In God We Trust
Presidents
“It is the duty of all nations to
acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful
for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”
George Washington
Commander-in-Chief in the American Revolution; Signer of
the Constitution;
First President of the United States
“We have no government armed with
power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and
religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and
religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other.”
John Adams
Signer of the Declaration of Independence; One of Two
Signers of the Bill of Rights;
Second President of the United States
“And can the liberties of a nation
be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction
in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?
That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that
His justice cannot sleep forever.”
Thomas Jefferson
Signer and the principal author of the Declaration of
Independence;
Third President of the United States
“Before any man can be considered
as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the
Governor of the Universe.”
James Madison
Signer of the Constitution; Fourth President of the
United States
“Is it not that in the chain of
human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the
birthday of the Savior? – That it forms a leading event in the progress of
the Gospel dispensation” Is it not that the Declaration of Independence
first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s
mission upon earth? – That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon
the first precepts of Christianity?”
John Quincy Adams
Statesman; Diplomat; Sixth President of the United States
Founding Fathers
“An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all
that is left us!…Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means
which the God of nature hath placed in our power…Besides, sir, we shall not
fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides
over the destinies of nations and who will raise up friends to fight our
battles for us…Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the
price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me
liberty or give me death!!”
Patrick Henry
Patriot and Statesman
“To the kindly influence of
Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social
happiness, which mankind now enjoys…Whenever the pillars of Christianity
shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government – and all
blessings which flow from them – must fall with them.”
Jedediah Morse
Patriot and Educator, called “The Father of American
Geography”
“I’ve lived, sir, a long time, and
the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: That God
governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall
to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise
without His aid? We’ve been assured in the sacred
writings that unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build
it. I firmly believe this, and I also believe that
without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no
better than the builders of Babel.”
Benjamin Franklin
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution
Supreme Court
Justices
“The Bible is the best of all
books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this
world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and
to regulate your life by its precepts.”
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“Providence has given to our
people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the
privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer
Christians for their rulers.”
John Jay
Co-author of the Federalist Papers; First Chief Justice
of the U.S. Supreme Court
“Human law must rest its authority
ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine.---Far from being
rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual
assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each
other.”
James Wilson
Signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution;
Original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court
“One of the beautiful boasts of
our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common
Law…There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize
Christianity as lying at its foundations…I verily believe Christianity
necessary to the support of civil society.”
Joseph Story
U.S. Supreme Court Justice, “Father of American
Jurisprudence”, Placed on the
Court by President James Madison
Congress
“We are a Christian people…not
because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal
disabilities, but from choice and education; and in a land thus universally
Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay due
regard to Christianity?”
[Senate Judiciary Committee
Report, January 19, 1853]
“At the time of the adoption of
the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that
Christianity should be encouraged…In this age there can be no substitute for
Christianity…That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they
expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”
[House Judiciary Committee
Report, March 27, 1854]
Education
“Let every student be plainly
instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of this life
and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John
17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of
all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord
only giveth wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret
to seek it of Him (Proverbs 2, 3). Every one shall so
exercise h8imself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be
ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein.”
Harvard
1636 Student Guidelines
“All the scholars are required to
live a religious and blameless life according to the rules of God’s Word,
diligently reading the Holy Scriptures, that fountain of Divine light and
truth, and constantly attending all the duties of religion.”
Yale
1787 Student Guidelines
Supreme Court Rulings
There is no dissonance in these
[legal] declarations…These are not individual sayings, declarations of
private persons: they are organic [legal, governmental] utterances; they
speak the voice of the entire people…These, and many other matters which
might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of
organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.
Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S. 1892
Unanimous Decision Declaring America a Christian Nation
Significantly, the U.S. Supreme Court cited dozens of
court rulings and legal
documents as precedents to arrive at this ruling; but in
1962, when the Supreme
Court struck down voluntary prayer in schools, it did so
without using
any such precedent.
Why may not the Bible, and
especially the New Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as
a divine revelation in [schools] – its general precepts expounded, its
evidences explained and its glorious principles of morality
inculcated?…Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so
clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?
Vidal v. Girard’s Executors, 1844
Unanimous Decision Commending and Encouraging the Use of
the
Bible in Government-Run Schools
Foreigners
The Americans combine the notions
of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is
impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.
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Upon my arrival in the United
States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck
my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the
great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I
was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the
spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses diametrically
opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately
united, and that they reigned in common over the same country.
Alexis DeTocqueville
French observer of America in 1831, author of Democracy
in America
There is no country in which the
people are so religious as in the United States…The great number of
religious societies existing in the United States is truly surprising: there
are some of them for everything; for instance, societies to distribute the
Bible; to distribute tracts; to encourage religious journals; to convert,
civilize, educate;…to take care of their widows and orphans; to preach,
extend, purify, preserve, reform the faith; to build chapels, endow
congregations, support seminaries;…to establish Sunday schools;…to prevent
drunkenness, etc.
Achille Murat
French observer of America in 1832
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