With streakings of the morning light:
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle-bearer down
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land."
This view was expressed by another great American in the words:—"As at the early dawn the stars shine forth even while it grows light, and then, as the sun advances, that light breaks out into banks and streaming lines of colour, the glowing red and intense light striving together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so on the American flag stars and beams of light shine out together. Where this flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazoning no ramping lions, and no fierce eagle, no embattled castles, or insignia of imperial authority: they see the symbols of light: it is the banner of dawn; it means Liberty!"
We have clearly now got a long way from the establishment in Arch Street. This flag, which, after such glowing passages as the foregoing, we should almost expect to find too sacred a thing for change or criticism, has undergone some few modifications in its details, though the original broad idea has remained untouched.
As the first conception was that each of the original thirteen States was represented in the national flag by a star and a stripe, other States, as they came into the Union, naturally expected the same consideration: hence on the admission of Vermont in 1791, and Kentucky in 1792, an Act was passed which increased the number of stars and stripes from thirteen to fifteen. Later on came Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, and so forth, and the flag was presently made to consist of twenty stars and stripes, but it was found to be so objectionable to be thus continually altering it that it was settled in the year 1818 to go back to the original thirteen stripes, but to add a star for each new State. Hence the stripes show always the original number of the States at the birth of the nation, while the stars show the present number in the Union.
It is interesting to trace the growth of the country, Illinois being enrolled in the Union in 1818, Alabama in 1819, Maine in 1820, Missouri in 1821, Arkansas in 1836, Michigan in 1837, and so on; but suffice it now to say that by 1891 the original thirteen had
grown to forty-four, and it was announced that on and after the 4th of July of that year the national flag should bear this latter number of stars. As there are still several territories awaiting promotion to the rank of States, the constellation is even yet incomplete.