“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 to humbly implore His protection and favor.”
George Washington
October 3, 1789
Proclaiming a National Day of
Prayer and Thanksgiving
“This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.”
Patrick Henry
In his last will and testament
November 30, 1798
“It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisement; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action.”
Abraham Lincoln
Declaring a National Day of
Prayer and Fasting following
The Battle of Bull Run
“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only Law Book, and every member should regulate conduct by the precepts there exhibited … What a paradise that would be!”
John Adams 1756
America’s Second President
“If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”
Daniel Webster, 1821
“We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this: and I also believe that without His concerning aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.”
Benjamin Franklin
Statement he made at the
Constitutional Convention
June 28, 1787
“God who gave us life gave us liberty. 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 a gift from 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, 1781
“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon the teachings of the Redeemer of Mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent, our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”
U.S. Supreme Court, 1892
