Congressional Record
Proceedings, Debates of the U.S. Congress

        

[Pages S10628-S10629]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  REAFFIRMING THE REFERENCE TO ONE NATION UNDER GOD IN THE PLEDGE OF 
                               ALLEGIANCE

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask that the Chair lay before the Senate 
a message from the House of Representatives on S. 2690, which is at the 
desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER laid before the Senate a message from the House 
of Representatives:

                                S. 2690

Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert:

     SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

       Congress finds the following:
       (1) On November 11, 1620, prior to embarking for the shores 
     of America, the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact that 
     declared: ``Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and the 
     advancement of the Christian Faith and honor of our King and 
     country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern 
     parts of Virginia,''.
       (2) On July 4, 1776, America's Founding Fathers, after 
     appealing to the ``Laws of Nature, and of Nature's God'' to 
     justify their separation from Great Britain, then declared: 
     ``We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are 
     created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
     certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, 
     Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness''.
       (3) In 1781, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the 
     Declaration of Independence and later the Nation's third 
     President, in his work titled ``Notes on the State of 
     Virginia'' wrote: ``God who gave us life gave us liberty. And 
     can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have 
     removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of 
     the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God. That 
     they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I 
     tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that 
     his justice cannot sleep forever.''.
       (4) On May 14, 1787, George Washington, as President of the 
     Constitutional Convention, rose to admonish and exhort the 
     delegates and declared: ``If to please the people we offer 
     what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our 
     work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the 
     honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God!''.
       (5) On July 21, 1789, on the same day that it approved the 
     Establishment Clause concerning religion, the First Congress 
     of the United States also passed the Northwest Ordinance, 
     providing for a territorial government for lands northwest of 
     the Ohio River, which declared: ``Religion, morality, and 
     knowledge, being necessary to good government and the 
     happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education 
     shall forever be encouraged.''.
       (6) On September 25, 1789, the First Congress unanimously 
     approved a resolution calling on President George Washington 
     to proclaim a National Day of Thanksgiving for the people of 
     the United States by declaring, ``a day of public 
     thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, 
     with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, 
     especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to 
     establish a constitution of government for their safety and 
     happiness.''.
       (7) On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln 
     delivered his Gettysburg Address on the site of the battle 
     and declared: ``It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 
     the great task remaining before us--that from these honored 
     dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they 
     gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly 
     resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that 
     this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--
     and that Government of the people, by the people, for the 
     people, shall not perish from the earth.''.
       (8) On April 28, 1952, in the decision of the Supreme Court 
     of the United States in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 
     (1952), in which school children were allowed to be excused 
     from public schools for religious observances and education, 
     Justice William O. Douglas, in writing for the Court stated: 
     ``The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every 
     and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and 
     State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specific 
     ways, in which there shall be no concern or union or 
     dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the 
     matter. Otherwise the State and religion would be aliens to 
     each other--hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. 
     Churches could not be required to pay even property taxes. 
     Municipalities would not be permitted to render police or 
     fire protection to religious groups. Policemen who helped 
     parishioners into their places of worship would violate the 
     Constitution. Prayers in our legislative halls; the appeals 
     to the Almighty in the messages of the Chief Executive; the 
     proclamations making Thanksgiving Day a holiday; `so help me 
     God' in our courtroom oaths--these and all other references 
     to the Almighty that run through our laws, our public 
     rituals, our ceremonies would be flouting the First 
     Amendment. A fastidious atheist or agnostic could even object 
     to the supplication with which the Court opens each session: 
     `God save the United States and this Honorable Court.' ''.
       (9) On June 15, 1954, Congress passed and President 
     Eisenhower signed into law a statute that was clearly 
     consistent with the text and intent of the Constitution of 
     the United States, that amended the Pledge of Allegiance to 
     read: ``I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States 
     of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one 
     Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for 
     all.'';
       (10) On July 20, 1956, Congress proclaimed that the 
     national motto of the United States is ``In God We Trust'', 
     and that motto is inscribed above the main door of the 
     Senate, behind the Chair of the Speaker of the House of 
     Representatives, and on the currency of the United States.
       (11) On June 17, 1963, in the decision of the Supreme Court 
     of the United States in Abington School District v. Schempp, 
     374 U.S. 203 (1963), in which compulsory school prayer was 
     held unconstitutional, Justices Goldberg and Harlan, 
     concurring in the decision, stated: ``But untutored devotion 
     to the concept of neutrality can lead to invocation or 
     approval of results which partake not simply of that 
     noninterference and noninvolvement with the religious which 
     the Constitution commands, but of a brooding and pervasive 
     devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, 
     hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not 
     compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are 
     prohibited by it. Neither government nor this Court can or 
     should ignore the significance of the fact that a vast 
     portion of our people believe in and worship God and that 
     many of our legal, political, and personal values derive 
     historically from religious teachings. Government must 
     inevitably take cognizance of the existence of religion and, 
     indeed, under certain circumstances the First Amendment may 
     require that it do so.''.
       (12) On March 5, 1984, in the decision of the Supreme Court 
     of the United States in Lynch v. Donelly, 465 U.S. 668 
     (1984), in which a city government's display of a nativity 
     scene was held to be constitutional, Chief Justice Burger, 
     writing for the Court, stated: ``There is an unbroken history 
     of official acknowledgment by all three branches of 
     government of the role of religion in American life from at 
     least 1789 . . . [E]xamples of reference to our religious 
     heritage are found in the statutorily prescribed national 
     motto `In God We Trust' (36 U.S.C. 186), which Congress and 
     the President mandated for our currency, see (31 U.S.C. 
     5112(d)(1) (1982 ed.)), and in the language `One Nation under 
     God', as part of the Pledge of Allegiance to the American 
     flag. That pledge is recited by many thousands of public 
     school children--and adults--every year . . . Art galleries 
     supported by public revenues display religious paintings of 
     the 15th and 16th centuries, predominantly inspired by one 
     religious faith. The National Gallery in Washington, 
     maintained with Government support, for example, has long 
     exhibited masterpieces with religious messages, notably the 
     Last Supper, and paintings depicting the Birth of Christ, the 
     Crucifixion, and the Resurrection, among many others with 
     explicit Christian themes and

[[Page S10629]]

     messages. The very chamber in which oral arguments on this 
     case were heard is decorated with a notable and permanent--
     not seasonal--symbol of religion: Moses with the Ten 
     Commandments. Congress has long provided chapels in the 
     Capitol for religious worship and meditation.''.
       (13) On June 4, 1985, in the decision of the Supreme Court 
     of the United States in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 
     (1985), in which a mandatory moment of silence to be used for 
     meditation or voluntary prayer was held unconstitutional, 
     Justice O'Connor, concurring in the judgment and addressing 
     the contention that the Court's holding would render the 
     Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because Congress 
     amended it in 1954 to add the words ``under God,'' stated 
     ``In my view, the words `under God' in the Pledge, as 
     codified at (36 U.S.C. 172), serve as an acknowledgment of 
     religion with `the legitimate secular purposes of solemnizing 
     public occasions, [and] expressing confidence in the future.' 
     ''.
       (14) On November 20, 1992, the United States Court of 
     Appeals for the 7th Circuit, in Sherman v. Community 
     Consolidated School District 21, 980 F.2d 437 (7th Cir. 
     1992), held that a school district's policy for voluntary 
     recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance including the words 
     ``under God'' was constitutional.
       (15) The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals erroneously held, in 
     Newdow v. U.S. Congress, (9th Cir. June 26, 2002) that the 
     Pledge of Allegiance's use of the express religious reference 
     ``under God'' violates the First Amendment to the 
     Constitution, and that, therefore, a school district's policy 
     and practice of teacher-led voluntary recitations of the 
     Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.
       (16) The erroneous rationale of the 9th Circuit Court of 
     Appeals in Newdow would lead to the absurd result that the 
     Constitution's use of the express religious reference ``Year 
     of our Lord'' in Article VII violates the First Amendment to 
     the Constitution, and that, therefore, a school district's 
     policy and practice of teacher-led voluntary recitations of 
     the Constitution itself would be unconstitutional.

     SEC. 2. ONE NATION UNDER GOD.

       (a) Reaffirmation.--Section 4 of title 4, United States 
     Code, is amended to read as follows:

     ``Sec. 4. Pledge of allegiance to the flag; manner of 
       delivery

       ``The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag: `I pledge 
     allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and 
     to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, 
     indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.', should be 
     rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the 
     right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should 
     remove any non-religious headdress with their right hand and 
     hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. 
     Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, and 
     render the military salute.''.
       (b) Codification.--In codifying this subsection, the Office 
     of the Law Revision Counsel shall show in the historical and 
     statutory notes that the 107th Congress reaffirmed the exact 
     language that has appeared in the Pledge for decades.

     SEC. 3. REAFFIRMING THAT GOD REMAINS IN OUR MOTTO.

       (a) Reaffirmation.--Section 302 of title 36, United States 
     Code, is amended to read as follows:

     ``Sec. 302. National motto

       `` `In God we trust' is the national motto.''.
       (b) Codification.--In codifying this subsection, the Office 
     of the Law Revision Counsel shall make no change in section 
     302, title 36, United States Code, but shall show in the 
     historical and statutory notes that the 107th Congress 
     reaffirmed the exact language that has appeared in the Motto 
     for decades.

  Mr. HATCH. I ask unanimous consent the Senate agree to the House 
amendment, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any 
statements relating to this bill be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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