American Minute

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The Confederate iron-plated ship Merrimac destroyed two Union boats during the Civil War. The Union responded with the ironclad Monitor. Dedicating a statue to the Monitor's designer, May 29, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge stated: "When the ironclad Merrimac went out on the morning of MARCH 9, 1862, to complete its work of destruction it was at once surprised by this new naval innovation...After a battle lasting four hours in which the Monitor suffered no material damage...the Merrimac...badly crippled, withdrew, never to venture out again...The London Times stated that the day before this battle England had 149 first-class warships. The day after she had but two, and they were iron-plated only amidships. Naval warfare had been revolutionized." When offered payment in 1882, John Ericsson replied: "Nothing could induce me to accept any remuneration for the Monitor...it was my contribution to the glorious Union cause...which freed 4 million bondsmen." John Ericsson wrote to President Lincoln: "Attachment to the Union alone impels me to offer my services at this frightful crisis -my life if need be- in the great cause which Providence has caused you to defend."

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26-year-old William Penn received from King Charles II the charter to Pennsylvania on MARCH 10, 1681, as repayment of a debt owed to his deceased father Admiral Sir William Penn, who captured Jamaica and defeated the Dutch navy. A student at Oxford, William Penn was expelled for having his own prayer services in his dorm room instead of attending the Anglican chapel. He converted to Quakerism and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. His colony was a "holy experiment" for persecuted Europeans, one of the few original colonies to accept Mennonites, Amish, Catholics and Jews. Emphasizing his plan of Christian tolerance, he named the city "Philadelphia," Greek for "Brotherly Love." History records that since William Penn insisted on treating the Delaware Indians honestly, paying a fair sum for the land, Philadelphia was spared the Indian attacks and scalpings that other colonial settlements experienced. Before arriving, Penn wrote to the Delaware chiefs: "My Friends, There is one...God...and He hath made...the king of the country where I live, give...unto me a great province therein, but I desire to enjoy it with your...consent, that we may always live together as...friends."

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Ben Franklin was the first president of the first anti-slavery society in the United States. Richard Bassett, a Signer of the Constitution, converted to Methodism, freed all his slaves and paid them as hired labor. John Quincy Adams fought to end slavery by removing Congress' Gag Rule. But it was Senator Charles Sumner's vehement stand against slavery that resulted in enraged Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina violently beating him on the head with a cane while he was seated at his desk on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Charles Sumner died MARCH 11, 1874, having never fully recovered from those injuries. A founder of the Republican Party, Sumner served as a Senator from Massachusetts for 23 years. He stated: "Familiarity with that great story of redemption, when God raised up the slave-born Moses to deliver His chosen people from bondage, and with that sublimer story where our Saviour died a cruel death that all men, without distinction of race, might be saved, makes slavery impossible." Charles Sumner continued: "There is no reason for renouncing Christianity, or for surrendering to the false religions; nor do I doubt that Christianity will yet prevail over the earth as the waters cover the sea."

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Juliette Low began the Girls Scouts, MARCH 12, 1912, in Savannah, Georgia. Chronic ear infections as a child made one ear deaf. A grain of rice thrown at her wedding lodged in her other ear, which was punctured by the procedure to remove it. Her father, a U.S. Army General, was previously a Civil War Confederate captain. In the Spanish-American War, Juliette and her mother organized a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers returning from Cuba. After her husband's death in 1905, Juliette traveled to England where in 1911 she met Boar War hero Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts. They were engaged, but the wedding was cancelled. Returning to America, she founded Girl Guides. Dying of breast cancer in 1927, she was buried in her uniform. The Girl Scout oath was "On my honor, I will try: to do my duty to God and my country, to help other people at all times, to obey the Girl Scout laws." In 1995, Patti Garibay, a former Girl Scout leader, founded the family-friendly American Heritage Girls, serving thousands of girls with troops in 32 states. The American Heritage Girls' Oath is "I promise to love God, Cherish my family, Honor my country, and Serve in my community."

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Susan B. Anthony, whose face is on a U.S. dollar coin, died MARCH 13, 1906. Raised a Quaker, her father owned a cotton mill and refused to buy cotton from farmers who owned slaves. Her religious upbringing instilled in her the concept that every one is equal before God and motivated her to crusade for freedom for slaves and a woman's right to vote. Opposing liquor, drunkenness and abortion, she encountered mobs, armed threats, objects thrown at her and was hung in effigy. After the Civil War, Susan B. Anthony worked hard for the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. She succeeded in having women admitted to the University of Rochester and was arrested for voting in the 1872 Presidential Election. Fourteen years after her death, women won the right to vote. "I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder," wrote Susan B. Anthony in The Revolution (July 1869), "No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! Thrice guilty is he who...drove her to the desperation which impels her to the crime."

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Born in Germany MARCH 14, 1879, he began teaching himself calculus at age 14. With a doctorate from the University of Zurich, he wrote papers on electromagnetic energy, relativity, and statistical mechanics. He predicted a ray of light from a distant star would appear to bend as it passed near the Sun. When an eclipse confirmed this, the London Times headline ran November 7, 1919, "Revolution in science-New theory of the Universe-Newtonian ideas overthrown." This was Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein. His first visit to the U.S. was to raise funds for Jerusalem's Hebrew University. On his 3rd visit, 1932, Albert Einstein took a post at Princeton. When Nazis took over Germany, he stayed in the U.S., becoming a citizen in 1940. Einstein's theory of relativity is the basis for applying atomic energy. Einstein's warning that Nazis could create an atom bomb led FDR to set up the Manhattan Project. Three years before he died, he was asked to be Israel's 2nd President, but declined due to age. The periodic table's 99th element, discovered shortly after his death in 1955, was named "einsteinium". Princeton University's Fine Hall has inscribed Einstein's words: "God is clever, but not dishonest."

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On MARCH 15, 1984, the Senate voted down voluntary prayer in public schools. President Reagan said: "I am deeply disappointed that, although a majority of the Senate voted for it, the school prayer amendment fell short." On September 25, 1982, Ronald Reagan said: "Unfortunately, in the last two decades we've experienced an onslaught of such twisted logic that if Alice were visiting America, she might think she'd never left Wonderland. We're told that it somehow violates the rights of others to permit students in school who desire to pray to do so. Clearly this infringes on the freedom of those who choose to pray, the freedom taken for granted since the time of our Founding Fathers...To prevent those who believe in God from expressing their faith is an outrage...The relentless drive to eliminate God from our schools...should be stopped." Ronald Reagan said February 25, 1984: "Sometimes I can't help but feel the First Amendment is being turned on its head." Reagan told the Alabama Legislature, March 15, 1982: "The First Amendment was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny."

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Called the "Chief Architect of the Constitution," he wrote many of the Federalist Papers, which helped convince States to ratify the Constitution. He introduced the First Amendment in the first session of Congress. This was James Madison, born MARCH 16, 1751. During the War of 1812, he proclaimed two National Days of Prayer, 1812 and 1813. When the British marched on Washington, D.C., citizens evacuated, along with President and Dolly Madison. As the British burned the Capitol, White House, and public buildings, August 25, 1814, dark clouds rolled in and a tornado sent debris flying, blew off roofs and knocked over chimneys on the British. Two cannons lifted off the ground and dropped yards away. A British historian wrote "More British soldiers were killed by this stroke of nature than from all the firearms the American troops had mustered." British fled the city and rains extinguished the fires. Madison then proclaimed a National Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting & Prayer to Almighty God, November 16, 1814. Two weeks after the War ended, Madison proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving & Devout Acknowledgement to Almighty God, March 4, 1815.

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MARCH 17, around 461 AD, St. Patrick died. As a teenager, the Roman Legions guarding his community in Britain were withdrawn to defend Rome from invading tribes such as the Huns. Unprotected, Britain was attacked by raiders, who carried away thousands. Patrick was captured and sold as a slave in Ireland, which was ruled by the Druids, who practiced human sacrifice. For six years Patrick herded animals until he escaped. In his forties he had a dream calling him back to Ireland. In his Confession, he wrote: "In the depth of the night, I saw a man named Victoricus coming as if from Ireland, with innumerable letters, and he gave me one and while I was reading I thought I heard the voice of those near the western sea call out: 'Please, holy boy, come and walk among us again.' Their cry pierced my very heart, and I could read no more, and so I awoke." Patrick returned to Ireland, confronted the Druids, converted Chieftains, and used the three-leaf clover to teach the Trinity. Baptizing 120,000 and founding 300 churches, he wrote: "Patrick the sinner, an unlearned man to be sure. None should ever say that it was my ignorance that accomplished any small thing, it was the gift of God."

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70-years-old, he visited his friend William Worth one evening, ate some milk and bread, read out loud from the Bible, laid down on the floor to sleep and never woke up. This was how John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, died on MARCH 18, 1845. His father, Nathaniel, was a Minuteman who fought the British at Concord in 1775. Johnny Appleseed collected apple seeds from cider presses in western Pennsylvania and planted nurseries from the Alleghenies to central Ohio, giving thousands of seedlings to pioneers. He lived at harmony with Indians, bringing them medicinal plants. During the War of 1812, he heard the British had incited an Indians attack, so he ran 30 miles from Mansfield to Mount Vernon, Ohio, to warn settlers. Bare foot, wearing a mush pan over his eccentric long hair and an old coffee sack over his shoulders, Johnny had a unique devotion to nature and the Bible, calling an apple blossom a "living sermon from God" and often quoting the Sermon on the Mount. Poet William Henry Venable wrote: "Remember Johnny Appleseed-All ye who love the apple-He served his kind by word and deed-In God's grand greenwood chapel."

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When Shakespeare was 26-years-old, William Bradford was born, MARCH 19, 1590. At age 17, Bradford fled for Holland with persecuted Pilgrims. At age 30 he sailed with them to America. He was chosen governor in 1621 and reelected 30 times till his death. In his History of the Plymouth Plantation, 1650, William Bradford wrote: "Since ye first breaking out of ye lighte of ye gospell in our Honourable Nation of England...what warrs and opposissions...Satan hath raised...against the Saints...by bloody death and cruell torments... imprisonments, banishments...What could now sustaine them but ye spirite of God and His grace?...Ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our fathers...came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto ye Lord, and He heard their voyce." William Bradford continued: "All great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties...Out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing...and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise."

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Sir Isaac Newton died MARCH 20, 1727. With his mother widowed twice, he had been raised by his grandmother before being sent off to grammar school and later Cambridge. He discovered calculus, the laws of gravity and built the first reflecting telescope. Using a prism, he demonstrated that a beam of light contained all the colors of the rainbow. President of the Royal Society from 1703 till his death, Sir Isaac Newton wrote in Principia, 1687: "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being...All variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, whom I call the Lord God." In Optics, 1704, Newton wrote: "God in the beginning formed matter." Regarding the Bible, Newton wrote: "The system of revealed truth which this Book contains is like that of the universe, concealed from common observation yet the labors of the centuries have established its Divine origin." In A Short Scheme of the True Religion, Sir Isaac Newton wrote: "Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors."

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Johann Sebastian Bach was born MARCH 21, 1685. By age 10 his parents had died. At 18 he was a church organist, followed by positions in royal courts. Once he was imprisoned because a duke did not want him employed elsewhere. Widowed with 7 children, he remarried and had 13 more. Considered the "master of masters," his works include "Passion According to St. Matthew," and "Jesus, Meine Freude" (Jesus, My Joy!). Bach stated: "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. If heed is not paid to this, it is not true music but a diabolical bawling and twanging." On February 22, 1990, President George H.W. Bush stated: "The Bible has had a critical impact upon the development of Western civilization. Western literature, art, and music are filled with images and ideas that can be traced to its pages." Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson wrote in McCollum v. Board of Education, 1948: "It would not seem practical to teach either practice or appreciation of the arts if we are to forbid exposure of youth to any religious influences. Music without sacred music would be incomplete, even from a secular point of view."

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On MARCH 22, 1758, Princeton University President Jonathan Edwards died as a result of a smallpox inoculation. A Yale graduate, being valedictorian of his class, Jonathan Edwards' preaching helped begin the Great Awakening, a revival of such proportions that history credits it with uniting the colonies prior to the Revolution. Of this awakening, Benjamin Franklin wrote: "It was wonderful to see...From being thoughtless or indifferent...it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro' the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in...every street." Edwards' grandson was Yale President Timothy Dwight, who wrote July 4, 1798: "Voltaire...formed a systematical design to destroy Christianity and to introduce...atheism." Dwight continued: "The fabrication of books of all kinds against Christianity, especially such as excite doubt...written as to catch the feelings, and steal upon the approbation, of every class of men...Books were formed, altered, forged, imputed as posthumous to deceased writers of reputation, and sent abroad with the weight of their names. These were printed and circulated at the lowest price through all classes of men in an uninterrupted succession."

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Britain imposed the 1764 Currency Act, 1764 Sugar Act, 1765 Stamp Act, 1765 Quartering Act, 1766 Declaratory Act, 1767 Townshend Act, 1773 Tea Act, 1774 Boston Port Act, 1774 Justice Act, 1774 Massachusetts Government Act, 1774 Quartering Act, 1774 Quebec Act, and 1775 Proclamation of Rebellion. On MARCH 23, 1775, Patrick Henry spoke to the 2nd Virginia Convention, meeting at Richmond's St. John's Church due to British hostilities: "I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery...We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated...We have prostrated ourselves before the throne...Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence." Patrick Henry continued: "There is a just God who presides over the destines of nations...who will raise up friends to fight our battle for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave...Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."