George Washington’s First Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

Happy Thanksgiving all!  

Here are a few other famous Quotes from our Founding Fathers (from www.Wallbuilders.org)

1. About five weeks into the Constitutional Convention of 1787 when they were attempting to draft the U. S. Constitution, their efforts were a signal failure. As things were beginning to break up and delegates return home to their states, (Benjamin) Franklin challenged them and called them to prayer. He told them: In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. . . . And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel. . . . I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business
2. The experiment is made and has completely succeeded – it can no longer be called in question whether authority in magistrates [civil leaders] and obedience of citizens can be grounded on reason, morality, and the Christian religion.” [20] “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity.” [21] President John Adams
3. “[The Bible] is the rock on which our Republic rests.”  [22]President Andrew Jackson
4. “[The Bible] is the best gift God has given to men. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong.”[25]President Abraham Lincoln
5. “No candid observer will deny that whatever of good there may be in our American civilization is the product of Christianity. Still less can he deny that the grand motives which are working for the elevation and purification of our society are strictly Christian. . . . A belief in Jesus Christ is the very fountainhead of everything that is desirable and praiseworthy in our civilization, and this civilization is the flower of time.” [26] “[T]he teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally – I do not mean figuratively, I mean literally – impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed.” [27] President Teddy Roosevelt