British armies were coming down the Hudson and a British war fleet with troopships was nearing New York harbor when at last, losing all hope of freedom with peace, the gentlemen of the Continental Congress soberly risked their lives, dipping a quill pen in an inkhorn and signing their Declaration.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un-alienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness... We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America... appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States."

They denied the Old World's ancient, traditional, never-before-rejected belief that human beings are born members of classes, low class to work or upper class to rule. With nothing but certainty of this truth, they faced the oncoming military forces of the British Empire, strongest of the world's Great Powers. They had no ally, no army, no money; in the scattered colonies the people lacked gunpowder for their muskets.

They had not even a flag. They were devising their symbols of freedom: the Pine Tree flag of Massachusetts; Carolina's Rattlesnake coiled under its defiance, "Don't Tread on Me"; New York's Beaver. The Continental Congress appointed General George Washington to raise and command the Continental Army. An army in battle must have a flag.

In Philadelphia three rebel leaders hurriedly conferred: General George Washington, the planter; General George Ross, the prosperous merchant; Robert Morris, the rich financier. General Ross thought that his nephew's widow, Mistress Betsy Ross, might make a flag. They walked to her little upholstery shop on Arch Street.

She never had made a flag, she said; of course she would try. She studied their hasty sketch and said that, for her part, she would not choose six-pointed stars; five-pointed stars would make a pattern more to her taste. They thought that five-pointed stars were too difficult to make.

Mistress Betsy took a bit of paper, deftly folded it, and with one snip of her scissors made a five-pointed star. General Washington accepted it with no more words. The gentlemen said they would send her a colored sketch at once.

A breathless messenger brought it, drawn and colored by the renowned artist, William Barrett. Mistress Betsy threaded her needle and made the flag. She made it of patchwork: thirteen five-pointed stars set into a blue square, thirteen strips of red and white sewed together. Clear, gay colors, white for purity, red for courage, blue for faith; stars for light, and straight lines to ripple strong and free against the sky. This was the tradition of American patchwork, and this is what Mistress Betsy's grandchildren and their grandchildren, and theirs, would tell of the making of the star-spangled banner.

In the tradition of American patchwork she made the flag that stands today, with its fifty stars, for the inalienable liberty and human rights of every human being, the flag of the Revolution that already has carried the New World far around this earth and some day will help banish the last tyranny and free all mankind.