God we trust, to Girard we owe

August 12, 2006

Steel engraving of Stephen Girard, with his signature, by Alonzo Chappel,

Steel engraving of Stephen Girard, the man who personally saved the United States, with his signature, by Alonzo Chappel,”National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Americans from original full length portraits by Alonzo Chappel” Vol I, New York: Johnson, Fry & Co. 1862 “The Cooper Collections” via Wikipedia

Irony strikes the White House.

I mean, you can’t really make stuff like this up.

To be sure, the humor is quite Santayanaesque — if you don’t know the history, you won’t see the irony.

President Bush issued a proclamation noting the 50th anniversary of one of our national mottoes, “In God We Trust.” No big deal, these presidential proclamations. Note the occasion, say it’s worth commemorating, urge citizens to commemorate it “appropriately.”

Somebody in the White House communications commissariat decided to dress it up a little, add some history — you know, pad the proclamation to please the partisan pundits. What better thing to mention than, say, the “Star-Spangled Banner,” our national anthem, which has a line in it, “in God is our trust?” Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | 4th of July, Accuracy, Current History, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, History, Public education | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Jefferson on religious freedom

August 1, 2006

Thomas Jefferson *

In his Autobiography Jefferson recounted the 1786 passage of the law he proposed in 1779 to secure religious freedom in Virginia, the Statute for Religious Freedom:

The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and the Infidel of every denomination.

Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Modern Library 1993 edition, pp. 45 and 46.

* Image is a photo of detail from a painting of Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, courtesy of the New York Historical Society by way of the Library of Congress.

2 Comments | America's founding, First Amendment, Good Quotes, Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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