On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a historic Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day:

 Whereas, the Senate of the United States devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation:

 And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:  [emphasis added]

 And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? [emp. add.]

 We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven.  We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity.  We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

 But we have forgotten God. [emp. add.] We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
 Intoxicated by unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

 It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
 Now, therefore, in compliance with the request and fully concurring in the view of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.
 And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.  [emphasis added]

 All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.  [emphasis added]

 In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. By the President: Abraham Lincoln.  [pp.170-172]

Congress of the United States of America (October 3, 1863), as proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln, passed an Act of Congress designating an annual National Day of Thanksgiving:

 I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States… to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens… [it is] announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… [emphasis added]  It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.  [p.172]

Congress of the United States of America (March 3, 1865), approved Salmon Portland Chase’s instruction to the U.S. mint. As the Secretary of the Treasury under Abraham Lincoln, Chase instructed the mint to prepare a “device” to inscribe U.S. coins with the motto:

 In God We Trust  [p.172]


***4. Post-War Between the States (1865 to 1982)***

Constitution of the State of North Carolina (1776), stated:

 There shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State in preference to any other.

 Article XXXII  That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.  (until 1876)

In 1835 the word “Protestant” was changed to “Christian.” [p.482]

Constitution of the State of New Hampshire (1784,1792), required senators and representatives to be of the:

 Protestant religion.  (in force until 1877)

The Constitution stipulated:

 Article I, Section VI.  And every denomination of Christians demeaning themselves quietly, and as good citizens of the state, shall be equally under the protection of the laws.  And no subordination of any one sect of denomination to another, shall ever be established by law.  [p.469]

United States Supreme Court (February 29, 1892), in the case of Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 US 457-458, 465-471, 36 L ed 226, Justice Josiah Brewer rendered the high court’s decision:

 Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody 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.

 No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people.  This is historically true.  From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.

 **The commission to Christopher Columbus**… [recited] that “it is hoped that by God’s assistance some of the continents and islands in the ocean will be discovered…”

 **The first colonial grant made to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584**… and the grant authorizing him to enact statutes for the government of the proposed colony provided that they “be not against the true Christian faith…”

 **The first charter of Virginia, granted by King James I in 1606**… commenced the grant in these words: “… in propagating of Christian Religion to such People as yet live in Darkness…”

 Language of similar import may be found in the subsequent charters of that colony… in 1609 and 1611; and the same is true of the various charters granted to the other colonies. In language more or less emphatic is the establishment of the Christian religion declared to be one of the purposes of the grant.  The celebrated compact made by the Pilgrims in the Mayflower, 1620, recites: “Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith… a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia…”

**The fundamental orders of Connecticut**, under which a provisional government was instituted in 1638-1639, commence with this declaration: “… 

And well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union… there should be an orderly and decent government established according to God… to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess… of the said gospel [which] is now practiced amongst us.”

 **In the charter of privileges granted by William Penn to the province of Pennsylvania, in 1701**, it is recited: “… no people can be truly happy, though under the greatest enjoyment of civil liberties, if abridged of… their religious profession and worship…”

 Coming nearer to the present time, the Declaration of Independence recognizes the presence of the Divine in human affairs in these words:  

 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights… appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions… And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

 … We find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth… because of a general recognition of this truth [that we are a Christian nation], the question has seldom been presented to the courts…

 There is no dissonance in these declarations.  There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people.

 While because of a general recognition of this truth the question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, it was decided that, Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law… not Christianity with an established church… but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.

 And in **The People v. Ruggles**, Chancellor Kent, the great commentator on American law, speaking as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, said:
 “The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity, as the rule of their faith and practice… We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those imposters [other religions].”