The Flag’s Own Right: Right, Wrong, or Sinister Conspiracy?

The U.S. Flag Code is a “codification of existing rules and customs pertaining to the display and use of the flag of the United States . . . .” It was “established for the use of such civilians . . . as may not be required to conform with regulations . . . [of the U.S. Military or other] executive departments of the United States.”1 It is not a statute in the sense that it does not command or prohibit actions enforced by punitive measures. In short, there are no penalties, other than the disapproval of others, imposed for failure to comply with the Code’s provisions. There are numerous books, articles, booklets, pamphlets, and flyers that seek to clarify the Code’s fifty- odd rules and it is generally believed that the Code addresses all questions of flag display. There are also “rules” believed to be included, though not actually present in the Code, and practices now popular that were not envisioned when the code was written. While this article will examine in particular the concept of displaying the flag vertically with the stars on “the flag’s own right,” a brief historical sketch of other display conventions and the origins of the Flag Code itself will situate flag display rightly as a malleable set of conventions and traditions, not an immutable body of legally binding rules.

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