The intended purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance had nothing to do with patriotism or vowing allegiance to a “nation under God,” a campus speaker said last week.

Political science professor Richard Ellis of Willamaette University discussed the pledge’s origins in his lecture “The Dark Side of the Pledge of Allegiance.”

He said motivation for creating the Pledge was to help “Americanize” immigrants.

The 1880s saw one of largest waves of immigrants in American history, and the first public schools to recite the Pledge were in cities where the largest populations of immigrants lived, he said.

The Pledge was written in 1892 by socialist Francis Bellamy, and wrote it honor of the America’s first Columbus Day celebration.

Bellamy was a Baptist minister and was removed from the church for being too radical.

Originally, the Pledge was recited with the right arm raised forward, but was replaced with putting the hand over the heart during World War II, as the original salute resembled Hitler’s salute.

Last summer, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Pledge was unconstitutional and said it should not be recited in schools with the phrase “under God” in it. The court said the phrase violated the practice of the separation of church and state.

The original writing of the Pledge had nothing to do with keeping church and state separate. The word “indivisible” was to be symbolic of the Civil War and of the federal union’s victory over states’ rights.

The phrase “liberty and justice for all” was representative of equality and individual freedom.

It was not until 1954 that the phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge by congress. In 1955 the phrase “In God We Trust” was added to U.S. currency.

Ellis said many people opposed the removal of “under God” because they like to think that the United States is only a Christian nation.

He said many people believe that God has set America aside as the “promised land” that will bring “light to a world of darkness.”

“Americans like to think that they are different from the rest of the world,” Ellis said. “In the United States, we have patriotism while other countries have nationalism.”

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