Presidents’ Day is an American holiday celebrated each year on the third Monday in February. Originally established in 1885 in recognition of our nation’s first president, George Washington, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the Federal Government. With the passing of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act and the move away from February 22, President George Washington’s actual day of birth, Presidents’ Day was seen by many as a way to honor both Washington and Abraham Lincoln, who was born on February 12. Some believe it is a day to honor the lives and achievements of all the presidents of the United States, while others argue that grouping George Washington and Abraham Lincoln together with less successful presidents minimizes their legacies. For many people today, however, Presidents’ Day is nothing more than a paid holiday from work and a time for special sales in retail stores.
With that bit of history, the purpose of this writing is to briefly state what both Washington and Lincoln, two of America’s most famous statesmen, had to say about the Bible and the God of the Bible. It has been said that a nation rises and falls on its leadership. If that is so, the Bible has been one of the greatest influences in some of America’s best-known, most courageous leaders.
George Washington, our first president, added the prayer, “So help me, God,” to his inauguration oath, then reverently stooped and kissed the Bible which had been used in the oath of office. In his inaugural address to Congress, he stressed God’s role in the birth of this republic: “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency … We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which heaven itself has ordained.”
One of George Washington’s early official acts was the first Thanksgiving Proclamation, which reads, “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor,” it goes on to call the nation to thankfulness to Almighty God.
Abraham Lincoln stated, “It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
Concerning the Bible, Lincoln said, “All the good from the Saviour of the world is communicated through this Book; but for it we could not know right from wrong. All the things desirable to man are contained in it.”
It is an inconvenient truth for history revisionists and liberal thinkers today that many, if not most, of our founding fathers believed that the public interest was served by the promotion of religion, Christianity in particular. To cite just one example, Joseph Story, said in his 1829 inaugural address as Dane Professor of Law at Harvard University, “There has never been a period in which Common Law did not recognize Christianity as laying at its foundation.”
The Bible declares, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12).
As you enjoy celebrating Presidents’ Day on Monday, February 16, take time to thank God for those great and godly men who have profoundly influenced the United States of America, and pray for a return of our nation to the greatness that once was America.