Pledge Protection Act of 2005
PLEDGE PROTECTION ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - July 19, 2006)
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Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my distinguished colleague from Missouri for yielding me time.
The question was posed by the gentleman from New York and others is this Pledge Protection Act, H.R. 2389, constitutional? Is the whole concept of ``under God'' part of our Pledge constitutional? I submit this humble penny with Abraham Lincoln's picture on it. Do you know what it says on the side? ``In God We Trust.''
Behind the Speaker's chair, ``In God We Trust.''
At the Supreme Court they pray every day, asking for God's blessing. So Surely when we have a pledge, we should be able to use the word ``under God.'' Throughout our history this concept, as the United States being a providential Nation, has been the cornerstone of our success.
Would our Founding Fathers, if they were here today, decide to take ``under God'' from the Pledge? I do not think so. In fact, let's go and look at what the Founding Fathers talked about. This belief in our Nation being under God is a central part of our heritage. History bears this out.
Even before independence, a central theme among all forefathers was that our liberty flowed from our Creator. Josiah Quincy was one of these leaders. Not a lot of people know who he was. He was a charismatic leader in the American Revolution and outstanding lawyer. He wrote a series of anonymous articles for the Boston Gazette in which he opposed the Stamp Act and other British colonial policies. He, along with John Adams, bravely defended the British soldiers at a trial for the Boston Massacre, to show the world that the colonialists valued the rule of law above all.
In 1774, he was sent as an agent to argue the colonial cause for independence in England. He perished on the journey over. Yet, before he left, these are his immortal words that he uttered: ``For under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.''
Our Founding Fathers uttered similar statements time and time again, my colleagues, yet perhaps never more eloquently than the Declaration of Independence when even Thomas Jefferson penned the famous lines that ``we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.''
This same man who first wrote about separation of church and state also acknowledged, ``The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.'' And so over the years our Nation's leaders have freely expressed their beliefs in a higher providence for this country.
In our darkest hour, President Lincoln during the Civil War and later President Kennedy during the civil rights movement reaffirmed that this Nation was founded under God, and that all men and women living here are entitled by God to equal liberty.
Even more recently, in the midst of the Cold War, my colleagues, President Reagan argued that ``freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.''
So the whole idea of under God has been passed on from generation to generation. We are blessed by this concept. The Constitution was drafted to guard our liberties, obviously, our God-given liberties, and wisely established a system of checks and balances for our government structure. Mr. Akin pointed these out. The power of Congress to limit jurisdiction of the courts is one of those primary checks on the power of the judiciary. So this is all according to procedures that our Founding Fathers established.
Article III, section 2 grants Congress the power to limit the jurisdiction of Federal courts. So what we are doing today is according to the Constitution.
The Pledge Protection Act invokes the constitutional powers and removes the Pledge from the jurisdiction of Federal courts. I ask you to support this act. I urge my colleagues for future generations to acknowledge our providential point in history.
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