How a Civil War prayer put "In God We Trust" on American coins
On this day · 22 April 1864
A wartime plea to stamp faith onto money pushed Congress to act, and one humble coin carried the words first.
On April 22, 1864, Congress passed an act that reshaped the nation’s small change. It altered the composition of the one-cent coin and authorized a brand-new denomination, the two-cent piece. Tucked into that law was instruction for the Mint Director to design the coins and submit them for the Treasury Secretary’s approval.
The result was historic. IN GOD WE TRUST first appeared on the 1864 two-cent coin, the debut of a phrase now woven into American identity. The push had begun years earlier, during the depths of the Civil War, when devout citizens wrote to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase urging that the country acknowledge God on its currency.
A minister’s wartime letter, not a grand decree, set the motto in motion.
Chase directed Mint Director James Pollock to prepare a fitting inscription. After the modest two-cent debut, the motto spread: an 1865 act extended it to other coins, and it later became the national motto in 1956.
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