The Motto that Minted Debate

In God We Trust. 

Four little words. Big theological baggage. Carried by money.

In this special sneak-peek episode of Worth Its Weight, follow the surprising journey of America's national motto from its beginnings as a Civil War memorial to its unexpected role in the fight against communism—and discover how money tells some of history's most remarkable stories.

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Numismatic References:

Coins

• 1864 Two-Cent Piece – The first United States coin to bear the motto In God We Trust.
• 1865 Three-Cent Nickel – One of the earliest additional denominations to receive the motto.
• 1866 Shield Nickel – Among the first circulating coins to permanently adopt the new inscription.
• 1866 Liberty Seated Quarter, Half Dollar, and Silver Dollar – First silver denominations struck with the motto.
• 1866 Liberty Head Gold Eagle, Half Eagle, and Double Eagle – First gold coins to display the motto.
• 1907 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle – Designed without In God We Trust at Theodore Roosevelt's request, sparking public criticism.
• 1908 Indian Head Eagle and Half Eagle – Also introduced without the motto before Congress required its return.

Paper Money

• 1957 $1 Silver Certificate – The first U.S. paper currency to carry In God We Trust.
• 1963 Federal Reserve Note – Marked the beginning of the motto's appearance on Federal Reserve Notes.

Tokens

• 1863 Straight's Elephantine Shoe Store Token (Albany, New York) – A whimsical Civil War store card depicting an elephant wearing boots on all four feet. Issued by Straight's Shoe Store at 398 Broadway, Albany, it illustrates the wide variety of patriotic and commercial tokens that circulated during the Civil War coin shortage. 
• Civil War Tokens (1861–1865) – Privately issued merchant tokens that helped ease the nationwide shortage of small change and often featured patriotic, political, or religious themes.

Curious what these objects look like? Visit the Money Museum website to see many of the coins and notes discussed in this episode, along with thousands of other objects from the ANA collection.

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Sources

Books

• Bierly, William R. In God We Trust: The History of an American Motto. Atlanta: Whitman Publishing, 2019.
• Burdette, Roger W. Renaissance of American Coinage, 1905–1908. Great Falls, VA: Seneca Mill Press, 2006.
• Taxay, Don. The U.S. Mint and Coinage. New York: Arco Publishing, 1966.

Primary Sources

• Letter from Rev. Mark R. Watkinson to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, November 13, 1861.
• Act of April 22, 1864 (13 Stat. 54).
• Act of March 3, 1865 (13 Stat. 517).
• Act of May 18, 1908 (35 Stat. 164).

Government Resources

• U.S. Mint Historical Documents
• Library of Congress
• National Archives

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Transcript

In God We Trust: The Motto that Minted Debate

From the vaults of history to the currency of today, this is Worth its Weight – an ANA production from the Money Museum. I’m Caroline Turco, and today we’re looking at one of the most familiar—and most debated—phrases in American life.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, this year, the United States of America celebrates 250 years of independence. It the perfect opportunity to look closely at American history – very closely. 

So grab that loupe.

Because today, we’ll examine four little words that feel almost inseparable from American identity: In God We Trust.

Our national motto, it appears on money, monuments, and memorials. 

It also stands at the uneasy intersection of faith, government, and national identity – asking a question our Republic has never fully settled: where does faith belong in public life? 

Like most things struck or printed on money, the answer is not as simple as it looks.

Because this iconic phrase did not pass down from our Founding Fathers. It did not appear on America’s first coins. It wasn’t even included in the Constitution. 

In this episode, we’ll trace the origin story of In God We Trust: how it got there, why it resonated, when it disappeared, and when Americans actually noticed that it was gone.  

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America’s great democratic experiment – which is very much still ongoing! – did not emerge fully formed. The Declaration of Independence gave it language. The Articles of Confederation provided fragile structure. And the Constitution, when went into effect in 1789, codified the framework that continues to govern these United States.

So, technically, while 2026 marks 250 years of independence, we are, constitutionally speaking, only on year 237. But who’s counting?!

For a document so bold in its vision of government, the U.S. Constitution is surprisingly quiet on religion. 

But that silence was not accidental. It was restraint. 

Our Founding Fathers lived in a deeply religious world, but they had inherited the bitter lessons of state churches and sectarian conflict. 

Of note: the Salem witch trials were still a vivid cautionary tale!

They did not want the new federal government to make citizenship dependent upon belief. 

As the nineteenth century wore on, however, a growing number of Americans began to interpret that silence differently. To them, the absence of God from the Constitution looked less like wisdom and more like a flaw in the foundation.

Slavery sharpened these religious arguments. Even churches were pulled into the conflict around the question of whether slaveholders could – or should – hold positions of religious leadership. 

Soon, sermons sounded a lot more like political speeches.

As Henry Clay poetically lamented: If religious men cannot live together in peace, what hope is there for politicians?

By the time war came, the line between politics and morality had all but disappeared.

And that’s where our story really begins—with the confederate constitution.

When the Confederates States of America wrote their new governing document, they did not start from scratch. In fact, it closely mirrored the U.S. Constitution in structure and language. Much of it was copied directly from the document the seceding states had just rejected.

Which makes the differences even more revealing.

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The Confederate Constitution protected slavery, elevated state sovereignty, and limited certain forms of federal economic power – a choice that would quickly plague the Southern war effort… but I digress.

Finally, and most importantly for our story, it invoked “the favor and guidance of Almighty God.”

That phrase wasn’t just a decorative flourish.

It was a theological provocation. 

With a single quill, Confederate leaders broadcast a powerful claim: our new nation has acknowledges God. The Union doesn’t. 

As you can imagine, this struck many a nerve in the North. Many wondered if the nation was suffering because of its godless Constitution.

Then came Bull Run.

Expecting a quick Union victory, this battle even had spectators – picnic lunches and all! Which made the decisive defeat even more humiliating, as bystanders fled alongside the retreating Union soldiers.

For some Americans, the lesson was obvious. Amend the Constitution. Ask for God’s blessing.  

But one Baptist minister had a different idea. Mark R. Watkinson wanted the nation make a statement…

Not in the Constitution

But in every American’s pocket.

Watkinson wasn’t a politician. But he understood something every numismatist already knows: coins are messengers.

In his letter to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, Watkinson asked a haunting question. If the Union lost, if the American experiment failed, what would future generations conclude from our coinage? Would they not, he argued, read the American coins as evidence of a nation that honored Liberty, not God? 

It sounds dramatic.

It was dramatic.

But Watkinson’s numismatic instinct was spot on. Coins outlast their makers. Long after governments fall, their coins remain as small, durable witnesses to what a nation claimed, valued, feared, and believed.

They are not merely money. They are primary sources in metal.

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However, he didn’t suggest a simple religious motto. He imagined an entirely new coin!

His elaborate proposal included replacing Liberty with a ring inscribed “perpetual union,” accompanied by a crowned all-seeing eye, American flag, stars for the United States, and the essential words: “God, liberty, law.”

Subtle, it was not.

But beneath the crowded design was an unmistakable message. American coins, he believed, should carry the nation’s dependence on God into everyday circulation. 

To modern ears, Watkinson’s proposal might sound odd. 

But in the 1860s, coins were visible in a way we no longer appreciate today as a largely cashless society. They passed from hand to hand, pocket to pocket. They were noticed, read, and remembered. 

Watkinson’s proposal was nothing less than a national broadcast.

And during the Civil War, coins became even more charged because they were vanishing from circulation.

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At this point, I need to pause this story to make a brief Public Service Announcement. 

In times of war, history offers one clear lesson: when in doubt, bury the silver, hoard the gold. 

Either it will save your bacon, or - should things not go your way - future archaeologists will proclaim your panic a “significant discovery!”

A little grim for you, but excellent archaeologically speaking.

Turns out, panic is surprisingly good for archaeology.

 People hide what they fear they cannot replace. Centuries later, those forgotten hoards become time capsules. They tell us what people valued, trusted, and hoped might survive.

Sometimes, they rewrite history altogether. For example: ancient writers chronicled just six Greco-Bactrian kings. But the coins reveal more than thirty!

Coins don’t just confirm history. Sometimes, they’re the only history we’ve got!

The Civil War left behind its own numismatic clues. Americans in the North and South hoarded gold and silver. Even small change became scarce. 

In that void came Civil War tokens. Some advertised businesses. My favorite features a grinning elephant from New York City’s Straight’s Elephantine Shoe Store, which happily marches along in four knee-high boots with the store’s address plastered across its back. It’s ridiculous – which is probably why it worked!

But not every token was trying to sell shoes. Advertising was only half the story. Civil War tokens also became miniature political billboards – cheering Union victories, mocking politicians, and carrying patriotic messages from one pocket to the next.

Suddenly, the nation’s money wasn’t just scarce – it was part of the story. 

Reverend Watkinson had simply taken the idea one step further. Treasury Secretary Chase, sensing the opportunity, forwarded the idea to James Pollock, director of the Philadelphia Mint.

And Pollock became its champion, guiding the religious motto through several years of bureaucratic fog.

The idea was simple. The execution was not.

Turns out, adding four little words to an already designed coin is no easy task.

Coins – and I know this might shock many of you – are small. Designs are crowded. And U.S. coinage already carried a heavy load of legal requirements and national expectations. Liberty needed her place, as did the denomination, date, and country name. Not to mention the eagle and famous Latin unifier E Pluribus Unum.

There’s only so much real estate on a coin!

The challenge wasn’t choosing the message. It was making it fit!

Sadly for Watkinson, his suggestion never made it onto a coin. 

The Mint’s first attempt was “Our Trust Is in God,” which quickly proved far too long.

Next came “God Our Trust.” To modern ears, it sounds a little awkward, but it boasted a poetic pedigree. It echoed the largely unknown fourth verse of The Star-Spangled Banner: “And this be our motto – in God is our trust.”

Then came the fun part. The Mint began striking pattern coins – numismatic “what ifs” – trying out different designs and mottoes before making the ultimate commitment.

“God and Our Country” 

“God Is Our Shield.” 

And eventually, the phrase we all recognize today:

“In God We Trust.”

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This winning phrase, suggested by Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, is a delightful mystery from history that’s left historians guessing for over a century, as no one’s quite sure where it came form.

Many numismatists connect it to Brown University’s Latin motto, In Deo Speramus, meaning “In God We Hope.”  

But - small snag. 

Chase did not attend Brown.

He went to Dartmouth, whose wonderfully dramatic motto – The voice of one crying in the wilderness – sounds far better in Latin and provides no assistance in this mystery.

William Bierly, whose deeply researched book “In God We Trust” informed much of this episode, offers another possibility. Perhaps the phrase reached Chase through his son-in-law, Rhode Island Governor William Sprague IV – a colorful character who is remembered more for scandal than statesmanship! 

But, as Bierly acknowledges, there’s no way to know for certain.

History doesn’t always leave a perfectly marked trail. Sometimes the evidence takes us to the edge of the woods, points vaguely toward the trees, and says, “Good luck!”

What we do know is that by late 1863, “In God We Trust” had entered the discussion.

And soon, the coin had its motto.

Or perhaps more accurately: the motto had found its coin.

Specifically, the humble two-cent coin. Small coin. BIG theological baggage!

The Mint Act of April 22, 1864, authorized the new denomination and gave the Mint director permission to determine its size, shape, mottoes, and devices, with Treasury Secretary approval. 

So no, Congress did not explicitly say, “Put God on our coins.”

But it was the opening Pollock needed.

Production began on May 30, 1864, with In God We Trust placed prominently on a banner above the shield. 

From here, the coins themselves preserve the story.

The first 25,000 two-cent pieces carried the motto in small letters. Soon after, the Mint enlarged the lettering, creating the more common Large Motto variety.

This may sound like numismatic minutiae, but it’s so much more.

The Small Motto and Large Motto varieties give us a front-row seat to the moment the phrase entered American coinage. We can watch the motto arrive cautiously, then grow bolder – literally taking up more space on the coin.

In 1864, more than 19 million two-cent pieces were struck

Every one carried the message In God We Trust.

The denomination proved short-lived.

The motto, however, did not.

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So, what did Americans think? 

Well, that depends on whom you ask - and how loudly they reacted.

In his 1864 Mint Director’s report, Pollock claimed the motto had been “highly approved by the public,” specifically its expression of national reliance on God in an hour of peril. 

A confident claim considering the coin had been circulating for about five minutes!

Okay, one month. But still…

Newspapers tell a much more subdued story. Most described the new two-cent piece without commenting on the motto.

And then there was Mark Twain.

One of America’s most important literary voices – and never one to let public piety pass un-poked – Twain sharply observed, “It is not proper to boast that America is a Christian country when we all know that five-sixths of our population could not enter in at the narrow gate.” (Rude!)

Despite his jab, there does not seem to have been mass public opposition to the motto when it first appeared. That doesn’t mean everyone loved it. But it did not provoke the kind of immediate firestorm we might expect today.

Seemingly, the motto fit the mood of a grieving nation. 

The country was bleeding. Families were burying sons. And here was a coin with a shield, a banner, and a plea.

Art historian Cornelius Vermeuele later observed that the reverse design, with its shield and pointed arch, resembles the standard tombstones used for Union burials and veterans of the Civil War. 

Once you see it, it’s hard to unsee. 

The two-cent piece was not just small change.

It was a bronze memorial.

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But Pollock didn’t see the two-cent piece as the end of the story.

It was only the beginning.

Bronze coinage was a good start…but Pollock had his sights set on silver and gold.

The following year, Congress gave the Mint permission to place In God We Trust on any coin that would “admit of such legend.” 

In other words: if the motto fit, the Mint could strike it.

Pollock wasted no time. By 1866, the motto was circulating on gold and silver ocins across the country. The change wasn’t instant. Branch mints sometimes lagged waiting for the new dies. But the direction – Pollock’s direction – was clear.

And Pollock seems to have viewed this motto as one of his life’s major achievements. When he died in 1890, his tombstone ended with the words: In God We Trust.

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After the Civil War, the motto remained on many US coins, but its legal status was not as clear as people often assume. The Coinage Act of 1873 repeated earlier language which allowed the motto on coins that could accommodate it. At the same time, the act required the use of E Pluribus Unum. 

What followed was a patchwork of secular and nonsecular coinage. In 1878, the Morgan dollar proudly proclaimed In God We Trust. But, the Liberty Head nickel, introduced in 1883, did not carry the motto, even though its predecessor, the Shield nickel, had. 

If you’re waiting for public outrage, get comfy. 

The republic did not collapse. There was no national panic. No one cried out to “Fetch the theologians!” 

Post-war America seemed content to spend their money with - or without - God.

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Then came 1907. 

Enter Theodore Roosevelt.

The youngest man to ever assume the Presidency, Teddy Roosevelt had grand ideas and the volcanic energy to see them through. One of those ideas was the rejuvenation of American coinage.

To Roosevelt, coins were a nation’s calling card. And compared with the great coinage of the ancient world and the medallic art of Europe, Americans coins – he proclaimed – were “atrocious hideousness.” 

A bit harsh, I agree. I think the terms tired, flat, or uninspired are perhaps more appropriate.

Either way – he wanted more!

More drama. More sculpture. More proof that the United States had arrived as a world power.

Roosevelt turned to the renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and together they pushed American gold coinage into a new artistic age.

The Saint-Gaudens double eagle – a $20 gold coin - is one of the most celebrated coins in American history. In strikingly high relief, Liberty strides forth in radiant command, her torch lifted against the dawn, as the Capitol rises behind her. 

It is glorious.

But there was one problem.

The motto was gone. 

Saint-Gaudens did not incorporate In God We Trust. Partly for space, but the deeper reason came from Roosevelt himself. 

Fascinatingly, Roosevelt didn’t object to the motto because he thought it was too religious.

He objected, because he thought coinage treated it with too little reverence.

Coins were used for all sorts of ordinary, grubby, and morally questionable purposes. They bought tobacco, theater tickets, and whiskey.  

To Roosevelt, putting the divine name on money that might be tossed onto a gaming table was anything BUT pious! 

It was sacrilegious.

The public, however, did not appreciate his nuance.

Letters and postcards poured into the White House, the Mint, the Treasury, and Congress. Many had come to view In God We Trust as a proper, even expected, part of national coinage.

Never mind that the motto was not legally required, nor had it appeared on every coin since its first use in 1864.

Once Americans noticed its absence, absence became insult.

Public pressure mounted, and just one year later, Congress reversed course.

In 1908, the motto was restored to all gold and silver coins that had previously carried it, and Roosevelt discovered that people notice tradition most when its gone!

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After World War II, religion took on a new role in American life. Church membership climbed steadily, but so did something else:

The need to define what made America… America.

Across the Iron Curtain stood governments like the Soviet Union and China proudly rejected religion, while the United States increasingly embraced it. Suddenly, it wasn’t just a matter of faith, it was a way to distinguish America from its communist rivals.

The most obvious example is the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, which appeared in 1954. The following year, In God We Trust joined America’s fight against communism through paper money.

One of the loudest voices behind that effort came from an unlikely place: the American Numismatic Association. (Perhaps you’ve heard of it…!) Arkansas collector and eventual ANA President, Matthew Rother, championed a resolution that called for the motto to appear on paper currency.

President Eisenhower embraced the idea, Congress passed the measure in 1955, and motto-bearing paper entered circulation in 1957. 

So, the next time you pull a dollar bill from your wallet, remember: you’re holding much more than a piece of currency. You’re holding a Civil War memorial that found a second life in the fight against communism.

Same words. 

Different moment. 

Still carried by money.

And sometimes, still capable of causing panic.

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Which brings us to the so-called “Godless dollars.”

In 2005, Congress authorized the President $1 Coin Program, a series honoring America’s presidents in order, beginning with George Washington.

When the coins debuted in 2007, the date, mintmark, E Pluribus Unum, and In God We Trust did not appear on the front or back. 

They appeared on the edge.

The third side of the coin … forever diminished by the question, “Heads or Tails?”

Modern Americans knew how to read the obverse and reverse – front and back. 

They were not accustomed to checking the edge.

So people looked at the front. They looked at the back. They did not see In God We Trust. 

And then, they got mad.

Some called for boycotts of the “Godless dollars,” even though the motto was there all along!

It was a PR nightmare, which was made much worse by an actual minting error.

Some Washington dollars escaped the Mint without their edge lettering. No date. No mintmark. And, of course, no In God We Trust.

The public confusion was suddenly half misunderstanding, half legitimate error.

Honestly, it’s numismatics at its finest: history, law, production, public emotion, and one very awkward mint mistake colliding in one small golden coin bearing the likeness of our first President who ardently resisted having his image on coins! 

Money talks.

Sometimes it also miscommunicates.

And that is why this story matters.

As America  marks 250 years of independence, In God We Trust reminds us that the American experiment has always been argued in words.

Some appear in founding documents.

Some are struck on money.

And some become much harder to remove than they were to add.

I hope we can all agree that Americans continue to disagree about many contentious issues, including what kind of religious language belongs in public life.

Money just makes the argument portable.

So, the next time you see In God We Trust on a quarter hiding under your car seat, pause for just a second.

Those four small words carry a complicated history, from the Constitution’s omission to the Civil War’s urgency and the Cold War’s anxiety. They also represent generations of debating Americans as they grapple with what our nation is and how we should describe it.

It’s a lot of weight for a little inscription.

But, then again, money has always carried more than its face value.