What Patrick Henry Really Said!
By Melisa Gingrich

It's surprising and disappointing to me to realize how many Americans know nothing of the founding of this country and the men who put it all together.  They’re easy converts for the secular humanists who desperately want to separate us from our Christian roots. 

In the wake of the recent decision by the Alabama Supreme Court regarding the removal of the Ten Commandments, I had to send this email and I hope that you feel strong enough about its content to share it with others.  I am outraged by the decisions of this country's courts to remove God from our society.  Our founding fathers never intended to have a secular society, free of God and any mention of Him.  This country was founded on the beliefs and principles of God's Word.  My five year old, Corey, who started kindergarten a few weeks ago (he attended a Christian pre-school) came to me and said "Mommy, there's something about my school that makes me sad."  I said "what is that honey," and he replied, "my school doesn't teach me about Jesus."  Isn't it sad that a small child recognizes the removal of God from his school?

Patrick Henry, who is called the firebrand of the American Revolution, is still remembered for his words, "Give me liberty or give me death." But in current textbooks the context of these words has been deleted. Here is what he actually said: "An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us.  But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle sir, is not to the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?  Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."

These sentences have been erased from our textbooks.  Was Patrick Henry a Christian?  The following year, 1776, he wrote this "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."            Consider these words that Thomas Jefferson wrote on the front of his well-worn Bible: "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator.”

On July 4, 1821, President Adams said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President of the United States reaffirmed this truth when he wrote, "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 teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country."

In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution: "The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools."

William Holmes McGuffey is the author of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools with over 125 million copies sold until 1963.  President Lincoln called him the "Schoolmaster of the Nation."  Listen to these words of Mr. McGuffey:   "The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our notions on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions. From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures.  From all these extracts from the Bible I make no apology."

Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first, Harvard University, chartered in 1636. In the original Harvard Student Handbook, rule number one was that students seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the scriptures: "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation for our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."

James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the United States, said this: "We have staked the whole future of our new nation not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments."

Today, we are asking God to bless America. But, how can He bless a Nation that has departed so far from Him?  Prior to September 11, He was not welcome in America.  Most of what you have read in this article has been erased from our textbooks. Revisionists have rewritten history to remove the truth about our country's Christian roots.

I encourage you to share this article with others, so that the truth of our nation's history will be told.

Melisa Gingrich is the daughter-in-law of Bob Gingrich a freelance writer in Kansas City who occasionally submits articles for the MetroVoice.