Design
The flag consists of the Commonwealth's seal on a navy blue field, surrounded by the words "Commonwealth of Kentucky" above and sprigs of goldenrod, the state flower, below. The seal depicts two friends embracing. Popular belief claims that the buckskin-clad man on the left is Daniel Boone, who was largely responsible for the exploration of Kentucky, and the man in the suit on the right is Henry Clay, Kentucky's most famous statesman. However, the official explanation is that the men represent all frontiersmen and statesmen, rather than any specific persons. The state motto: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" circles them. The motto comes from the lyrics of "The Liberty Song", a patriotic song from the American Revolution.
In 2001, the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) surveyed its members on the designs of the 72 Canadian provincial, U.S. state, and U.S. territorial flags. Kentucky's flag finished 66th out of the 72 other flags.
Read more about this topic: Flag Of Kentucky
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“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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