let's look at how this goes. So, a guy named Francis Bellamy is the one who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. He was born in 1855. So, before the Civil War, when he was 24 years old, he became a Baptist preacher in New York. So, he, he ended up working there for a number of years. He got active with the YMCA, Young Men's Christian Association, which I don't think the C much applies today to that organization. I hope they come back to their roots, but he got involved with YMCA. And so, in 1885, he took, that's six years after being in New York, he took a church in Boston. So, he went to a Baptist Church in Boston, and being a Baptist church in New York and Boston probably indicates he was part of the American Baptist. And that would be the anti-slavery side of the Baptist, the Baptist divided. Civil War era or pre-Civil War era over the issue of slavery. So Southern Baptists had been pro-slavery. They're not now obviously, but they're the they're much more biblically conservative now. But then they were pro-slavery and the American Baptists were the anti-slavery, mostly northern Baptists. So, in 1891 because of his views on socialism and they did not align with what his church believed at that time, he left and went to work for a magazine. It was called the Youth's Companion Magazine. It was a magazine for young people. You know, Rick, I don't know if this is your generation. Tim, I know it wasn't yours, but when I grew up, the boys magazine was called Boys Life. You know that was the magazine we had and it had cool stories for boys and adventure stuff. And did you have that at all, Rick in your era? 

Rick Green [00:03:54] No, David that was so that was before my time, but I had it been my time don't forget I read on a third grade level so I would have been reading like the comic book version did they have comic books for Boys Life or?

David Barton [00:04:04] Well, they had a whole lot of pictures, so you would have done okay. 

Rick Green [00:04:10] Okay. Was Spider-Man in there? No, I'm kidding. No, it really was. It wasn't, at least not in my circles, it wasn't by the time I was old enough to read. 

David Barton [00:04:18] Well, so Bellamy goes to work for this magazine and this is 1891. Now, the big celebration coming up the next year, 1892, is Columbus. That's the 400th anniversary of Columbus. And back then Columbus was still a hero. He, he hadn't been attacked by the woke forces of America. And so he was a big hero. And so the, the editor of this Youth Companion Magazine said, we need to do something for kids to really. Drive home patriotism and make them feel real patriotic about the country and so he said you know we've got so many immigrants coming in because the 1880s, 1870s, 80s, 90s was a huge wave of immigration coming to America. Particularly Chinese immigration and he said we got so many new people coming in who don't understand America, don't know our roots, don't know the country is really special. And so, he said, we need to come up with something that will promote patriotism both for the immigrants and the native Americans that are here and they've been raised here. He says, it would be really good if we could get every single school, every classroom put a flag up in their classroom. That'd be a real patriotic thing to do. Let's have flags in schools and flags in classrooms. And so, in the magazine, he announced this and he said, hey, here's a competition. You kids can engage in this and if you'll help raise money with your neighbors, we'll send you flags so you can buy flags from us cheap. And so that year, there were 25,000 flags that went up in classrooms across the United States. So, kids are getting engaged and they're doing things to earn these flags and have them to the school. So now the interesting part about this celebration for 1492 is the 400th anniversary was not celebrated until 1893. It was a 401st year. They missed it because they were building such a big building. It was gonna be a big world's fair in Chicago. The building they were building was so big, they couldn't get it finished in time. The building, and think about building back in 1890s. The building was 31 acres under the same roof. So you're building a building back then, 31 acres of the same roof, and it took them longer than they thought. And so they actually had the celebration, 400th anniversary of Columbus Day in 1493. But what happened, he's got this thing going with the kids now, we've got a flag in the classroom. And they decided that there should be a ceremony that goes with that flag, that every day the kid should have a ceremony where they can honor the flag, and think about the flag, and think what it means. And so maybe there's some kind of an anthem we can come up with. Maybe there's somethings they can sing or say that will help reinforce the flag. And he asked Francis Bellamy, who's working for him, he said, can you come up a phrase or a rhyme or a poem or something that the kids can say? That they can recite to the flag. And we can start every day looking at the flag and saying something to the flag. And so on September the 8th of 1892 in the Youth Companion Magazine, they published the words to the Pledge of Allegiance. Now it's interesting. It's pretty close to what we have now. I'm gonna read you the words they had then. This was the pledge in 1892. And say it yourself as you go through and you'll recognize the words that are different. If you just hear it, you think it's the pledge, but there's really significant differences. Here's the wording, 1892. I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. So what happened is this is the way they had it for about 30 years, and this is what the kids would do. And in 1923, they changed the words of the pledge because they said, you know, we've got so many immigrants coming in that when it says, I pledge your allegiance to my flag, they might be thinking of their flag in Russia or in Ukraine or in France or in Italy or they might be thinking of their own flag. And so they changed the words to the flag of the United States which is the way we say it now. So in 1923 they said I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States and so that's where it was in 1923 and in 1924 they said, well let's go ahead and add of America. I pledge to allegiance to flag of United States of America which is way it is today. And so in 1942, that became part of the flag code, and that's now part of the US flag code. And so, interestingly, the way you said the pledge back then was when you said, I pledge allegiance, you had your hand on your chest. And when you say, I pledged allegiance to my flag, you took your hand and you swept it outward, pointed toward the flag. Well, that's the way they had done it. I pledge your allegiance on the chest, to the flag, your hand went out, and. When you get in the 1930s and 40s, that starts looking like a Hitler salute, which is sweeping Europe, the Nazis. And so they said, no, no. No, let's not do that anymore. And so, what they did, they changed it in 1942. Congress changed it. And so what they do, what you do now is you put your hand over the heart and it stays over the heart while you pledge. And so that's Congress getting involved in this. And in 1954, Congress added the words "under God" to the pledge. So this is how the pledge came about. Now. There's no idol here, there's no conspiracy here. There's not a foreign god that we're pledging to. Congress is involved in this. The guy who came up with the original words, they're changed significantly since he did it. And because he's a socialist, I mean, that's not good philosophy, but you know what? If I had a dentist that was a socialist, I could trust him. I wouldn't expect him to be doing something to my teeth just because he is a socialist. He might have a different philosophy. But that doesn't mean he's going to try to do something to me. And so while we disagree with socialism back then, and while socialism back then is not the socialism of modern today, you know, we, we didn't agree with the, then the pilgrims didn't degree with it, but it is not the Marxist socialism we have today. It's, it's a lot more communitarian. It's a lots softer, but that doesn't change the fact that Bellamy is not the guy who had the impact on the pledge. He just came up with the original words. The pledge was done by the nation, it was done by school children, it done by Congress, it's done by U.S. Flag code, and there's nothing sinister or dark about it, so that's just one of the conspiracies that goes about the flag and it's been going for decades. Hopefully, if you hear this, that'll kind of put an end to it if you've got to question your mind. It's really a simple thing, really a very honest and pure thing that they intended and wanted to do. It was all about raising patriotism in the country, which was the objective. 

Rick Green [00:10:46] I'm the biggest takeaway for me there, David is it almost sounds like who they're going after this Bellamy guy, if he has some socialist views, okay. But he's not the guy that was pushing this. He's not the guy that came up with this, this need for patriotism is almost like a higher gun/writer. It'd be like hiring a musician to put a melody to your lyrics. In his case, he was hired to kind of put the poem together for the concept that the other guy was saying, what was the other guy’s name? I missed that. He was the one that. 

David Barton [00:11:15] Yeah. James Upham was the guy who was the editor and the publisher of the Youth Companion Magazine and he hired Bellamy as, as one of his writers, one of his guys, and he said, Hey, can you come up with the words? You're right, Rick. It wasn't even Bellamy's idea to come up with it. It was James Upham's idea on the 400th anniversary of Columbus. Let's celebrate America and let's celebrate Columbus. Let's be patriotic. I mean, that was the whole drive and desire of Upham. And you're exactly right, Bellamy was simply hired. He was one of the hired employees. He wasn't hired to do the pledge. He was a hired employee and a writer for Youth Companion. And he asked him, Hey, can you come up with some wording that would be good for this little anthem we want to do with the flag? You're exactly right, Rick. 

Rick Green [00:11:56] It'd be kind of like, uh, if you're in the movie business and you need a good screenwriter to take a novel or whatever it is that you're going to turn into a movie, you know, that screenwriter might be a very liberal or have very different views, but they're one of the really skilled people at taking your novel and actually making it where it's, you know, ready for a script to, to be put on screen. It doesn't mean their philosophy. Now, of course you do have to be careful to make sure people aren't slipping in their philosophy. But man, just looking at the words even back then of what he wrote seems, seems to me the same spirit of, you know, that was intended in terms of patriotism and that he didn't try to slip in any kind of nefarious socialism or anything like that. 

David Barton [00:12:34] Yeah, it was innocuous. It was very bland and it was always looking at the flag. The kids are looking at a flag and they're, it's a patriotic act, pledging allegiance to the country in which they live. There was nothing nefarious there at all. There was never any other pledge to some idol, some Baphomet idol that, you know, satanic or whatever. That was never it. And so that conspiracy comes in when people don't know what actually happened and where it was. And that's why that conspiracies hung around for a good while, but there's no grounds for that. When you look at what happened, I mean, Rick, you laid it out really simple. It was, it was a guy who was hired as a writer and he came up with a very innocuous wording, there's nothing sinister in the wording he came up with. It was changed several times by Congress and others. And that was how we have what we have today. And there's just nothing sinister about it. 

Rick Green [00:13:24] Well, like you said, simple, third grade, comic book level, that's what I need. And so that works. All right, so, hey, by the way, Tim, thanks for sending that in. We appreciate the question. It is, like David said, something that I'm, you know, people have said, I haven't heard it quite that way that Tim sent it in, but I've definitely heard something about a socialist was the one that came up with it. So that was a good education today. That's why we do Foundations of Freedom Thursday, to get these questions that are out there and be able to dig in a little bit. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back with more of your questions here on The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:15:01] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Today, Gene has the next question. He said, I've heard shows on transactional gold and silver. I've read on a website on the topic and explored the website of a metal’s depository. If one has a transactional metal account, does one deposit fiat dollars or metal? Is the balance tracked in ounces or dollars and updated daily according to the market price? And can residents of states that have not enacted transactional metal participate across state lines? And why would one spend the metal? Instead of fiat dollars, besides it being technically cool or like Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world. I only kind of get it. Thank you. Thank you for your decades of important and significant work. Okay, James, lots of questions in there. We need like four programs. So I'm going to recommend our friend, Kevin Freeman, who comes on the program quite often and has a show called Economic War Room, which you can get a lot of different places. I of course prefer to watch it on patriotU.com, but Kevin is the absolute expert on this. I think Tim and David and I picked up some stuff from him. We certainly agree with the constitutional provision that allows for states to do this and, and we're supportive of the effort to get transactional gold passed. And I don't know what we're up to guys. I think it's five states maybe now. I know Sarah Huckabee signed it in Arkansas and we did it in Texas. I think Oklahoma, Utah. I'm not sure how many but great question. You guys want to add anything to that before I send them to Kevin's website? 

David Barton [00:16:26] You know, I don't know all the details and you brought that out, but I am struck by the fact that the Constitution said gold and silver and they did that specifically because of what happened during the Revolution in the Continental Congress when inflation went through the roof. When you have gold and that's fixed. If we still were on the Gold and Silver Standard, we could buy a house today for what we paid for one 200 years ago. I mean, there's just not the inflation. So, it's the inflation stuff and inflation is theft for sure. I don't understand how it all works as far as, you know, you have a credit card with your account and it takes the value of gold and man, if you look at the value of gold right now, you're going to get a lot for your money right now because inflation is so high and that's when the value of gold goes up as a counter to that. So there's some good stuff to it and I think it is five states, but I don't fully understand all of it, that's for sure. 

Tim Barton [00:17:18] Yeah. And I think guys, one of the things before Kevin talked about many times is that you can still use a credit card. You can still your fiat currency, but the difference is there's a backing behind it. And so as opposed to what arguably the US government has done when they've printed more dollars and not add more gold, that's what has brought a lot of the inflation and changed a lot the value of things in our culture. And so when you have something that is gold backed, that is part of what makes a difference. But again, now Rick, as you said. Our friend Kevin Freeman has really led the way on this. And he goes to state legislators, he gives briefings, he testifies as an expert on this as they've been endeavoring to do it. So we definitely know some about it, but not nearly as much as our friend, Kevin, who literally wrote the book on this. 

Rick Green [00:18:07] That's right! I forgot to mention that he literally wrote the book. It's called Pirate Money. You can get it on Amazon or at Economic War Room. I will try to just summarize real quickly some generic answers to the to the question. It is very much like a credit card and you do you basically you put gold and silver on at a depository. Like Texas has we have our own bullion depository in Texas now. And you can have it there and it essentially draws off of that and yes and answer your question, Jean, it does go up and down. Your basically, your account. So it's Like a debit card off of your bank account that your bank account goes up and down, depending on what other deductions you're taking out of it, or deposits or whatever. It's very much like that. But the fluctuation is in the price of gold and silver, and then you can use it at a, you know, convenience store anywhere else. And your merchants, they don't know any different. It looks just like a regular credit card. So it's got a lot of benefits. And as you said, you know, it is backed so that it is not just a fiat currency. So really good question. Appreciate that one, Gene. Thanks for sending that in. Next one comes from Heidi, she said. Ken Burns and other historians make a big deal out of the Iroquois Confederacy. Was it truly influential in the U S Constitution's formation? And what would be academically, historically honest resources for this aspect of history? I do not want to discount appropriate contributions, but something seems not quite accurate. Thank you for your help. Well, Heidi, your, your first instinct at the beginning, Ken Burns, at that point, you should be definitely questioning. So. And I just have to get, I say that because of some of the things we've seen it's not all bad. We love the fact that they create stuff about the founders and create interest in the Founders. But man, some of this stuff that they put out including that recent documentary about the Revolution, not good. So what do you guys think about the I don't know much about this one, Iroquois Confederacy? 

Tim Barton [00:19:55] Well, Rick, I think you were correct when you said the stuff they create, because a lot of these narratives are things they have created. One of the things that we often will ask when somebody makes a claim is what proof they have, right? What, what is the source you are pointing to? We, we've seen things even this, this week where that professor who's on with Katie Couric saying like, look, Katie, this is, this is like a no brainer, America was not founded on any kind of Christian principles or Christian ideals. And he's making these claims without giving any proof or verification. And this is the reality of what happens in so many of these claims is people, they will make a very aggressive assertion and they want you to try to prove them wrong. Well, that's not actually how it should work. How do we know it was based on the Iroquois Confederacy? And you might see people say, well, I think Benjamin Franklin referenced it one time? And that's where you go, okay, so if that's true, Benjamin Franklin references it one time and, and that the evidence we have that all of the other Founding Fathers, when they come together. So when, when, for example, James Madison, we've talked about this a lot, but James Madison is considered the father of the U S Constitution because he came with some of the greatest proposals, the largest proposals, and even though, when you start going down and breaking down the details, even though the majority of his recommendations were not approved, he was the one that, that came with the most of the table every single day, it was his leadership. James Madison had nothing to do with the Iroquois Constitution. He wasn't the one that ever really talked about or promoted it. So again, if, if we're saying that our Constitution was based on theirs, what evidence do you have? And again, if the one thing you're going to point to is Benjamin Franklin, that that's not really good evidence for any kind of support of the claim. Now, not to digress, Dad, I know you have a lot of notes on this. So instead of me just winging it, why don't you read us some of what you have from the Founders? 

David Barton [00:21:55] Yeah, here. And this is, man, this is a charge I've heard for my whole career that Founding Fathers pirated their ideas from others. They weren't original ideas. We know that's nonsense because of even the book we talked about before that they did at University of Houston to go back to the Founding Fathers to see who they quoted, where they got their ideas. Number one source was the Bible, the number two source was Montesquieu, then Blackstone, then Locke, the Iroquois, Iroquois writings. And they have writings. They didn't appear anywhere. So I'm going to read you a typical claim made by Burns and these other guys. And it says key evidence that this influence of, and he's talking about the influence of the found... the Iroquois and the Founding Fathers, he says, key evidence includes Benjamin Franklin's 1754 Albany plan, which modeled colonial union on the Iroquois Confederacy and his published works on native governments, Franklin and other leaders like George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson frequently engaged with Iroquois diplomats and admired their political stability. All right, there are two things that Ben Franklin writes about the Iroquois and they're really simple; one was in a letter he did in 1751 and one was an in one of their speeches given by an Iroquois chief that he published in 1744. So here, I'm gonna summarize Franklin's letter from 1751 because this is what they say, oh the Iroquois they got that is from there. In Franklin talking about art the Albany Plan of Union is back in the French and Indian War and that's really the first attempt to help America become a united states. There are there all these different colonies we had a common enemy back then, was the French and surely all these colleagues can come together to fight with the British which we were against the French so the Albany Plan of the Union was saying hey let's have like the European Confederacy. Let's all work together against the common enemy, instead of Pennsylvania being separate from Virginia, being separate from Carolina, why don't we all have a common goal here to work together? So, in that Plan of Union, here's what, here is what Franklin wrote in, in the lead up to that Plan of Union; he's telling a guy named James Parker, he said it would be a, and by the way, the Iroquois also called the Six Nations. There were six Indian nations that came together and that was Iroquois Confederacy. And so Franklin says it would be a very strange thing if six nations of ignorant savages, and I'm just reading his words, if six nations of ignorant, savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner, and that it has lasted for ages, because they started their plan of union back in the 1400s. So when Franklin's writing this, they've had a Iroquois government for about 300 years. He says, and would be able execute in such a manner that is assisted ages. And it appears indissoluble. And yeah, that a union like this should be impractical for 10 or even a dozen English colonies. Are you gonna tell me that the Indians who don't have any education, can't read, et cetera, that they can do better politically than 10 or 12 English colonies? And that's what he's saying. He says, to whom it is more necessary and more advantageous. It's more important that we unite than that they united, but they did it. Surely, we can do it. And so. What he's what he's saying is, surely if these guys can do it, we can do something like... He did not point to the Iroquois Confederacy as a model for it, because among other things, they had several things the Founding Fathers did not agree with. They had, for example, they did have a bicameral system and they had checks and balances and they have freedom for speech and religion, but they did not have the will of the majority, they did not rely on consensus and they had hereditary leaders. You didn't elect your leaders. You didn't choose your leaders, and they did not use majority rule. So if we're going to follow the Iroquois Confederacy, we have to throw out a whole bunch of stuff that we use in our constitution. And if you read Franklin's letter, all he's saying is, guys, surely, we can do as well as the Iroquois did. And that's the basis of this whole nonsense. And that Washington or Jefferson talked about how great this is. It just doesn't exist. This is another one of those myths. That they've taken completely out of context to take credit away from the Founding Fathers and the sources the Founders cited. So a second myth of the day, the Pledge of Allegiance is a socialist subversion and the Constitution came from the Iroquois. Neither one of those is correct. 

Rick Green [00:26:23] Man, what an education on Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Folks, you got to send in your questions. You hear these kinds of things. Great place to get them answered and get some good research on it. You can send those questions in to radio@wallbuilders.com, radio@wallbuilders.com. We appreciate you listening on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday, don't miss tomorrow. We got a lot of good news to bring your way on our Good News Friday. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.