[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18008]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        ``IN GOD IS OUR TRUST''

  (Mr. SCHAFFER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Madam Speaker, on this day, 186 years ago in 1814, 
Francis Scott Key penned the Star-Spangled Banner. Key was both a 
prominent attorney and a man of strong Christian faith and convictions. 
In fact, he was one of the early leaders of the American Sunday School 
movement. And while a U.S. Attorney under President Andrew Jackson, Key 
carried on significant discourses about faith with leading Members of 
the United States Congress.
  It is no surprise, then, that the fourth version of Key's Star-
Spangled Banner sets forth the religious language of our national motto 
years before it was officially adopted. Recalling the language of that 
fourth verse:
  ``Blest with vict'ry and peace may the Heaven rescued land
  ``Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
  ``Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
  ``And this be our motto, `In God is our trust.'
  ``And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave.
  ``O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.''
  ``In God is Our Trust'' was penned by Francis Scott Key as our 
national motto on this day in 1814; and the truth of that motto is as 
real today as it was 186 years ago.

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