that's the Decl of Ind. This should also be entered (ratified unanimously by many of the founding fathers)
Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1753: The worship of God is a duty; the hearing and reading of sermons may be useful; but, if men rest in hearing and praying, as too many do, it is as if a tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth leaves, though it never produce any fruit.
Woodrow Wilson, our 28th President (not a founding father, though) made some excellent observations. We have forgotten his words:
A man had deprived himself of the best in the world who has deprived himself of this, a knowledge of the Bible. When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key of your own heart, your own happiness and your own duty. I am sorry for the men who do not read the Bible every day. I wonder why they deprive themselves of the strength and the pleasure.
George Washington wrote to his troops: The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army, Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission, We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die.
On March 11, 1792, President George Washington wrote: I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them.
Samuel Adams said: Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual--or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.
John Adams on October 11, 1798 wrote: We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Benjamin Franklin in 1768 wrote: Nothing can contribute to true happiness that is inconsistent with duty; nor can a course of action conformable to it, be finally without an ample reward. For, God governs; and he is good.
Congress and President George Washington in 1789 passed the "United States Annotated Code", Article III states: Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
Patrick Henry declared:
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
That little highlighted and underlined part speaks volumes doesn't it!
