God and Man at City Hall

Natural law is meaningless without a supreme arbiter:

How did the phrase "In God We Trust" get on our coins? It was on this day, March 3, 1865, that Congress approved inscribing the motto on all our national coins.

Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law. Less than two months later Lincoln was assassinated.

At a Memorial Address for Lincoln, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax noted:

Nor should I forget to mention here that the last act of Congress ever signed by President Lincoln was one requiring that the motto, in which he sincerely believed, "In God We Trust," should hereafter be inscribed upon all our national coin.


Consider that on days when the thin-skinned see tort in what makes them uncomfortable. American federal, state and local governments are bedecked with the religious instance, officially acknowledged out of respect for tradition and history rather than the purpose of establishment. After all — be it Sunnandaeg, Monandaeg, Tiwesdaeg, Wodnesdaeg, Thursdaeg or Frigedaeg, where's your altar slab as mandated by law?

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