The US Motto

 Back in history, the Latin phrase "e pluribus unum" was understood to be the motto of the United States. It was a call to unity. The English is "out of many, one" and sounds more like Paul's letter to the Corinthians than a real declaration from previously hostile states and regions in our broken country. 

Maybe that's why in 1956, on this date, 30 July,  US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation making "In God We Trust" the official motto of the United States. The following year the phrase began appearing on $1 bills, and it was later added to larger denominations. The decision would prove controversial.

The new motto replaced the country's long-standing unofficial one, "E pluribus unum" which was featured on the Great Seal of the United States, created in 1782.

"In God We Trust" was first printed on 2-cent coins during the Civil War, following an order by Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, who directed the U.S. Mint to add a reference to religion to coins wherever it would fit. Over the following decades, the phrase began appearing on other coins, but it was not used consistently.

During the Cold War, when the United States was in ideological opposition to the officially atheistic Soviet Union, Eisenhower supported a greater public role for religious language. In 1954 he signed legislation adding the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. Two years later, "In God We Trust" became the nation's official motto, and Congress required it to appear on all American currency.

Nearly 30 per cent of Americans identify as atheists, agnostics, or religiously unaffiliated ("nones").

Not all Americans approved of the change. Critics argued that it violated the First Amendment's prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion and failed to recognise Americans who were atheists or polytheists. Both the motto and the revised Pledge of Allegiance were challenged in federal courts for decades, but neither was ruled unconstitutional. Supporters argued that the phrase functioned not as an establishment of religion but as a ceremonial expression of national unity.

Today, "In God We Trust" appears on all U.S. currency, and many states have adopted it as their own motto or display it in schools and public buildings. What began on a Civil War-era coin has become one of the most recognisable phrases in American public life.

What do you think about this matter? Should "In God we trust" be standard issue on our money? Or what about on our Tennessee license plates?