[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14633-14640]
[From the U.S. 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

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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 schools 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 
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

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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 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.

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  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 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,

[[Page 14637]]

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

[[Page 14638]]

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?
  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.

[[Page 14639]]

  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 
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

[[Page 14640]]

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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