Today is an anniversary you probably didn't hear about. On March 3, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln signed an act of Congress for the last time before his assassination. This new law required that the motto "In God We Trust" be inscribed on all our national coins. Years later on March 3, 1931, Congress adopted Francis Scott Key's Star Spangled Banner as our National Anthem. The fourth stanza of the song proclaims: "And this be our motto, In God is our trust." This motto was then inscribed in the U.S. House and Senate chambers; on a tribute block inside the Washington Monument; and on a stained-glass window in the chapel in the U.S. Capitol. This motto has been frequently quoted by our nation's presidents.
President Harry Truman said in 1949: "When the U.S. was established... the motto was 'In God We Trust.' That is still our motto and we still place our firm trust in God." Then, when President Dwight Eisenhower spoke at a ceremony in 1954 honoring the first stamp bearing the motto "In God We Trust," Eisenhower said: "America's greatness has been based upon a spiritual quality ... symbolized by the [postage] stamp that will be issued today ... [which] places a message: 'Here is ... the land that lives in respect for the Almighty's mercy to us.' ... Each of us, hereafter fastening such a stamp on a letter, cannot fail to feel something of the inspiration that we do whenever we ... read "In God We Trust." President Ronald Reagan said in his 1981 National Day of Prayer proclamation: “Our National Motto - 'In God We Trust' - was not chosen lightly. It reflects a basic recognition that there is a divine authority in the universe to which this nation owes homage.”
Words like this wonderful motto of ours are under attack in the public arena today. Radical liberal and atheist groups frequently file new lawsuits challenging the acknowledgment of God in public view – especially when it comes from civil government. We urge you to cooperate with Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and other patriotic groups who are defending our national motto and revitalizing the recognition that as a nation, truly “In God We Trust.”
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