In God We Trust: A Nation's Motto Stamped on Coinage

Four words stamped onto a two-cent coin in 1864 became the unofficial creed of a nation at war with itself. On April 22, Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864, which mandated that "In God We Trust" appear on American coins for the first time. The phrase had debuted two years earlier on the two-cent piece, but the 1864 act made its use standard across the currency system. A country tearing itself apart over slavery reached for divine endorsement. The push for religious language on currency came from an unlikely source: a Pennsylvania minister named Mark R. Watkinson, who wrote to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase in November 1861 arguing that American coinage should "relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism." Chase, a devout Episcopalian with presidential ambitions, agreed and directed Mint Director James Pollock to develop suitable designs. Several versions were tested, including "God Our Trust" and "God and Our Country," before the current phrasing was selected. The timing was no coincidence. The Civil War had produced a surge of religious fervor in both the Union and the Confederacy, each side claiming God's favor. For the Union, stamping a religious motto on currency served a dual purpose: it bolstered morale among northern Christians and implicitly cast the war as a holy cause. Critics, including some clergy, argued that placing God's name on money was borderline blasphemous, but their objections gained little traction in wartime Washington. "In God We Trust" appeared intermittently on various denominations until 1938, when it became mandatory on all coins. In 1956, at the height of Cold War anxiety over atheistic communism, Congress adopted it as the official national motto, replacing the informal "E Pluribus Unum." Legal challenges on First Amendment grounds have been consistently rejected by federal courts, which classify the phrase as "ceremonial deism" rather than a government endorsement of religion.