"Be it enacted, &c., That from and after the fourth day of July next, the flag of the United States be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be twenty stars, white, in a blue field.
"And, that, on the admission of a new State into the Union, one star be added to the union of the flag; and that such addition shall take effect on the fourth day of July next succeeding such admission." Approved April 4, 1818.
The flag planted on the National Palace of the city of Mexico had thirty stars in the union.
The following compliment was paid to this flag.
June 3, 1848, "Mr. Drayton submitted the following resolution; which was considered, by unanimous consent, and agreed to:—
"Resolved, That the Vice-President be requested to have the flag of the United States first erected by the American army upon the palace in the capital of Mexico, and now here presented, deposited for safe-keeping in the Department of State of the United States."—Page 370, Journal of the Senate 1847-48.
The union of the United States flag at present contains thirty-one stars. (See Fig. 3, Plate III.)
We have, in the preceding pages, offered many reasons for concluding that the devices in the flag, its colors, and the manner in which they were combined, originated in some circumstance directly connected with the history of the colonies, or in some practice which prevailed in the mother country. Particularly was this the case in the adoption of the emblem of union from the mother country. This leads us to make a few remarks as to the prominence given to the color blue in the reports on the adoption of the device for a Great Seal of the United States, and in its being the ground of the uniform of the United States. We have previously stated that its adoption was due to other circumstances directly, than its being typical of the virtues of perseverance, vigilance, and justice, though indirectly this meaning was involved in its adoption. First, blue was a favorite color in the colonies, as is proved by the fact of its being the uniform of the South Carolina troops in 1775. For we have seen that Colonel Moultrie caused a large blue flag to be made, with a crescent in one corner, to be uniform with the troops; and by the fact that the pine-tree flag of New England was a blue field, containing in the upper canton, next the staff, a St. George's cross on a white ground, and a pine-tree represented in the upper square formed by the cross. A reason for this color being a favorite in New England, may perhaps be found in the circumstance, that, in 1679, when the banner of the league and covenant was raised in Scotland, it was a red flag, the borders of which were edged with blue.[63] Borders of different color from the body of the flag, or from the shield of the coat of arms, are in heraldry, a common distinction, and as such was doubtless applied by the Covenanters (blue being the color of the field of the banner of Scotland, as we have seen), to indicate by whom this red flag was raised, and thus the blue color became identified with the league and covenant. After the defeat of Bothwell's Bridge, many of those people fled to the colonies, particularly to New England and New Jersey.
That feelings kindred to those excited among the Covenanters were aroused among the colonists, is shown by the mottoes on "the Union flag with a red field," already spoken of as displayed on a liberty-pole in New York city in 1775. Those mottoes were, "No Popery," and "George Rex and the liberties of America." It was probably in reference to his being commander of the armies of the colonies, united in a solemn league and covenant in defence of civil and religious liberty, that General Washington adopted as his badge a light blue riband, which had already been identified with a similar league and covenant in Scotland. At a later day, on the adoption of an Union flag as the flag of the United Colonies, the color of the field of the union (derived, as was the blue border of the red flag of the Covenanters, from the banner of Scotland) being blue, this color became identified with that which gave nationality to the colonies, viz., their union, and on this account was adopted as the ground of the national uniform, and as the color for the chief or union, both in the arms of the United States and in their flag.
That the prevailing colors of the uniforms of the army at that time corresponded to the colors of the flag, is a well-known fact. Thus the facings of the blue coats were red, the color of the plumes white, tipped with red, &c. The buff and blue, commonly regarded as the continental uniform, was that of the general officers, and not of the body of the troops. In the navy, the same was the case. The prevailing colors of the uniform of the officers of the navy were blue and red; those of the uniform of the marine officers, green and white: the colors of the flag of the United States, and of the flag of the floating batteries, before given, viz., white, with a green tree in the middle, &c. &c.