How a Minister’s Concern Birthed Our National Motto

In ‘This Week in History,’ US Treasurer Salmon Chase approved of an idea, early in the Civil War, that changed the history of American currency.

"In God We Trust" has a unique history that shows the dynamics of the American spirit. Public Domain

The Civil War had raged for seven months, but its worst battles were yet to come. Rev. M.R. Watkinson, a Pennsylvania minister, contemplated the very worst of possibilities that could arise from the Civil War and articulated his concerns in a letter to Salmon Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury.

“What if our Republic were now shattered beyond reconstruction?” Watkinson asked.