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How did the phrase become prominent in American history? What led to it being instituted as our national motto? What does it mean?
With the Civil War raging between the states in the 1860s, there was public desire to display, on our coins, our dependence on God’s continued guidance of the nation. In response, Congress instructed (1864) the U.S. mint to include In God We Trust on the one- and two-cent coins. An 1865 Act added the phrase to all gold and silver coins. Following periods when these words were not included on some coins, Congress (1908) mandated its display on all coins. In God We Trust has appeared on every coin since 1916.
With the resurgence of religious sentiment following WWII, and in contrast to atheistic communism, a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956 established In God We Trust as our national motto. The first paper currency was printed with the motto in 1957. By the mid-1960s, all currency included the motto.
In 2000, the House of Representatives unanimously resolved to “encourage the display of the national motto… in public buildings throughout the Nation.” In God We Trust is displayed in both the U.S. House and Senate chambers, in more than 115 city chambers in California, in eight California county chambers, and in the chambers of over 450 other cities and counties across the U.S. Through legislative action, every public-school classroom displays the motto in Kentucky, Louisiana, South Dakota, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia. In Alabama, Arizona, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas, school classrooms may display the motto. Georgia and Ohio allow only donated displays. Arkansas mandates that donated displays must be posted.
The 10th Federal Circuit Court (and others) has consistently upheld the constitutionality of displaying the motto on public buildings, holding that it supports the secular purpose of symbolizing the historical role of religion in our nation’s history. The Supreme Court has, in numerous cases, cited the motto as a constitutionally permissible expression of our nation’s tradition of faith in God. These rulings support the principle that displaying the words In God We Trust is for the sole purpose of promoting the national motto and not for promoting any specific religious belief or practice.
What do the words In God We Trust communicate? First, we Americans generally believe there is more to our success than our own ingenuity. As Abraham Lincoln wisely observed in 1863, “we have forgotten God… and we have vainly imagined… that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace…” That is, we have been guided and protected by a resource superior to our own.
Second, most Americans believe we must conduct ourselves according to a transcendent moral standard. Mankind as the final authority consistently results in tyranny, regardless of how noble the intentions.
Third, as our Declaration of Independence posits, our claim as a “separate and equal station” “among the powers of the earth” emanates from “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Our Founders believed that our very right to exist as a sovereign nation was founded on supernatural authority.
Fourth, again from the Declaration, the worth of every individual is reflected in their “unalienable rights [of] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and that these are “endowed by their Creator,” not by human institutions. Personal rights, just as national rights, have their basis not in the kindness or power of others, but by the design of the Creator.