I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

There is irony in the fact that although prayer has been banned in our public schools, millions of American schoolkids are required to recite the pledge to the flag each day whether they believe it or understand its implications. Our quibble with the pledge is not with its use or misuse of God, but rather with the phrase “one nation indivisible.”

What are the historical origins of this patriotic creed with the mistaken notion that the United States is indivisible? Is it based on either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence? Is it attributable to either George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison? The answer is—none of the above.

Few Americans realize that the pledge, popularized by the American Legion and other patriotic organizations, is the work of two little-known Boston writers who published it in 1892. Congress codified it in 1942 during World War II and added “under God” in 1954. Pictures of Washington’s army displaying the Stars and Stripes are fantasies. The flag was not used then. Troops advanced under their state and local flags, and the flag did not become part of U.S. Army regulations until the 1830’s. It was perceived during the antebellum period as the flag of a federation, not the flag of a unitary nation state, just like the European Union flag.

When children in communist Russia used to recite mindless Marxist-Leninist creeds, we called it brainwashing. When American kids say the Pledge of Allegiance, it is patriotism.

From the outset Americans have disagreed over two contrary theories of what it was our Founders founded—the compact theory and the nationalist theory. The compact theory first put forth by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison holds that the Constitution is a compact of sovereign states which have delegated enumerated powers to a central government as their agent. This theory was dominant throughout the antebellum period. Indeed, no nationalist theory appeared until the 1830’s. As a result of widespread adherence to the compact theory, secession was viewed as a lawful form of resistance available to any American state. The region that most often considered secession was New England. Many Abolitionists urged secession of the Northern states.

As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.” Just as a group has a right to form, so too does it have a right to disband, to subdivide itself, or secede from a larger unit.

In sharp contrast to the compact theory is the nationalist theory championed by Abraham Lincoln which holds that the states were never sovereign. After splitting with England, the people of the various colonics were spontaneously transformed into the American polity. This body was sovereign and created a central government called the Continental Congress that authorized the formation of the states. The contract, once made, between the people and the government was irrevocable; a political marriage from which there was no divorce.

Early in his career Lincoln supported the right to secede: “Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one which suits them better.” Later he had a change of heart. To justify his invasion of the South and his scorched earth policy toward 11 dissident states, he made preservation of the Union the moral imperative of the United States: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps save the Union.” Lincoln claimed that he had taken an oath to preserve the Union. But he had taken no such oath; rather he had sworn to preserve the Constitution, and the Constitution did not in 1861, and does not now, prohibit the secession of an American state. When it became politically expedient to do so, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he also enshrined in the minds of all Americans the notion that what it means to be a good American is to ensure the survival of the Union at all cost—one nation indivisible.

Lincoln lived in an age of unabashed empire building and of coercion of independent political societies into consolidated unions. What Bismarck was accomplishing in Germany with his policy of “blood and iron,” what Garibaldi was trying to achieve in Italy, and what Lenin would later accomplish in Russia, Lincoln achieved in America through the bloodiest war of the 19th century. Lincoln did not preserve an indivisible union from destruction because he did not inherit one; rather, like Bismarck and Lenin, he created one.

Thanks to Lincoln, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, most Americans—whether they be Democrats, Republicans, or Independents—are firmly ensconced in the nationalist political camp. While many conservatives give lip service to Jefferson and the decentralist model of government, most behave as world-class centralists. Liberals have never tried to hide their affection for the nationalist approach.

In his first Inaugural Address Ronald Reagan flatly rejected the nationalist theory: “The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.” But, while pretending to be a decentralist, Reagan may have contributed more to the massive concentration of power in Washington than any other President with his multi-trillion dollar peacetime military build- up.

When there is increasing agreement among liberals and conservatives alike that the federal government has become too big, too powerful, too intrusive, too bureaucratic, and too unresponsive to the needs of local communities everywhere, does it make sense to continue indoctrinating our youth with the misleading view that the United States is indivisible? It is not; it never has been; and we cannot think of any good reason why it ever should be.