Our Presidents have also understood our nation’s religious foundations. In his “Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day,” Abraham Lincoln stated,
“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.”
President Calvin Coolidge affirmed,
“Our Government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles, they cannot believe in our Government.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said,
“As Commander in Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the Armed Forces of the United States. Throughout the centuries, men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the Sacred Book, words of wisdom, counsel and inspiration. It is a foundation of strength and now, as always, an aid in attaining the highest aspirations of the human soul.”
President Reagan questioned the abuse of the First Amendment by our Federal courts,
"Can it really be true, that the First Amendment can permit Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen to march on public property, advocate the extermination of people of the Jewish faith and the subjugation of blacks, while the same amendment forbids our children from saying a prayer in school?"
President Reagan commented further on the inappropriate restrictions that have been placed on religion by our Federal courts,
"How ironic that even as America returns to its spiritual roots, our courts lag behind. They talk of our constitutional guarantee of religious liberty as if it meant freedom from religion, freedom from-actually a prohibition on-all values rooted in religion. Well, yes, the Constitution does say that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.' But then it adds: 'or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' The First Amendment protects the rights of Americans to freely exercise their religious beliefs in an atmosphere of toleration and accommodation...[C]ertain court decisions have, in my view, wrongly interpreted the First Amendment so as to restrict, rather than protect, individual rights of conscience. What greater legacy could we leave our children than a new birth of religious freedom in this one nation under God?"
Congress has also defended against the atheist push to secularize the United States. In the Reports of the Committees of the Senate of the United States Made During the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress, 1854, we find.
“They [The Founders] intended, by this Amendment, to prohibit ‘an establishment of religion’ such as the English Church presented, or any thing like it.” “ . . . they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public . . . the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy.”
The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives made during the same First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress, 1854, also affirmed our nation’s religious foundations,
“Any attempt to level and discard all religion would have been viewed with universal indignation. . . It [religion] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests.” “Christianity . . . was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendents.”
Congress added “under God” to our Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 during the Cold War to distinguish us from the “Godless Communists.” The House Committee on the Judiciary 1954 report stated the added words affirmed “the dependence of our people and our Government upon the moral directions of the Creator.” In 1956 Congress made “In God We Trust” our National Motto.