In God We Trust

On this date in 1864 Congress adopted legislation providing for the words In God We Trust to be inscribed upon one-cent and two-cent coins. The bill was the handiwork of Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, responding in part to public pressure. Chase was the leader of the abolitionist wing of the Lincoln administration, and the president would not long thereafter first accept his resignation, and then appoint him chief justice of the United States.

Lincoln also signed the bill, although he was a member of no church who for most of his career had the reputation of an irreligious man. He was, however, changing -- and had always been well read in the Bible. Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address came a year later, and is in my opinion the greatest speech ever made by an American precisely because of its profound religious analysis and sensibility.

More laws were passed over the years extending the practice, culminating in 1956 with the establishment of In God We Trust as the national motto of the United States. That bill was signed by President Eisenhower, two years after he had signed one adding the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. Such measures drew little opposition in the 19th and 20th centuries, but might prove more controversial today.