Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 92 (Monday, July 17, 2000)

[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 92 (Monday, July 17, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6994-S6999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE PLIGHT OF OUR NATION

Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, the great English novelist, Charles Dickens,
began his epic novel, ``A Tale of Two Cities,'' with these words, ``It
was the best of times, it was the worst of
times. . . .''
Well over a century later, and a continent away from the writing of
Dickens' story, those words could well describe the plight of our
nation in the last year of the 20th century.
That is this century--the last year of the 20th century.
The United States has never been more affluent, in terms of material
wealth and creature comforts, or more impoverished in terms of
spiritual well-being. It is the best of times materially. It is the
worst of times spiritually. Millions are made daily on Wall Street,
American consumerism fuels booming international economic and trade
markets, and our Nation's living standard is the envy of the world. We
have eliminated our staggering deficits at home, at least on paper, and
jobs are available for our people in abundance.
Yet, America is, in many ways, a hollow nation. We are a people on
the edge of a precipice. Despite all of our economic prosperity,
despite all of our fascination with the glittery toys that money can
buy us, despite all of the accouterments of success and prosperity, so
envied by the rest of the world, all of the material comforts we so
enthusiastically chase, can never pacify the hunger beginning to emerge
in our collective souls, nor even start to solve the endemic problems
which crowd the dark corners of our national psyche.
Our children randomly slaughter each other in our schools, clothes
are torn off of innocent women in a public park, smut crowds the
airwaves, the traditional family structure continues to deteriorate,
advertising reflects little but sexual innuendo and the desire for a
mad rush to some materialistic nirvana, song lyrics are not fit for
polite company, and even the barest mention of the existence of a
Creator is castigated as inappropriate or viewed as the unbalanced
ravings of the lunatic fringe.
We are a people seemingly in deep denial of our own humanity--in deep
denial of our own unquenched inner need for meaning and purpose and
direction in our lives. We have succumbed to the glossy promise of
more, and more, and more, in a vain and pointless effort to deny the
one essential element which is so glaringly missing from our aimless,
restless pursuit of prosperity.
Religion has all but vanished from our national life. Worse than
that, religion is discouraged; religion is frowned upon. Religion is
suppressed, spurred by what I believe is a misguided attempt to ensure
a completely secular society and a gross misreading of constitutional
intent. Oh, what ills are born when we forget our history! What ills
are born when we forget our history!
This Nation was founded, in part, so that religion could freely
flourish. The Constitution was written and ratified by men who
possessed a strong spiritual awareness. These were not Godless men who
wrote the Constitution of the United States. They had a spiritual
awareness. The universal principles espoused in the Declaration of
Independence in 1776, and other early American documents reflect
aspirations, which are, at their core, based on a belief in a Supreme
Being and on the existence of a human soul. What are these if not
religious principles? Such lofty and spiritual beliefs as the bedrock
equality of all humans,--as the bedrock equality of all humans--and the
endowment by a Creator of basic rights cannot be secularized out of
existence in a nation so rooted in a deep spiritual consciousness as is
ours. Every single value upon which this country was so painstakingly
built--individual sacrifice for the greater good, fairness, charity,
truthfulness, morality, personal responsibility, honesty--all of these
are, at root, qualities derived from Judeo-Christian teachings. To try
to separate this nation from the religious grounding which it so
obviously exhibits in every aspect of its history, is like trying to
bifurcate muscle from bone. Dysfunction is the result--sterile bone
which cannot move, and useless tissue with no support. That is what
happens when spiritual values become separated from our national life.

Nowhere are the results of such an unfortunate rending more obvious,
more destructive or more heartbreaking than in the evident damage we
have done to our most precious commodity, our children. Millions of our
innocents are lost in a maze of drugs, cheap sex, violence, and
materialism. They are starving--starving--for lessons by which to live
their lives, and what do we offer them? We offer them only hedonistic
baubles. Love of pleasure, greed, gratification of sex, deification of
the crude and the outrageous, and the selfish culture of Me, me, me,
and More, more, more, are no guidelines on which to build a life or a
character whether it be a nation or the individual. These are only
empty distractions that lead down roads previously reserved for misfits
and criminals. We must look hard at ourselves in the mirror each
morning and ask what in the name of God we are coming to if we continue
on this course? We are all at fault, all of us--the clergy for not
speaking out, the Church doesn't speak out like it used to when I was a
boy.
The church took a strong stand on the great national issues. But the
church, as so many of us, has been driven into a closet; so the clergy
for not speaking out; the leaders of business in this country for
looking only at profits; the leaders of both political parties for
pandering--pandering. Most of the issues that plague us nationally--
such as violence in our schools, inadequate health care for the weakest
in our society, crime, greed in politics, all of these issues, all of
them, are at their root--are issues of right and wrong, issues of
morality.
Yet in order to avoid offending anyone--don't offend anyone; that is
why so many of the colleges and schools have taken history out of the
required courses, because history might offend somebody. It might
offend some group--in order to avoid offending anyone or any group, we
try to totally secularize our politics on the left and overly polarize
our politics, with too much false piety, on the right. So both are in
the wrong. The result is only endless power struggle and pandering to
the various groups which keep us in power. As such, political power has
become an end, not a means, and the leadership of this nation too often
winds up pursuing solutions to the effects of our ills and ignoring
their causes.
A prejudice against the influence of religious commitment and moral
values upon political issues now characterizes almost every sector of
American society from the media to law to academia. We have seen the
Supreme Court rule, again and again, against allowing voluntary prayer
in public school in this country. I believe that this ingrained
predisposition against expressions of religious or spiritual beliefs is
wrongheaded, destructive, and completely contrary to the intent of the
Founders of this great nation. Instead of ensuring freedom of religion
in a nation founded in part to guarantee that basic liberty, a literal
suffocation of that freedom has been the result. The rights of those
who do not believe in a Supreme Being have been zealously guarded, to
the denigration, I repeat, denigration, of the rights of those who do
so believe.

The American doctrine of separation of church and state--and you
don't find that in the Constitution; it says nothing about separation
of Church and State in the Constitution--forbids the establishment of
any one religion by the state, but not, I repeat, not the influence of
religious values in the life of the nation. Religious faith has always
been an underpinning of American life.
One of the most perceptive of observers of the early American scene
was Alexis de Tocqueville. Writing in the 1830's on his observations
while traveling in America, de Tocqueville grasped the moral content of
America. Coming from France where abuse of power by the clergy had made

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anticlericalism endemic, he was amazed to find it virtually unknown in
America.
De Tocqueville writes:

In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion
and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions,
but in America, I found they were intimately united, and that
they reigned in common over the same country. . . . Religion
. . . must be regarded as the first of their political
institutions . . . .

He is talking about Americans in the 1830s. Let me say that again--
DeTocqueville:

Religion . . . must be regarded as the first of their
political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for
freedom, it facilitates the use of it.

He concluded that most Americans held religion,

to be indispensable to the maintenance of Republican
institutions.

John Adams was the second President of the United States. He served
as Vice President for 8 years under George Washington. He was a member
of the Continental Congress, and a signer of the Declaration of
Independence. He greatly influenced the States to ratify the new
Constitution by writing a three-volume work, entitled, ``A Defense of
the Constitutions of the Government of the United States.''
I like to go back to John Adams' work from time to time and just read
it again. I recommend it to our people who are listening in this
Chamber. One might say that, when it came to building the governmental
structure of these United States, John Adams was in on the ground
floor. In his diary entry dated February 22, 1756, John Adams wrote--
listen to John Adams now:

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the
Bible for their only law book, and every member should
regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every
member would be obliged in conscience to temperance,
frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity
towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence
toward Almighty God . . . . What a Utopia, what a Paradise
would this region be.

That was John Adams. Obviously, John Adams believed that moral
precepts and Biblical teachings would be an ideal foundation on which
to lay the government of a great nation.
On July 8, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read publicly at
the Continental Congress while the famous ``Liberty Bell'' was rung.
Wouldn't you have liked to have been there? Congress then established a
three-man Committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and
Benjamin Franklin, for the purpose of designing a great seal for the
United States. What were Franklin's suggestions? Franklin's suggestions
for a seal and motto characterizing the spirit of this new nation
were--this is Franklin talking, not Robert C. Byrd:

Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the red sea, and
pharaoh in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters. This
motto: ``Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.''

What did Thomas Jefferson propose? This is Thomas Jefferson talking,
not Robert C. Byrd. Thomas Jefferson proposed:

The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by
day, and a pillar of fire by night.

Try as I may, I sense no hypersensitivity about absolute separation
of religion and the government of the new country in these suggestions
for symbols of our new nation. Would such men as Jefferson and Franklin
have suggested such symbols if they intended for an absolute wall of
separation to be erected between government and any sort of religious
expression? I think not.
When it comes to current attitudes about the proper role of religion
in America, the apple has fallen very far from the tree. In fact, our
greatest leaders have shown no trepidation about God's proper place in
the American panorama. I am talking about our greatest leaders. Every
session of the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States
Senate begins with a prayer. I heard the Chaplin pray today, and so did
you. And each House, from the Nation's beginning, has had its Chaplain
paid with Federal tax dollars. The Supreme Court of the United States
begins each session only after a solemn pronouncement that concludes
with ``God save the United States and this Honorable Court.''

So it is then, with almost total incredulity, that I read the
continued pronouncements on the subject of prayer in school by our
Supreme Court, which since 1962, has steadily chipped away at any
connection between religion and the governmental sphere. How could such
rulings be handed down time after time by learned men and women who are
obviously familiar with the history of this nation, and with the faith-
based grounding of our entire governmental structure? And recently we
have this latest decision by the Supreme Court, involving voluntary
student-led prayer at a Texas high school football game.
I don't attend football games. I have attended one in the 48 years
that I have been in Washington, and I attended that only at halftime to
crown the Queen; West Virginia and Maryland were playing. But even if I
don't attend football games, there are people who do attend. And if it
is their wish to have prayers, if the students in the band or on the
football teams want to have prayer, more power to them.
On June 19, the highest court in our land ruled in a 6-3 decision
that somehow this voluntary student-led prayer violated the
Constitution's establishment clause.
Justice Stevens, writing for the majority opinion, said that even
when attendance was voluntary and the decision to pray was made by
students:

the delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of
coercing those present to participate in an act of religious
worship.

What nonsense--nonsense. Such a pronouncement ignores a separate
First Amendment problem, in that it amounts to the censorship of
religious speech in a governmental forum. What about the rights of
those students who wish to pray, perhaps for the safety of their
classmates? Such a ruling tramples on the Constitutional rights of
those students in favor of some mythical possibility that coercement
might be felt by someone.
In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist summed up
the matter pretty nicely, I think, when he stated that the majority
opinion ``bristles''--bristles--``with hostility to all things
religious in public life.''
Mr. Chief Justice Rehnquist said it right: The majority opinion
``bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life.''
For that statement, the Chief Justice will always have my gratitude.
He is eminently correct, and, of course, it took courage to say what he
did. As everyone knows, I am no fan of amending the U.S. Constitution,
and I believe it should be done only rarely and with great care.
Certainly this year, an election year, is no year to try to pass a
constitutional amendment on school prayer.
But I intend to implore the two major party candidates--and I do
implore the two major party candidates--to seriously consider including
a constitutional amendment in the nature of clarifying the intent of
the framers in the area of prayer in school as part of both party
platforms.
I have yet to read a party platform. Never read one. I have never
read a Democratic Party platform or any other party platform, but there
are many who do, and it is only natural the parties should have
platforms. People expect them to have a platform to indicate where they
stand on the great issues of the day. So I urge Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore
to work to put the words in the party platforms urging that there be an
amendment to clarify the intent of the framers in the area of prayer in
school.
The intent of the framers was clearly only to keep the new government
from endorsing or favoring one religion over another, but not from
favoring a free exercise of religion over nonreligion. Certainly, it
was never to prohibit voluntary expressions of a religious nature by
our citizens.
Just what do we teach our children? Upon what do we base the most
fundamental codes of society if we are not to base them on moral
precepts and spiritual precepts? How can we lead our own people, how
can we grapple with issues of right and wrong, or how can we continue
to inspire downtrodden peoples from around the globe if we continue to
deny and to sever our basic ties to faith-based principles?
Alarmingly, we are crafting a political secularism which does not
reflect the views or practices of most Americans, the overwhelming
majority of Americans. Consider these facts:

Nine Americans in 10 say they have never doubted the
existence of God. Eight Americans in 10 say they believe they
will be called

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before God on Judgment Day to answer for their actions, their
words, their deeds. Eight Americans in 10 say they believe
God still works miracles, and he does.

One sits right over there in the chair. Here sits some up here. These
are miracles. There are literally millions of things that could have
happened to each of us, and we would never have been born or in being
born we would have been confronted with many health problems. There are
miracles every day.
Seven Americans in 10 believe in life after death. I do, and I
daresay most, if not all, of the people in this Chamber do believe
there is a life after death. What would there be to live for otherwise?
Oh, you may laugh now, but wait until you are 82, as I am, and well on
your way to 83. To what do you have to look forward to each day of your
life which is fast ebbing? Yes, you will change your mind then.
How can the beliefs of such sizable sections of the American
population totally escape the attention of politicians and educators?
They are all going to die, too. Every one of them, and they are going
to have to go out and meet God in eternity, which is a long, long, long
time.
How could these statistics escape the nine members of the Supreme
Court of the United States? Does the answer lie in the elitism that so
permeates this arrogant capital city? Does theology tend to thin out as
one gravitates toward the top of the socioeconomic scale, rather like
the thinner air at the top of some elevated peak? Are we, indeed,
witnessing the writing of a new ``Tale of Two Cities'' as we watch
public policy diverge ever more dramatically from the views of the
people and the plain-as-day record of our own documented history?
Power unchecked by moral insight, teaching untempered by spiritual
values, government unenlightened by faith in a Creator--no city and no
nation can sustain such a course. While we may distract ourselves for a
time with the affluence that a booming economy provides, eventually
there is a kind of nihilism in a society whose God is materialism--
whose only God is materialism.
Look carefully around you at the culture of America today. Just stop
and think for a moment. You do not even have to look around you. Stop
and think for a moment about the culture of this country today. Note
the banality of most public discourse, the lack of respect for
authority, the absence of common civility, the crudeness of popular
entertainment, the glorification of violence.
There is no map, there is no compass, there is no vision, and ``Where
there is no vision, the people perish.''
Mr. President, the very first sentence of the first amendment to the
Constitution of the United States--here is the Constitution; so small
that it fits into a shirt pocket--the very first sentence of the first
amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:
``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; . . .'' It seems to me that
the U.S. Supreme Court, over the years, in its rulings on school prayer
over the last 40 years has bent over backwards to enforce the first
clause in that amendment dealing with an establishment of religion, but
the Court has seemingly exhibited a strong bias against the equally
important--the equally important--second part of the sentence. That
sentence has two parts. And the second part is, I quote: ``. . . or
prohibiting the free exercise there-
of; . . .''
In ruling after ruling, over the past 40 years the Court seems to be
going farther and farther in the direction of prohibiting the free
exercise of religion. In precedent after precedent, the Court, often by
slim majorities, has seemed bent upon totally eradicating any semblance
whatsoever of religious speech in our public schools, even when such
speech is not in any way, shape, or form connected with an
``establishment'' of religion.
When I read the first amendment clause dealing with freedom of
religion, the words of the amendment seem to strike a balance between
an establishment of religion, on the one hand, and the free exercise of
religion, on the other. But the Court seems determined to completely
ignore, and thus obliterate, any right to a free exercise of religion
in the public schools. No wonder many people take their children out of
the public schools. I believe that the framers of the United States
Constitution--yea, the founders of this Republic itself--would be
appalled. Can you imagine what the founders--the framers, the people
who framed the Constitution, the people who voted on the ratification
of the Constitution--how they would feel? I believe they would be
appalled at the Court's apparent drift over the last 40 years toward
total secularism and away from any modicum of voluntary religious
expression in the public schools of this country.
Now let us briefly reflect upon the impact of religion on the
development of American constitutionalism. Let's go back. Let's go back
over the decades, yea, even over the centuries, and reflect upon the
impact of religion on the development of American constitutionalism. We
will find that the roots of religion run deep. As one scholar, Donald
S. Lutz, has noted--this is what he says--``The political covenants
written by English colonists in America lead us to the church covenants
written by Protestants in the late 1500's and early 1600's and these,
in turn, lead us back to the Covenant tradition of the Old Testament.''
That is what he said. The American constitutional tradition derives in
much of its form and content from the Judeo-Christian tradition--we
can't avoid it; it is there; nothing can erase it; you can take all the
history books out of the schools that you want, but the fact remains
that it is still there--the Judeo-Christian tradition as interpreted by
the radical Protestant sects to which belonged so many of the original
European settlers in British North America.
Lutz, in his work, entitled, ``The Origins of American
Constitutionalism,'' says this: ``The tribes of Israel shared a
covenant that made them a nation. American federalism originated at
least in part in the dissenting Protestants' familiarity with the
Bible''.
The early Calvinist settlers who came to this country from the Old
World brought with them a familiarity with the Old Testament Covenants
that made them especially apt in the formation of colonial documents
and State constitutions.
Now, let me refer to Winton U. Solberg. He tells us that in 17th
century colonial thought, divine law--a fusion of the law of nature in
the Old and New Testaments--usually stood as fundamental law. The
Mayflower Compact--how many of us like to claim that our forebearers
were on the Mayflower? ``Oh, they were there. They were on the
Mayflower.'' Well, there was such a thing written as the Mayflower
Compact.
The Mayflower Compact exemplifies the doctrine of covenant or
contract. Puritanism exalted the biblical component and drew on certain
scriptural passages for a theological outlook. Called the Covenant or
Federal Theology, this was a theory of contract regarding man's
relations with God and the nature of church and state.
If we examine the public political literature written between 1760
and 1805, the book most frequently cited in that literature is the
Bible.
Let me say that again. If we examine the public political literature
written between 1760 and 1805, the book most frequently cited in that
literature is the Bible.
Saint Paul, the great apostle, is cited about as frequently as
Montesquieu and Blackstone, the two most cited secular authors.
Deuteronomy is cited almost twice as often as all of Locke's writings
put together.
Many of the references to the Bible came from reprinted sermons,
while other citations came from secular works. Saint Paul was the
favorite in the New Testament, especially his Epistle to the Romans, in
which he discusses the basis for, and limits on, obedience to political
authorities. From the Old Testament, Deuteronomy was the most cited
book, followed by Isaiah, Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. The authors
most frequently referred to the sections about covenants and God's
promises to Israel.
The movement towards independence found the clergy out in front--the
movement toward independence in this country found the clergy out in
front, not back in the closet; out in front--and the clergy were also
most vigorous in maintaining morale during the Revolutionary War. When
reading comprehensively in the political literature

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of the war years, one cannot but be struck by the extent to which
biblical sources used by ministers and traditional Whigs undergirded
the justification for the break with Great Britain, the rationale for
continuing the war, and the basic principles of Americans writing their
own Constitutions at the State level.
Let us look at the Mayflower Compact, of November 11, 1620. Here is
what they wrote:

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten,
the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James,
by the grace of God, . . . having undertaken, for the glory
of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, . . . by
these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God,
and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together
into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and
preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by
virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and
equal laws, ordinances, acts, Constitutions, and offices,
from time to time, as shall be thought most . . . convenient
for the general good of the colony unto which we promise all
due submission and obedience. . . .

That was the Mayflower Compact. The authors of the Mayflower Compact
had no hesitation about mentioning God, no hesitation about placing
their lives in his hands and saying so. Now let us examine briefly
``The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.'' Here we will find many
references to the Deity, in these orders which were adopted by a
popular Convention of the three towns of Windsor, Hartford, and
Wethersfield, on January 14, 1639, 361 years ago. The form, according
to historians, was ``the first written Constitution, in the modern
sense of the term, as a permanent limitation on governmental power,
known in history, and certainly the first American Constitution of
government to embody the Democratic idea.''
I shall quote the following references to the Deity from The
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut: Forasmuch as it hath pleased the
Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence . . .'';
``and well knowing where a people are gathered together the word of God
requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people, there
should be an orderly and decent government established according to
God, . . .''; ``. . . to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity
of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, . . .''; ``. . .
do swear by the great and dreadful name of the everlasting God, . .
.'';
``. . . so help me God, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ . . .'';
``. . . according to the righteous rule of God's word; so help me God,
and so forth.''
Now let us look at the opening words of the treaty with Great Britain
in 1783, 217 years ago, providing for the complete independence of the
American states and acknowledgment by Great Britain: ``In the name of
the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine
Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent
Prince George III, by the grace of God. . . .''
The foregoing extracts, and others, from American historical
documents are sufficient to impress us with the fact that religious
conviction permeated the blood stream of American Constitutionalism and
American statecraft as far back as 200 years prior to the writing of
the Constitution in 1787.
Now let us examine the first inaugural address of George Washington,
1789, who had been chairman of the convention which framed the
Constitution. Here is the greatest President we have ever had. A few
extracts therefrom will leave no doubt as to where the Nation's first
President stood when it came to religious expression in matters
pertaining to Government: ``. . . it would be peculiarly improper to
omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that
Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the
councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human
defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and
happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by
themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every
instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the
functions allotted to His charge. In tendering this homage to the great
Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it
expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow
citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to
acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of
men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they
have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have
been distinguished by some token of providential agency.''
That is George Washington, the father of our country, the commander
in chief at Valley Forge, the presiding officer of the Constitutional
Convention, first President of the United States and the best by any
measure, by any standard. He had no hesitancy in speaking of that
invisible hand that guides the Nation. If he were alive today and a
Member of this Senate or a Member of the Supreme Court or President of
the United States again. How clear, how incisive, and how powerful were
these allusions to God by our first and greatest President!
Further expressions by George Washington in that same inaugural
address were indicative of an unabashed religious faith:

Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious
smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that
disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven
itself has ordained; . . .; I shall take my present leave,
but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of
the human race, in humble supplication, that, since He has
been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities
for deliberating in perfect tranquility . . . .; . . . so His
divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged
views, the temperament consultations and the wise measures,
on which the success of this government must depend.

There you have it.
Having quoted from Washington's first inaugural address, now let me
quote briefly from Lincoln's first inaugural address--no hesitation
here about calling upon--no hesitancy here about calling upon the
Creator: ``If the Almighty Ruler of Nations--he is not talking about
King George III--with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of
the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will
surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American
people . . . .; Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm
reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still
competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.''
Issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Lincoln closed his
remarks with these words: ``And upon this act, sincerely believed to be
an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the
gracious favor of Almighty God.'' That is Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, rises to a rare pitch of
eloquence, marked by a singular combination of tenderness and
determination:

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those
offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come,
but which, having continued through His appointed time, He
now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and
South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the
offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from
those divine attributes which the believers in a living God
always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we
pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled
by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be
paid by another drawn with a sword, as was said three
thousand years ago, so still it must be said: ``The judgments
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.''

Now hear that, Supreme Court of the United States. Hear those words
by Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln then went on to say those words with which we all are so
familiar: ``With malice towards none; with charity for all; with
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive
on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to
care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his
orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.''
How can one read and reflect upon these clear and unrestrained
references to Almighty God expressed by our nation's two greatest
Presidents--Washington and Lincoln--and hold any doubt whatsoever as to
the impact of religion upon the thoughts, the character, and the lives
of the two greatest statesmen America has ever produced?

[[Page S6998]]

And yet, the Supreme Court in recent years, in majority opinions, has
not scrupled to bow to materialism in the Court's rulings concerning
voluntary prayer in public school settings!
A further examination of the inaugural addresses of the Presidents
finds John Adams, the second President, closing his inaugural address
with the following invocation:

And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of
Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages
of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon
this nation and its government and give it all possible
success and duration consistent with the ends of His
providence.

Thomas Jefferson's closing words in his second inaugural address were
these:

I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands
we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their
native land and planted them in a country flowing with all
the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our
infancy with His providence and our riper years with His
wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in
supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of
your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their
measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good,
and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and
approbation of all nations.

James Madison, the chief author of our Constitution, showed no
hesitancy in expressing his dependence upon Providence:

My confidence will under every difficulty be best placed,
next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the
guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power
regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been
so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to
whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the
past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hopes for
the future.

Having quoted from the inaugural addresses of our country's first
four Presidents, I shall now recall to my fellow Senators references to
God in the inaugural addresses of four Presidents in the current 20th
century. I begin with William Howard Taft who, subsequent to having
served as President, fulfilled a lifelong dream in 1921 when he was
sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States. He ended his inaugural
address with these words:

I invoke the considerate sympathy and support of my fellow
citizens and the aid of the Almighty God in the discharge of
my responsible duties.

Franklin D. Roosevelt refers to the Supreme Being in each of his
inaugural addresses, but I shall quote only from the fourth and last:

The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways. He has
given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to
strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to
our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples
in an anguished world.
So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way
clearly--to see the way that leads to a better life for
ourselves and for all our fellow men--to the achievement of
His will, to peace on earth.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had been Supreme Commander of Allied Forces
in Europe during World War II, and had served as Supreme Commander of
NATO, took the oath of office as President using both George
Washington's Bible and one given to him by his mother at his graduation
from the Military Academy at West Point.
Many of us remember his prayer at the beginning of his first
inaugural address:

Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment my future
associates in the executive branch of government join me in
beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our
dedication to the service of the people in this throng, and
their fellow citizens everywhere.
Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from
wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed
thereby, and by the laws of this land. Especially we pray
that our concern shall be for all the people regardless of
station, race, or calling.
May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of those
who, under the concepts of our Constitution, hold to
differing political faiths; so that all may work for the good
of our beloved country and Thy glory. Amen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower led the Nation in prayer himself.
Eisenhower's was the first prayer to be uttered by a President in his
inaugural address to the nation, but it was not to be the last.
President Reagan, in his second inaugural address, began his inaugural
address with a silent prayer:

I wonder if we could all join in a moment of silent prayer.
[Moment of silent prayer.] Amen.

George Bush, after taking the oath with his hand placed on George
Washington's Bible, began his presidency with a prayer:

And my first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow
your heads:
Heavenly father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your
love. Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day
and the shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make
us strong to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your
will, and write on our hearts these words: `Use power to help
people.' For we are given power not to advance our own
purposes, nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name.
There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve
people. Help us to remember it, Lord. Amen.

That was George Bush.
I have a reason for quoting from these great American documents and
for these inaugural and other addresses by some of our Presidents.
There have been other Presidents whom I could have quoted.
All of these references to religious faith that I have quoted from
early American documents and from inaugural addresses by Presidents
bear witness to the fact that a strong spiritual consciousness has
pervaded the fabric of American statecraft and American
Constitutionalism for two centuries prior to the writing of the U.S.
Constitution and for these two centuries following that event.
Mr. President, the Framers of the Constitution, the voters who
ratified that Constitution, the members of the First Congress who
supported the first amendment to the Constitution, and the people in
the states who ratified the First Amendment, would be aghast at the
interpretations of the First Amendment clause by U.S. Supreme Court
rulings concerning prayer in the public schools of America. I say that
those rulings are having the effect of ``prohibiting the free
exercise'' of religion. The court has drifted too far from the shore.
I lauded the six members of the Supreme Court whose votes declared
the Line Item Veto Act of 1995 to be unconstitutional. But the Court's
majority has adopted a dangerous trend in case after case concerning
the free exercise of religion in the public schools. The situation has
become so bad that most school boards frown upon the use of God's name
by teachers or students for fear of being hit with a costly law suit. I
have had that happen right in West Virginia, and just within the last
year. Consequently, God is being driven out of the public schools
completely. I shudder to think that what we put into the schools will,
in a generation, dominate the nation, and what we drop from the schools
will, in a generation, leave the nation. Can it be said, therefore,
that the U.S. Supreme Court is heading us down the road to becoming a
godless nation?
The opponents of voluntary prayer in schools are quick to say that
the place for prayer is in the home--and it is--and not in the
schoolroom. This argument portrays an amazing ignorance of the
religious awareness that has been the underpinning of our Republic from
its earliest beginnings. Prayer in the public schools was prevalent in
our country until the courts began to whittle away at this tradition in
recent years. So, we are told that there is no place for God in the
schoolroom.
It must be confusing to the child who is taught by parents at bedtime
to repeat the words: ``Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my
soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to
take'', but if the same child mentions the Lord's name in school, the
teacher feels it necessary to say ``shuh, we must not mention the
Lord's name in school.''
At home and at the breakfast table, America's children are taught to
say: ``God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for this food; by
His goodness all are fed, give us Lord our daily bread,'' but in the
schoolroom at lunchtime, the children must not say grace over the food.
That might offend someone. Hence, the home and the school are at war
with each other today.

I wonder if the high court is aware of the chaos that it is creating
in the schools of the country? School administrators are caught in a
bind. I wonder if the court is aware of the harm that it is doing to
the nation when it strongly enforces the first half of the religious
clause while it shows a dangerous bias against the second half of the
same clause? Isn't it about time that the Supreme Court demonstrates an
equal balance in its interpretation of the first sentence of the First

[[Page S6999]]

Amendment to the Constitution? It seems to me that the court is
drifting farther and farther to the left of center in its drift towards
materialism and radical secularism as its opinions serve more and more
to inhibit any display of religious belief by the nation's school
children. In an effort to ensure a tolerance for all beliefs, the
courts are bending too far, in effect, establishing an environment of
intolerance rather than tolerance.
Mr. President, we rail, and moan, and gnash our teeth, and wring our
hands as we see more and more violence in our schools and a general
decline in morals throughout the nation. Is it any wonder? Our nation's
leaders are no longer paragons of rectitude. Don't point to them as
being the idols of our youth. The institution of marriage is crumbling;
the church, more and more, refrains from speaking out boldly on the
great moral issues of the day; and God is being driven from the
classrooms of our nation's schools by the U.S. Supreme Court's
decisions that favor secularism, materialism, and the stifling of any
voluntary and free exercise of religion in the public schools. Is it
any wonder that more and more parents are determined to send their
children to private schools and to religious schools?
Mr. President, George Washington, the Father of our country, our
first President, bequeathed to us a clear vision of the importance of
religion to morality in our national life, when he said, in his
farewell address to the nation in September, 1796: ``Of all the
dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion
and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim
the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great
pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men
and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to
respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their
connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked,
George Washington said, where is the security for property, for
reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the
oaths, which are the instruments of investigations in courts of
justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality
can be maintained without religion. It can't be done. Whatever may be
conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar
structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.'' I hope the
Supreme Court will review those words by our first president, the man
who presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Mr. President, it is not an idle reflection if, while discussing the
issue of prayer in the public schools, we contemplate the profundity of
Benjamin Franklin's words to the Constitutional Convention on June 28,
1787, when he made a sobering suggestion that brought the assembly of
doubting minds ``to a realization that destiny herself sat as guest and
witness in this room.'' The weather had been hot, and the delegates to
the Convention were tired and edgy. The debates were seemingly getting
nowhere and a melancholy cloud seemed to hover over the Convention.
Little progress was being made, and the prevailing winds were those of
discouragement, dissension, and despair, when old Dr. Franklin, sitting
with the famous double spectacles low on his nose, broke silence; he
had said little during these past days. Addressing himself to George
Washington in the chair, Franklin, according to Catherine Drinker
Bowen, in her book, ``Miracle at Philadelphia,'' reminded the
Convention how, at the beginning of the war with England, the
Continental Congress had had prayers for Divine protection, and in this
very room. ``Our prayers, Sir, were heard,'' said Franklin, ``and they
were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle
must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in
our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of
consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national
felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? I have lived,
Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I
see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men.''
Bowen, in her magnificent story of the Constitutional Convention,
goes on to say that on Dr. Franklin's manuscript of his little speech,
``the word God is twice underscored, perhaps as indication to the
printer. But whether or no Franklin looked upon the Deity as worthy of
three capital letters, his speech was timely.'' You will read this same
speech in Madison's notes.
``If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground unseen by Him,'' Franklin
continued, ``was it probable that an empire could arise without his
aid? `I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without his
concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better
than the builders of Babel.''' Franklin proposed that ``henceforth
prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessings on our
deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed
to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be
requested to officiate in that service.''
Roger Sherman at once seconded Franklin's motion. Incidentally, on
yesterday, July 16, 1787, the convention adopted the great compromise,
without which none of us would be here today. That compromise
established two bodies in the legislative branch and provided that each
State would be equal in this branch, that we would have votes in this
branch. I won't go further, but you might recall it was only yesterday.
But Hamilton and several others, wrote Madison, feared that calling
in a clergymen at so late a stage might lead the public to suspect
dissensions in the Convention. Williamson of North Carolina made the
frank statement that everyone knew the real reason for not engaging a
chaplain: the Convention had no funds. Franklin's motion failed, though
Randolph proposed that on the approaching Fourth of July, a sermon be
preached at the request of the Convention and that thenceforth prayers
be used. In any event, we can all learn a lesson from this episode: God
was very much a part of national life at a time when the greatest
document of its kind--the Constitution of the United States--was ever
written, a time when it was being formed.
Mr. President, I close with words from the Bible, which Franklin
aptly used in his speech: ``Except the Lord build the house, they labor
in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman
waketh but in vain.''
It would be well, Mr. President, if this Biblical admonition were
kept in mind as future cases concerning school prayer come before the
courts of the land.
As a matter of fact, this admonition is one on which all three
branches of government should reflect. We here in the legislative
branch bear some responsibility. Here is where laws are made, and here
is where some positive steps could originate on a path toward
correcting a court imposed imbalance. The executive branch, too, could
play some useful role in that regard. This being an election year, I
urge that the Democratic and Republican political Conventions adopt
planks--why not--in their respective platforms advocating a
Constitutional amendment concerning prayer in schools. Both the
Democratic and Republican nominees for President should be urged to
support such an amendment.
Both nominees should be urged to speak out on this subject during the
campaigns. I intend to urge that both nominees do that.
I thank all Senators and I yield the floor.
Mr. HOLLINGS. I see the distinguished Senator from Colorado is
supposed to take over the time. I ask unanimous consent to be yielded 5
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). Under the previous order, the
Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Thomas, or his designee, has from 2 o'clock
until 3 p.m.
Does the Senator from Colorado wish to respond to the Senator from
South Carolina?
Mr. ALLARD. I am willing to grant the Senator from South Carolina 5
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.

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