The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by the nationalist socialist Francis Bellamy. The term “allegiance” refers to the duty of obedience and subordination that medieval serfs owed to their feudal lord – their “liege.”

The American founders, by contrast, waged and won a revolution against the Old World idea that we owe allegiance to our governments; the United States was founded on the opposite principle, that our governments owe allegiance to us.