How Shall the Stars Be Placed?
On that great day, when the Congress of the United States adopted the Stars and Stripes as our National Flag, it resolved that the union should be Thirteen Stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.
And a new Constellation it was, Thirteen Stars of the Thirteen States united as one, a Constellation destined to shine on all the World—Liberty enlightening the World!
But how should the Stars be grouped upon the Flag?—that was the question.
John Adams suggested that they should be arranged in the form of the Constellation Lyra, the beautiful cluster of stars shining in our northern night.
But the new Constellation of American Stars could not be arranged thus to look well. So it was decided to place them in a circle, for a circle has no end. And it was hoped that as the Country grew larger, adding more States and a new Star for each State, that the circle would widen.
And it has widened and widened, until there is no longer any room for a circle on our Flag; but spangled like the sky at night, it has become the Star-Spangled Banner.