Daniel Webster – said in 1820 in Plymouth, Massachusetts
“….. More than all, a government and a country were to commence, with the very first foundation laid under the divine light of the Christian religion … Who would wish that his country’s existence had otherwise begun? Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers brought hither their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate … and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political and literary.”
Noah Webster, November, 1828, published the first edition of the “American Dictionary of the English Language”, which contained the greatest number of Biblical definitions given in any secular volume; thus demonstrating “the degree to which the Bible was America’s basic text book ….”. Webster believed that “…education was useless without the Bible.”
William McGuffey, in 1836, publishes the first edition of his McGuffey’s Reader.
Between 1836 and 1920, 122 million copies were sold. Millions of American children learned to read and write from his reader. McGuffey penned in the forward, “The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our prevalent notions of the character of God, the great moral governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions.”
Alexis DeTocqueville, in 1841, in his book, Democracy in America, wrote, “in the United States of America the sovereign authority is religious. … there is no country in the world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.”
General George Washington – on March 6, 1776 issued this order from his headquarters at Cambridge "The...Legislature [has set apart] a day of fasting, prayer and humiliation, 'to implore the Lord and Giver of all victory to pardon our manifold sins and wickedness, and...bless the Continental army with His divine favor and protection,' all officers and soldiers are strictly enjoined to pay...reverence...to...the Lord of hosts for His mercies...and for those blessings which our...uprightness of life can alone encourage us to hope through His mercy obtain." Within eleven days, Washington, using fifty captured cannons, forced the British to evacuate Boston.