The American Jack is simply the blue and white portion of the National flag, Fig. [146], made into a separate flag.
The Commodore's broad pendant is a swallow-tailed blue flag, with one white star in the centre. The Admiral's flag, hoisted at the main, is shown in Fig. [143]; the Vice-Admiral's flag, hoisted at the fore, has three white stars on the blue field; and the Rear-Admiral's flag, hoisted at mizen, has two arranged vertically over each other.
While in some nationalities the flag of the war navy differs from that of the mercantile marine—as in the case of Great Britain, Germany, and Spain—in others the same flag is used. This is so in the United States, France, etc.
The Chief of the State, whether he be called Emperor, King, President, or Sultan, has his own flag—his personal Standard—and this special and personal flag, in the case of the President of the United States, has on its blue field an eagle, bearing on its breast a shield with the stars and stripes, and beneath it the national motto, "E pluribus unum." As it has been suggested that the employment of the eagle as a symbol of the State was derived from the crest of Washington, it may not be inopportune to state that the crest in question was not an eagle at all, but a raven. The idea of the eagle, together with the word "Senate," and many such similar
things, no doubt arose from their use in ancient Rome, and afforded an illustration the more of the pseudo-classicalism that was raging in the eighteenth century in France and elsewhere.
The eagle appears on many of the early flags of America. Fig. [150] is a curious example of its use. In an old engraving we see a figure of Liberty defended by Washington, and above them this flag. In another old print before us we see Washington leaning on a cannon, and behind him a flag bearing the stars and stripes, plus an eagle, that with outstretched wings fills up much of the field, having in his beak a label with the "E pluribus unum" upon it, with one foot grasping the thunderbolts of War, and the other the olive-branch of Peace.
Both these eagle-bearing flags, it will be seen, are associated with the President; but in many of these early examples there seems no necessary connection. Thus in one instance we see a busy ship-building scene, and while the ship in the foreground has at stern the stars and stripes, at the bowsprit it bears a Jack that is identical with the blue and white portion of Fig. [150].
In a Presidential Standard proposed in 1818 the flag is quartered. In the first quarter are twenty white stars on a blue field; in the second quarter is the eagle and thunderbolt; in the third a sitting figure emblematic of Liberty; in the fourth, seven red horizontal stripes alternating with six white ones. We found the flag figured in an old American book, but are unable to say whether such a flag was ever actually made, proposition and adoption not being altogether the same thing.
History repeated itself on the secession from the Union, in the year 1860, of North and South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee. There was the same desire at first for individuality in the different flags adopted by the seceding States, the same unwillingness to break wholly away from the old flag, that we have seen as features in the first revolt.
Louisiana adopted the flag shown in Fig. [156]; this was emblematic of the origin and history of the State, Louisiana having been settled by Louis Quatorze in 1718, ceded to Spain at the peace of 1763, restored to France in 1802, sold by France to America in 1803, and admitted as a State of the Union in 1812. The Spanish Flag, Fig. [192], is red and yellow, hence the golden star on the ruddy field, while the stripes of red, white and blue are the colours found in the flags of France and America.