necessary. In Baltimore a noble monument has been reared in his honor.
It is surmounted by the figure of the poet, who waves his hat with one
hand and with the other points joyfully toward the fort. The figure is
so life-like that one almost expects it to cry,--

"And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

A few months after "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written, a plan was
formed to rear in the city of Baltimore a monument in honor of George
Washington. It was fitting that the place of his birth should also be
marked, and a few days before the laying of the corner-stone of the
monument, a little company sailed from Alexandria, Virginia, to Pope's
Creek, Westmoreland County, where Washington was born. With them they
carried a simple freestone slab on which was chiseled his name and the
date of his birth. Wrapped in the banner of fifteen stars, it was borne
reverently to its resting-place by the hands of the descendants of four
Revolutionary patriots.

CHAPTER X

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

"Time makes ancient good uncouth," said Lowell, and so it was with the
flag. The flag of fifteen stars and fifteen stripes that was decreed
in 1795 then represented each State; but in less than one year it was
out of date. Tennessee had come into the Union. Then followed Ohio,
Louisiana, and Indiana. Here were four States with no representation
in the colors of the country. Then, too, people began to realize that
in giving up the thirteen stripes they had lost their old significant
"Thirteen," and dropped a valuable historical association. At length
the matter came before Congress, and for nearly sixteen months it
remained there. Occasionally there was some little discussion about
it. One member proposed that the matter be postponed indefinitely.
"Are you willing to neglect the banner of freedom?" demanded another.
Yet another thought it unnecessary to insist upon thirteen stripes,
and thought they might as well fix upon nine or eleven or any other
arbitrary number as thirteen. The committee pleaded for the
significant thirteen, and so it went on. At length Peter H. Wendover,
of New York, through whose efforts Congress was held to its duty,
called the attention of the House to the fact that the Government
itself was paying no respect to its own laws in regard to the flag;
that the law demanded fifteen stripes, but that Congress was at that
moment dis