American Minute

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James Madison's defense of religious freedom began when he stood with his father outside a jail in the village of Orange and heard Baptists preach from their cell windows. He wrote of another incident to William Bradford, JANUARY 24, 1774: "There are at this time in the adjacent Culpepper County not less than 5 or 6 well meaning men in jail for publishing their religious sentiments which in the main are very orthodox." Madison helped pass the Virginia Bill of Rights, which stated: "Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator, and the Manner of discharging it, can be directed only by Reason and Convictions, not by Force or Violence; and therefore all Men are equally entitled to the free exercise of Religion, according to the Dictates of Conscience; and that it is the mutual Duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love, and Charity towards each other." As President, Madison wrote July 23, 1813: "If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy of the favorable regard of the Holy and Omniscient Being to whom it is addressed, it must be...guided only by their free choice...as proving that religion, that gift of Heaven for the good of man, is freed from all coercive edicts."

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In his State of the Union Address, JANUARY 25, 1984, President Reagan stated: "Each day your members observe a 200-year-old tradition meant to signify America is one nation under God. I must ask: If you can begin your day with a member of the clergy standing right here leading you in prayer, then why can't freedom to acknowledge God be enjoyed again by children in every school room across this land?" A month later in a radio address, February 25, 1984, President Reagan stated: "The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people from religion; that amendment was written to protect religion from government tyranny...But now we're told our children have no right to pray in school. Nonsense. The pendulum has swung too far toward intolerance against genuine religious freedom. It is time to redress the balance." President Reagan continued: "Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart noted if religious exercises are held to be impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage...Refusal to permit religious exercises is seen not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism."

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Douglas MacArthur was born JANUARY 26, 1880. He commanded in World War I, was superintendent of West Point, and the youngest Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. A four-star general, he retired in 1939, but returned in 1941 to defend the Philippines. When Japan invaded, President Roosevelt ordered him to Australia, but not before he promised "I shall return." In 1944, he returned with an American army and freed the Philippines. Promoted to Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific, he received Japan's surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor. Promoted to five-star general, he was Supreme U.N. Commander during the Korean War until he became at odds with President Truman over wanting to confront the Communists. Truman made the unpopular decision to remove him. Douglas MacArthur told West Point cadets, May 1962: "The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him."

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After Spain's monarchs sent Columbus on his voyage they drove Muslim forces out of Spain, and also Jews, many to Portugal, then to Amsterdam, from where some sailed with Dutch merchants to South America. When Spain and Portugal attacked there, many fled again, and in 1654, twenty-three refugees on the French ship Sainte Catherine arrived in New Amsterdam. Governor Stuyvesant tried to evict them, not letting them worship outside their homes. In 1664, New Amsterdam became New York and the first synagogue was built there in 1730. Jewish population grew to 2,000 in the colonial era with 7 synagogues from New York to Savannah. Beginning 1830, Ellis Island saw 250,000 Jews immigrate to escape persecution in Bavaria, and beginning in 1881 over 2 million fled Russia's pogroms to America. As of 2006, Jews comprised 2 percent of the U.S. population. President Woodrow Wilson wrote: "Whereas in countries engaged in war there are 9 million Jews, the majority of whom are destitute of food, shelter, and clothing; driven from their homes without warning...causing starvation, disease and untold suffering-Whereas the people of the U.S. have learned with sorrow of this terrible plight, I proclaim JANUARY 27, 1916, a day to make contributions for the aid of the stricken Jewish people to the American Red Cross."

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Seventy-three seconds after lift-off, on JANUARY 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, killing its entire seven member crew, which included a high school teacher-the first private citizen to fly aboard the craft. In his address to the nation, President Ronald Reagan stated: "Today is a day for mourning...a national loss...The members of the Challenger crew were pioneers...The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future." President Reagan continued: "There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, 'He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.' Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete." Reagan concluded: "The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"

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"I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" wrote Robert Frost in "The Road Not Taken." He first published poems in his high school bulletin and graduated co-valedictorian with the woman he was to marry. Farming in New Hampshire, Frost wrote poetry and taught at several schools. After a brief time in England, he taught at Amherst College, the University of Michigan and Harvard. Robert Frost won four Pulitzer prizes, the U.S. Senate honored him with a resolution, Eisenhower invited him to the White House and he read a poem at Kennedy's inauguration. Frost was a consultant to the Library of Congress and received the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960. In "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Frost wrote "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep." Robert Frost died JANUARY 29, 1963. In a 1956 interview on station WQED, Pittsburgh, Robert Frost stated "Ultimately, this is what you go before God for: You've had bad luck and good luck and all you really want in the end is mercy."

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born JANUARY 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, NY. The 32nd President, he was in office longer then any other, over 12 years, serving during the Great Depression and World War II. On October 6, 1935, FDR stated: "We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic...Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity." In a Fireside Chat, March 9, 1937, FDR stated: "I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again." In a Campaign Address, November 1, 1940, FDR stated: "Those forces hate democracy and Christianity as two phases of the same civilization." In a Radio Address, November 4, 1940, FDR stated: "Democracy is the birthright of every citizen, the white and the colored; the Protestant, the Catholic, the Jew." In a Radio Address, May 27, 1941, FDR stated: "The Nazis are as ruthless as the Communists in the denial of God."

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Jacob Duche' was born JANUARY 31, 1738. An Anglican minister, the Continental Congress had requested he open their first session with prayer. Conscious of impending British attack, Rev. Jacob Duche' read Psalm 35: "Plead my cause, Oh, Lord, with them that strive with me, fight against them that fight against me...Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me." John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail: "Rev. Duche' appeared with his clerk and in his pontificals, and read several prayers in the established form, and read...the 35th Psalm...I never saw a greater effect upon an audience. It seemed as if heaven had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning." John Adams continued: "After this, Mr. Duche', unexpectedly to every body, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present. I must confess, I never heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced...with such fervor, such ardor, such earnestness and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, for America, for the Congress, for the province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially the town of Boston. It has had an excellent effect upon everybody here. I must beg you to read that Psalm."

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Five dollars was all she was paid by the Atlantic Monthly Magazine for her poem, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, published FEBRUARY 1, 1862. The Union's theme song during the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe wrote it while visiting Washington, D.C., and seeing the teeming military, galloping horses and countless campfires. Sleeping unsoundly one night, she penned: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on." Julia Ward Howe continued: "I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel; 'As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal'; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on." The next verse stated: "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgement-seat: Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on." Julia Ward Howe's poem concluded: "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea; With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on."

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FEBRUARY 2, 1848, the U.S. Congress ratified the peace treaty which ended the Mexican War. In exchange for 15 million dollars the territories of California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, were brought into the Union. The treaty stated: "In the Name of Almighty God-the United States and the United Mexican States animated by a sincere desire to put an end to the calamities of the war....have, under the protection of Almighty God, the Author of Peace, arranged, agreed upon, and signed the following Treaty of Peace." The Treaty continued: "If (which is not to be expected, and which God forbid) war should unhappily break out between the two republics, they do now...solemnly pledge themselves to each other and to the world to observe the following rules...All churches, hospitals, schools, colleges, libraries, and other establishments for charitable and beneficent purposes, shall be respected, and all persons connected with the same protected in the discharge of their duties, and the pursuit of their vocations. The Treaty concluded: "Done at the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the 2nd day of February, in the year of the Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-eight."

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On the frigid night of FEBRUARY 3, 1943, the Allied ship Dorchester plowed through the waters near Greenland. At 1:00am, a Nazi submarine fired a torpedo into its flank, killing many in the explosion and trapping others below deck. It the ensuing chaos, four chaplains: a priest, a rabbi and two protestant ministers; distributed life jackets. When there were none left, the four chaplains ripped off their own jackets and put them on four young men. Standing embraced on the slanting deck, the chaplains bowed their heads in prayer as they sank to their icy deaths. Congress honored them by declaring this "Four Chaplains Day." On February 7, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower remarked: "And we remember that, only a decade ago, aboard the transport Dorchester, four chaplains of four faiths together willingly sacrificed their lives so that four others might live. In the three centuries that separate the Pilgrims of the Mayflower from the chaplains of the Dorchester, America's freedom, her courage, her strength, and her progress have had their foundation in faith." Eisenhower concluded: "Today as then, there is need for positive acts of renewed recognition that faith is our surest strength, our greatest resource."

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Jimmy Carter, in his book Sources of Strength, 1997, wrote: "Rev. Niebuhr urged Dietrich Bonhoeffer to remain in America for his own safety. Bonhoeffer refused. He felt he had to be among the other Christians persecuted in Germany. So he returned home, and...in resistance to Hitler...preached publicly against Nazism, racism, and anti-Semitism...Bonhoeffer was finally arrested and imprisoned, and FEBRUARY 4, 1945, just a few days before the allied armies liberated Germany, he was executed on orders of Heinrich Himmler. He died a disciple and a martyr." Jimmy Carter concluded: "The same Holy Spirit...that gave Bonhoeffer the strength to stand up against Nazi tyranny is available to us today." On February 16, 2002, Dr. James Dobson told the National Religious Broadcasters: "Those of you who feel that the church has no responsibility in the cultural area...What if it were 1943 and you were in Nazi Germany and you knew what Hitler was doing to the Jews...Would you say, 'We're not political-that's somebody else's problem'?" Dobson concluded: "I thank God Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not give that answer, and he was arrested by the Nazis and hanged in 1945, naked and alone because he said, 'This is not right.'"

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Guilty of preaching religious liberty in England, Roger Williams fled to Boston, FEBRUARY 5, 1631. He pastored briefly before being banished by Puritan John Cotton, who himself had been persecuted by Anglicans in England. Roger Williams befriended the Narragansett Indians, who gave him land for Providence Plantation, Rhode Island-the first place where church government was not controlled by the state government. In 1639, Williams organized the first Baptist Church in America. His "notorious disagreements" with Cotton led to his publishing "Mr. Cotton's Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered," 1644, in which Roger Williams wrote: "The church of the Jews under the Old Testament in the type, and the church of the Christians under the New Testament in the anti-type, were both separate from the world; and when they opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broken down the wall...therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world." In 1802, Jefferson referred to Roger Williams' "wall of separation" in his letter to the Danbury Baptists.

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A graduate of Eureka College, IL, 1932, he announced for radio stations in Iowa. He married Jane Wyman and had children Maureen and Michael. He was a Captain in the U.S. Army Air Corp during World War II, then became an actor, appearing in over 50 films. He was President of the Screen Actors Guild, switched from Democrat to Republican, and became Governor of California. His second marriage, to Nancy Davis, 1952, had children Patti and Ron. His name was Ronald Reagan, born FEBRUARY 6, 1911, and died June 5, 2004. At age sixty-nine, he was the oldest person elected U.S. President, and sixty-nine days after his inauguration, he survived an assassination attempt. At the Alfred M. Landon Lecture Series, 1982, Ronald Reagan stated: "We can't have it both ways. We can't expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living. I wonder if sometimes He isn't waiting for us to wake up, He isn't maybe running out of patience." At Reunion Arena in Dallas, 1984, Ronald Reagan stated: "America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under."

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Frederick Baily was born FEBRUARY 7, 1817. Though against the law for a slave, he learned to read. At age 20, he escaped to Massachusetts and changed his name to Frederick Douglass to hide from slave catchers. He began debating, developing oratory skills and exposing the injustices of slavery. William Lloyd Garrison hired him to sell subscriptions to the Liberator Newspaper. Frederick Douglass published his best-selling autobiography, but with his identity now known, to avoid slave-catchers he fled to England. He was enthusiastically received and met with reformer Daniel O'Connell. English friends raised money to buy his freedom and he returned to New York, founding the North Star newspaper. Writing for abolition and women's suffrage, his motto was "Right is of no sex-Truth is of no color-God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren." An advisor to President Lincoln, Frederick Douglass told the story of his conversion: "I loved all mankind, slaveholder not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light...I gathered scattered pages of the Bible from the filthy street gutters, and washed and dried them, that...I might get a word or two of wisdom from them."