Preamble to the Constitution of The American Legion
For God and Country
We associate ourselves together for the following purposes:
To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America;
to maintain law and order; to foster and perpetuate a one hundred percent Americanism;
to preserve the memories and incidents of our associations in the Great Wars;
to inculcate a sense of individual obligation to the community, state and nation;
to combat the autocracy of both the classes and the masses; to make right the master of might;
to promote peace and goodwill on earth; to safeguard and transmit to posterity the
principles of justice, freedom and democracy; to consecrate and sanctify our comradeship by our
devotion to mutual helpfulness.
The American Legion was chartered by
Congress in 1919 as a patriotic, mutual-help, war-time veterans organization. A community-service
organization which now numbers nearly 3 million members -- men and women -- in nearly 15,000
American Legion Posts worldwide. These Posts are organized into 55 Departments -- one each for the
50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, France, Mexico, and the Philippines.
The American Legion's national headquarters is in Indianapolis, Indiana, with additional
offices in Washington, DC. In addition to thousands of volunteers
serving in leadership and program implementation capacities in local
communities to the Legion's standing national commissions and
committees, the national organization has a regular full-time staff of
about 300 employees.
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