[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 26 (Tuesday, March 4, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page H712]]



           SUPPORT DISPLAY OF TEN COMMANDMENTS IN COURTROOMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I come before this Chamber today to 
give my strongest commendations to the Congressman from Alabama [Mr. 
Aderholt], who is coming forward with a resolution today supporting the 
placement of the Ten Commandments in a courtroom in his home State of 
Alabama.
  A lot of people might ask, why do you need to actually pass a 
resolution supporting the placement of the Ten Commandments in a 
courtroom in America, because after all, there are two copies of the 
Ten Commandments at the Supreme Court of the United States. Right in 
this Chamber, as you walk out, the same door that the President walks 
in, above that is a bust of Moses who brought the Ten Commandments down 
from Mount Sinai.
  I mean let us face it. Even though the radicals of the past 30 years 
do not like to admit it, that is a great part, the Ten Commandments are 
a great part of our American heritage. In fact, the very radicals who 
claim to try to tear God out of our public life, out of our courtrooms, 
out of our schools, any mentioning of it at all, who want to censor God 
and censor those who believe in the importance of faith and this 
country's destiny, they claim to do it because they want to protect the 
Constitution, and yet the father of the Constitution, James Madison, 
stated while he was drafting the Constitution:

       We have staked the entire future of the American 
     civilization not upon the power of government, but upon the 
     capacity of the individual to govern himself, to control 
     himself and sustain himself according to the Ten Commandments 
     of God.

  That was the father of the Constitution that said that, so why would 
the ACLU types respond to that? And would they call George Washington 
un-American? Would they call George Washington a radical when he stood 
up at his Farewell Address and said, ``It is impossible to govern 
rightly without God and the Ten Commandments.'' Or would they call 
Abraham Lincoln a radical, a dangerous reactionary who in 1863 in a 
proclamation wrote:

       We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other 
     nation has ever grown, but we have forgotten God. Intoxicated 
     with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to 
     feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace and too 
     proud to pray to the God that made us.

  Tom Hayden and Abbie Hoffman and those who were running around in the 
streets in the 1960's that eventually became tenured professors and 
lawyers for the ACLU might not like history, and maybe that explains 
why they have been trying to revise history and trying to build a 
bridge to the 21st century that would cut America off from its past 
heritage.
  It is dangerous. It is dangerous because it creates a valueless void 
that allows the words of Madonna, the actions of Dennis Rodman, and the 
life of Larry Flynt to replace the very ideas in our civilization and 
in our society that Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln built 
the bedrock of this great Republic upon.
  If Americans scratch their head and wonder why we are having ethical 
problems in Washington and in State capitals across the country and in 
universities, why there are cheating scandals, why violence is breaking 
out in the inner cities at an unprecedented rate, they do not have to 
look any further than the fact of what Abraham Lincoln said over 100 
years ago.
  We have got to stop denying the existence of a faith that our 
Founding Fathers built this Republic upon and were not ashamed to state 
that.
  Forget about religion. We do not want to establish a national 
religion. But we also do not want to hide our eyes from an American 
heritage that made us what we have been in the past and what we as 
Americans can be once again.

                          ____________________