The Civil War has resulted in increased religious sentiment, both South and North. Within the United States, the surge or religiosity takes form, partly, in a movement to place a tribute to God on U.S. coinage. Peculiarly, the request to the government that initiated the move toward recognizing God on coinage began with a Baptist minister, Mark R. Watkinson, pastor of the Ridley Baptist Church in Ridleyville, Pennsylvania.
Few Baptists prior to the war departed from the denomination’s two centuries-plus commitment to church state separation, a conviction that helped ensure that America was founded as a secular nation. The war, however, challenged Baptist faith commitments. In the Confederacy, many white Baptist leaders supported the Confederate Constitution’s appeal to God, openly equated the Confederacy as God’s kingdom on earth, considered the Confederate Army as the army of God, welcomed religious pronouncements and edicts from the Confederate president and Congress, proclaimed that it was improper for Christians to question the motives of government leaders, and insisted that the government should honor the Christian day of worship (Sunday) by prohibiting mail delivery, commerce and military activity. All of these positions had been opposed by Baptists (of the United States and in relation to the United States) prior to the war.
In the North, some Baptists during the war likewise praised the United States government as God’s instrument on earth and the Union Army as fulfilling God’s will of freedom for all persons. Also, in both South and North political sermons in Baptist churches were not uncommon.
Nonetheless, Watkinson’s November 13, 1861 request to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase was historically atypical sentiment for a Baptist of the North. He did so from his own personal convictions, with the support of few, if any, other Baptists.
Watkinson’s letter stated:
Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances.
One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.
You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the all seeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.
This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.
To you first I address a subject that must be agitated.
Perhaps Watkinson’s concern with perceived “heathenism” was a swipe at recently-elected president Abraham Lincoln who, despite being raised in a Baptist church, had since that time not been a regular church goer and had been publicly perceived by many as a pagan.
In any case, Secretary Chase, perhaps sensitive to the fact that many Christians perceived Lincoln as anti-religious at a time when public appeals to God could be helpful to the war effort, had immediatly instructed James Pollock, Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, to act on Watkinson’s request. In a letter dated November 20, 1861, Chase requested of Pollock:
Dear Sir: No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.
You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.
Two years later, Pollock submitted his designs to Chase, who today writes back to Pollock with suggested changes:
I approve your mottoes, only suggesting that on that with the Washington obverse the motto should begin with the word OUR, so as to read OUR GOD AND OUR COUNTRY. And on that with the shield, it should be changed so as to read: IN GOD WE TRUST.
Congressional approval is necessary next, and takes place on April 22, 1864. The legislation applies to the one-cent coin and authorizes a minting of a two-cent coin to bear the same new inscriptions. The first U.S. coin to bear the words “In God We Trust” is that of the 1864 two-cent piece. A second act of congress on March 3, 1865 allows (but does not demand) the slogan to be placed on all gold and silver coins upon which there is room for the wording.
In the decades following, the inscription “In God We Trust” appears on some U.S. coins, but not consistently. In 1938, however, the inscription becomes mandatory. In 1957, during the height of the Communist scare and by order of Congress, the motto is added to U.S. currency.
In short, a perceived need to appeal to the favor of God during the Civil War led to the beginning of “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins, a request initiated by a clergyman from the most unlikely of Christian denominations in America — Baptists.
Sources: “History of ‘In God We Trust,'” U.S. Department of the Treasury (link); “Our History,” Prospect Baptist Church, formerly Ridley Baptist Church of Ridleyville, Pennsylvania (link); see also Bruce T. Gourley, Diverging Loyalties: Baptists in Middle Georgia During the Civil War, Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2011 (link)
