The US Constitution says nothing about the flag. Not the design, not the colors, not how to treat it — the original text and all twenty-seven amendments are silent. What the Constitution does provide, indirectly but powerfully, is the First Amendment, which protects your right to use the flag as political expression (including in ways many people find offensive) and shields you from being forced to salute it. Everything else about the flag — its stars and stripes, when to raise it, how to fold it — lives in ordinary federal statutes, not the Constitution itself.
Why the Founding Document Skips the Flag
The Constitution drafted in 1787 is a structural document. Its seven articles set out how Congress legislates, how the president governs, how federal courts operate, and how the states relate to the federal government.1National Archives. The Constitution: What Does It Say? The framers were building a machine of government. Commerce, taxation, defense, treaty-making, the amendment process — those made the cut. National emblems did not.
The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, kept that focus. It protects speech, religion, arms, procedure, and juries. It says nothing about flags.
The flag had, in fact, already been established before the Constitution existed. The Continental Congress adopted its design by resolution on June 14, 1777, calling for thirteen alternating red and white stripes and thirteen white stars on a blue field. That was a legislative act, and every change since has traveled the same statutory route.
Where the Flag’s Rules Actually Live
The closest thing to an official rulebook is the United States Flag Code, in Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the U.S. Code. It covers when to fly the flag, how to position it alongside others, and what not to do with it. The flag should go up briskly at sunrise and come down ceremoniously at sunset, though it may stay up overnight if properly lit.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. US Code Title 4 Section 6 – Time and Occasions for Display Displayed with other flags, it takes the position of honor on its own right and at the highest point.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. US Code Title 4 Section 7 – Position and Manner of Display The code also forbids using the flag for advertising, printing it on disposable items, wearing it as clothing (patches on military, police, and firefighter uniforms are fine), or using it as a receptacle or ceiling covering. A worn flag should be destroyed respectfully, preferably by burning.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. US Code Title 4 Section 8 – Respect for Flag
None of this is enforceable against civilians. The Flag Code contains no penalty provisions. No fines, no jail time, no prosecution mechanism. Military personnel follow these rules as service regulations. For everyone else, compliance is voluntary.
The physical design is likewise a matter of statute. Title 4, Section 1 describes the flag as thirteen alternating red and white stripes with a union of white stars on a blue field.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. US Code Title 4 Section 1 – Flag; Stripes and Stars On New stars are added by executive order when states join the union. The current fifty-star version, in use since 1960 following Hawaii’s admission, is the longest-serving design in the flag’s history.
What the First Amendment Does Say — About the Flag
The Constitution’s real connection to the flag runs through the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has spelled it out in three landmark cases.
Burning the Flag as Protected Speech
In 1989, the Court decided Texas v. Johnson. Gregory Lee Johnson had burned an American flag outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas to protest President Reagan’s policies. Texas convicted him under a state flag desecration law and sentenced him to one year in prison and a $2,000 fine. The Supreme Court reversed 5–4, holding that the government cannot ban expression simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable, even where the flag is involved.6Legal Information Institute. Texas v Johnson Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissenting, acknowledged the ruling effectively struck down flag desecration laws in 48 of the 50 states.
Congress responded within months by passing the Flag Protection Act of 1989, a federal statute making it a crime to knowingly burn, deface, or trample any U.S. flag, punishable by up to one year in prison.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. US Code Title 18 Section 700 – Desecration of the Flag of the United States; Penalties The law was drafted to apply regardless of the speaker’s motive, an effort to sidestep the content-based problem the Court identified in Johnson.
It did not survive. In United States v. Eichman (1990), the same 5–4 majority struck down the federal law, finding that the government’s real interest still turned on suppressing the message being communicated, and that interest could not overcome First Amendment protection.8Legal Information Institute. United States v Eichman Section 700 remains in the U.S. Code, but any prosecution under it would be dismissed under these precedents.
Refusing to Salute
The Constitution also limits what the government can compel you to do with the flag. In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the Court struck down a state requirement that public school students salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. A group of Jehovah’s Witnesses had challenged the mandate on religious grounds. The Court ruled 6–3 that forcing the salute violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Justice Robert Jackson wrote for the majority: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”9Library of Congress. West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette, 319 US 624 (1943) The decision overruled the Court’s own three-year-old precedent in Minersville School District v. Gobitis.
The result: no public school can punish a student for declining to stand for the Pledge or salute the flag. Schools may lead the Pledge; participation must be optional. That has been the rule for over eighty years.
The Long Effort to Amend the Constitution
Because the Court grounded its flag-burning rulings in the First Amendment, the only way to overturn them is a constitutional amendment. Congress has tried repeatedly. Every session since Johnson has seen at least one proposed amendment giving Congress power to prohibit physical desecration of the flag.
The closest attempt was a 2006 Senate vote. The joint resolution received 66 votes in favor and 34 against, one vote short of the two-thirds needed to send an amendment to the states.10United States Senate. Roll Call Vote 109th Congress – 2nd Session The House had already passed its version. That single missing vote remains the high-water mark.
The effort continues. In the current 119th Congress (2025–2026), House Joint Resolution 101 proposes an amendment giving Congress power to prohibit physical desecration of the flag.11Congress.gov. Amendments – H.J.Res.101 – 119th Congress Like every predecessor, it faces the deliberately high bar of two-thirds in both chambers plus ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures. No flag amendment has cleared it.
Until one does, the answer to the original question stays the same. The Constitution itself says nothing about the American flag. The First Amendment says quite a lot about what you are allowed to do with it, and what the government is not allowed to make you do.