George Washington declared in 1789 that it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.
These were the opening lines of America's first ever Thanksgiving proclamation.
But whatever milestone it represented in the brief life of our young republic, the duty Washington describes, to honor, obey, and give thanks to our creator, was woven into America's character long before the founding.
A keen awareness of that duty has stretched all the way back from William Bradford's own Pilgrim Proclamation in 1623, to the opening prayer of our First Continental Congress, to Lincoln's call for national thanksgiving in the midst of the Civil War, to this very gathering today.
We have always been and still are a nation of prayer, and thank God for that.
In times of suffering and in times of triumph, millions of Americans continue to turn to prayer and their faith in God.
John Adams famously said that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
It was obvious to the founders that our faith was the ground upon which America stands.
It was our very foundation as a people.
