Presidential Quotes Relating to the Spiritual Foundations of America

Consider the following testimony of past presidents in order to help you become galvanized to pray intelligently and fervently for this upcoming election.

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” – George Washington

“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! …What a Utopia, what a Paradise would this region be.” – John Adams

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God…” – Thomas Jefferson

“Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure ourselves what that life would be if these standards were removed…” – James Madison

“Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in vain.” – James Monroe

“I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year… My custom is, to read four to five chapters every morning immediately after rising form my bed. It employs about an hour of my time.” – John Quincy Adams

“That book [the Bible], Sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.” – Andrew Jackson

“I only look to the gracious protection of that Divine Being whose strengthening support I humbly solicit, and whom I fervently pray to look down upon us all. May it be among the dispensations of His Providence to bless our beloved country with honors and length of days; may her ways be pleasantness, and all her paths peace.” – Martin van Buren

“I deem the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness.” – William H. Harrison

“I fervently invoke the aid of that Almighty Ruler of the Universe in whose hands are the destinies of nations.” – James K. Polk

“Religion (is) the basis and foundation of Government.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of holy scripture.” – Woodrow Wilson

“It was for the love of the truths of this great Book [Bible] that our fathers abandoned their native shores for the wilderness. Animated by its lofty principles they toiled and suffered till the desert blossomed as a rose.” – Zachary Taylor

“I should shrink from a clear duty if I failed to express my deepest conviction that we can place no secure reliance upon any apparent progress if it be not sustained by national integrity, resting upon the great truths affirmed and illustrated by Divine Revelation.” – Franklin Pierce

“In entering upon this great office I must humbly invoke the God of our fathers for wisdom and firmness to execute its high and responsible duties.” – James Buchanan

“Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.…I do not think I could, myself, be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at religion.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribe for our motto: ‘Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,’ and exclaim,”‘Christ first, our country next!'” – Andrew Johnson

“Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this Book are we indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this must we look as our guide in the future.” – Ulysses S. Grant

“Looking for the guidance of that Divine Hand by which the destinies of nations and individuals are shaped.” – Rutherford Hayes

“Now more that never before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature…” – James Garfield

“And let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowledge the power and goodness of Almighty God who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country’s history.” – Grover Cleveland

“The most profoundly we study this wonderful Book, and the more closely we observe its divine precepts, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation.” – William McKinley

“I have always believed in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, whereby they have become the expression to man of the Word and Will of God.” – Warren Harding

“The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teaching would cease to be practically universal in our country.” – Calvin Coolidge

“The whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American life.” – Herbert C. Hoover

“We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic…. [W]here we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!” – Harry S. Truman

“In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.” – Dwight David Eisenhower – (discussing his support of the Congressional Act which added the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance)

“The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“If we fail now…we will have forgotten that democracy rests on faith.” – Lyndon Baines Johnson

“Let us go forward firm in our faith… sustained by our confidence in the will of God.” – Richard Milhous Nixon

“Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first -the most basic- expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God’s help, it will continue to be.” – Gerald R. Ford

“Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office on the Bible my mother gave me just a few years ago, opened to the timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.” – James Earl Carter, Jr.

“America was founded by people who believe that God was their rock of safety. I recognize we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it’s all right to keep asking if we’re on His side.” – Ronald Wilson Reagan

“The great faith that led our Nation’s Founding Fathers to pursue this bold experience in self-government has sustained us in uncertain and perilous times; it has given us strength and inspiration to this very day.” – George H.W. Bush

“The most important political verses in the scripture are the next to last and the verse before that of First Corinthians. ‘But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.'” William Jefferson Clinton

“Each day millions of our citizens approach our Maker on bended knee, seeking His grace and giving thanks for the many blessings He bestows upon us.” – George W. Bush

“The presidency has a funny way of making a person feel the need to pray. Abe Lincoln said, as many of you know, ‘I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.” – Barack Obama

“We know that our nation is stronger, our future is brighter, and our joy is greater when we turn to God and ask Him to shed His grace on our lives… In America, we celebrate faith, we cherish religion, we lift our voices in prayer, and we raise our sights to the glory of God.” – Donald Trump