Patriotic Page
"For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations."
--The Bible, Isaiah 56:7 (NIV)
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 Below these anecdotes and story titles, you will find quotes from leaders, past and present, concerning freedom and religion as it pertains to us today and as it pertained to our founding fathers.
If any of the following are not considered public domain, please let me know so that I may remove them immediately. All have been submitted by friends and students.
 “Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears....
“May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance and never lose your natural, God-given optimism.” —Speech to Republican National Convention, Aug. 17, 1992
When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. President Ronald Reagan
I've always believed that we were, each of us, put here for a reason, that there is a ... divine plan for all of us. I know now that whatever days are left to me belong to him [God].
--Ronald Reagan
(There are other quotes by President Reagan at the bottom of this page.)
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Veterans' Day 2003
A Story from the First Battalion (Where do we get these boys indeed! They are ours!)
On of the President's Devotional Books (an exerpt)
How Did You Sleep Last Night? pictures of your soldiers
A Charge to Keep (picture)
Zell Miller (You will enjoy this.)
The Boys of Iwo Jima This is not just a statue; they are men with names and...
Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance (This takes a few minutes to load but is well worth it.)
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(If any material is not public domain, please let me know so that I may remove it. Information has been submitted by students and friends.)
Let us resolve tonight that young Americans will always ... find there a city of hope in a country that is free.... And let us resolve they will say of our day and our generation, we did keep the faith with our God, that we did act worthy of ourselves, that we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill." — Election Eve speech, Nov. 3, 1980 Ronald Reagan, President-elect
“If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” —Speech at the Berlin Wall, June 12, 1987 President Ronald Reagan
"We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." —Inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1981 President Ronald Reagan
"It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick—professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. President Ronald Reagan
"They are, in short, 'We the people,' this breed called Americans." —Inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1981, President Ronald Reagan
"Honey, I forgot to duck." — 1981, Reagan to his wife, as he recovered gunshot wounds after an assassination attempt by John Hinckley on March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan
"When people tell me I became president on January 20, 1981, I feel I have to correct them. You don't become president of the United States. You are given temporary custody of an institution called the presidency, which belongs to our people." — Address to the Republican national convention. Aug. 15, 1988, President Ronald Reagan
I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. congress. President Ronald Reagan
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future. President Ronald Reagan
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. President Ronald Reagan
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. President Ronald Reagan
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.
Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
However, our task is far from over. Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980's were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there. (RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994) President Ronald Reagan
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. (October 27, 1964) President Ronald Reagan
I hope you're all Republicans. (To surgeons as he entered the operating room, March 30, 1981.) President Ronald Reagan
I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience. (during a 1984 presidential debate with Walter Mondale) President Ronald Reagan
But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret. President Ronald Reagan
It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence abroad, and the collapse of imperial Communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag. (RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994) President Ronald Reagan
Republicans believe every day is 4th of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15. President Ronald Reagan
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now. (RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994)
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere.
A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough. (December 5, 1990) President Ronald Reagan
...there is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit. President Ronald Reagan
I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other. (April 11, 1984) President Ronald Reagan
The most terrifying words in the English langauge are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help. President Ronald Reagan
Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music. President Ronald Reagan
This country was founded and built by people with great dreams and the courage to take great risks. (January 26, 1983) President Ronald Reagan
We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look. (January 20, 1981) President Ronald Reagan
We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. (Farewell Address to the Nation, January 20th, 1989) President Ronald Reagan
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All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
--Edmund Burke
The Star Spangled Banner Verse Two
O! thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just;
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust!"
And the star spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul."
--Harry Truman
"I have learned the power of prayer. I pray for guidance. I do not pray for earthly things, but for heavenly things, for wisdom and patience and understanding. My faith gives me focus and perspective. It teaches humility.
--George W. Bush
"Your love of liberty--your respect for the laws--your habits of industry--and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness."
--George Washington, letter to the residents of Boston, Massachusetts, October 27, 1789
"If one asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him: It means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty, and for happiness, meant. Our flag carries American ideas, American history and American feelings. This American flag was the safeguard of liberty. It was an ordinance of liberty by the people, for the people. That it meant, that it means, and, by the blessing of God, that it shall mean to the end of time!"
--Henry Ward Beecher
"Prayer is humbling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vain glory and signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear."
--E.M. Bounds, author and pastor
From Franklin Roosevelt's speech given on the evening of June 6, 1944
Almighty God,
Our sons, pride of our Nation,
This day have set upon a mighty endeavor;
a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion,
and our civilization,
and to set free a suffering humanity...
They fight to end conquest...
They fight to liberate...
They yearn but for the end of battle,
for their return to the haven of home.
Success may not come with rushing speed,
but we shall return again and again;
and we know by Thy grace, and the righteousness
of our cause, our sons will triumph.
Thy will be done, Almighty God, Amen.
--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause us to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."
--John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Colony
" Poor is the nation that has no heroes . . . Shameful is the one that, having them . . forgets."
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
--Daniel Webster
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."
--Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Henry L. Pierce and others, April 6, 1859.
"It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation's humble acknowledged dependence upon God and His overruling providence."
--John Adams
"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book."
--Abraham Lincoln
Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was in the news nearly 50 years ago, when the words "under God" were first included? In 1954, as a result of a national campaign by the Knights of Columbus, Congress voted to add those important words, and the Pledge was re-written as we now know it.
President Eisenhower addressed Congress after the resolution was passed, stating,
"In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war."
"I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the country for their constant prayers and consolations; and to no one of them, more than to yourself."
--Abraham Lincoln
"I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. We need God's help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can't expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living."
--Ronald Reagan
"Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe. Religion is the basis and foundation of government."
--James Madison
"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul."
--Harry Truman
 George Washington expressed thanks for prayers by the people of Massachusetts.
"Should it please God, according to the prayers of your constituents, to grant me health and long life, my greatest enjoyment will be to behold the prosperity of my country; and the affection and attachment of my fellow citizens, through the whole period of my public employments…Your benevolent wishes and fervent prayers for my personal welfare and felicity, demand all my gratitude. May the preservation of your civil and religious liberties still be the care of an indulgent Providence; and may the rapid increase and universal extension of knowledge, virtue and true religion be the consequence of a speedy and honorable peace."
--General George Washington
 Stonewall Jackson was widely known for encouraging the spiritual life of his soldiers.
Anything can be a prayer reminder!
"I have so fixed the habit of prayer in my mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without asking God's blessing, never seal a letter from the post without a brief sending of my thoughts heavenward."
--Stonewall Jackson, Civil War general
 President Harry Truman asks God's help for the nation.
"Let us all stand together as Americans. Let us stand together with all men every where who believe in human liberty. Peace is precious to us. It is the way of life we strive for with all the strength and wisdom we possess. But more precious than peace are freedom and justice. We will fight, if fight we must, to keep our freedom and to prevent justice from being destroyed. These are the things that give meaning to our lives, and which we acknowledge to be greater than ourselves. "This is our cause: peace, freedom, justice. We will pursue this cause with determination and humility, asking divine guidance that in all we do we may follow the will of God."
--Harry S. Truman in his State of the Union address, January 8, 1951
 "We in this country, in this generation, are by destiny rather than choice the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of peace on earth, goodwill toward men."
--John F. Kennedy (from a speech that was never delivered, due to Kennedy's death)
 "Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The divine law, as discovered by reason and the moral sense, forms an essential part of both."
--James Wilson, Supreme Court Justice (1789)
 "You can't divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other."
--Jimmy Carter
 "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their Nation."
--George Washington
 THE PRESIDENT URGES SUPPORT FOR OUR MILITARY
President Bush addressed a crowd assembled at the
USS Philippine Sea in Mayport, Florida.
"I want to thank those of you who support our military. But I'm particularly grateful to all the military families. Family members serve and sacrifice for our nation. Every day our military families are putting America's interests first, and America thanks you. Across this great land, I hear it all the time, the people of this country admire our men and women in uniform. They're praying for you. They're concerned about you and your families. Our people in uniform and families deserve our gratitude and you deserve our support."
--George W. Bush
 Benjamin Rush was a beloved physician, Surgeon-General of the Continental Army, contributing author to the Pennsylvania Constitution and an active abolitionist. Portrait courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.
After the adoption of the Constitution in 1798, Founding Father Benjamin Rush declared, "The only foundation for…a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."
--Benjamin Rush, physician and Treasurer of the U.S. Mint
 President Thomas Jefferson prayed this prayer for peace on March 4, 1805
"Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; we humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."
--President Thomas Jefferson
"The Bible...is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God and spiritual nature and needs of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation. America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."
--Woodrow Wilson
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