DECEMBER 26
1861•Letter Helps Put “IN GOD WE TRUST” on U.S. Coins
2007•Presidential and Native American $1 Coin Inscription Legislation
The Letter That Helped Put “IN GOD WE TRUST” on American Coins
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On December 26, 1861, United States Mint Director James Pollock wrote Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase recommending that American coins carry a religious declaration recognizing God. Written during the darkest opening months of the Civil War, Pollock's letter became a crucial step in the chain of events that ultimately placed “IN GOD WE TRUST” on United States coinage.
The familiar motto did not appear immediately. Congress first had to change federal coinage law, Mint officials had to experiment with possible wording, and new coin designs had to provide space for the inscription. The first circulating U.S. coin to carry “IN GOD WE TRUST” was the two-cent piece introduced in 1864.
Today the phrase is so familiar that it can seem as though it has always been part of American money. It has not. Its numismatic history can be traced through specific letters, laws, patterns, and coins—and one of the most important documents in that story is dated December 26, 1861.
The United States Was at War
Pollock wrote his letter only eight months after the firing on Fort Sumter.
Eleven Southern states had seceded from the Union.
American armies were mobilizing on a scale the country had never experienced.
No one knew how long the Civil War would last or whether the United States would survive intact.
War changed the way Americans thought about flags, seals, songs, currency, and coins.
Objects that had once seemed ordinary became declarations of national identity.
Federal coinage was especially powerful because it traveled everywhere and carried the authority of the United States government.
The immediate story began with a Pennsylvania minister.
On November 13, 1861, Reverend Mark R. Watkinson of Ridleyville wrote Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase.
Watkinson urged the government to recognize God on United States coins.
Watkinson feared that American coinage lacked an explicit acknowledgment of divine authority.
In the context of the Civil War, he believed such recognition would carry moral and national significance.
His proposal reached Chase at a moment when questions about the Union's identity were unusually urgent.
Salmon P. Chase Responds
Chase took the suggestion seriously.
On November 20, 1861, he wrote Mint Director James Pollock and instructed him to consider a motto expressing national trust in God.
The Treasury secretary wanted the idea developed into practical coinage language.
Pollock was well suited to the assignment.
He had served Pennsylvania in Congress and had been governor of the state.
In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Director of the United States Mint.
His tenure coincided with extraordinary changes in American money.
The Philadelphia Mint faced a rapidly changing monetary environment.
Gold and silver coins disappeared from ordinary circulation as people hoarded precious metal.
The government issued new forms of paper currency.
Small change became scarce.
Private tokens began filling gaps in commerce.
Against that background, adding a religious motto was not merely decorative.
A coin was an official object produced by the national government.
Any new inscription would circulate as a federal statement at a moment when the Union itself was being challenged.
Pollock answered Chase on December 26.
His letter supported the idea of recognizing God on American coinage and proposed wording for consideration.
The document survives today and provides a direct contemporary record of the Mint's early thinking about what would become one of the most familiar inscriptions in U.S. numismatics.
The exact wording had not yet been settled.
Pollock discussed forms such as “OUR COUNTRY; OUR GOD” and “GOD, OUR TRUST.”
The eventual phrase “IN GOD WE TRUST” would emerge through later refinement.
One obstacle was statutory.
Federal law prescribed inscriptions and devices for United States coins.
The Mint could not simply add a new national motto wherever it wished.
Congress needed to provide legal authority.
There was also a practical problem.
Nineteenth-century coins already carried required inscriptions, denomination information, stars, dates, portraits, and heraldic devices.
Adding a motto meant finding room without damaging the artistic balance or legibility of the coin.
Pattern Coins Explore the Idea
The Mint experimented with proposed religious mottos on pattern coinage.
Patterns allowed officials to evaluate wording, placement, lettering, and overall appearance before committing to regular production.
These experimental pieces preserve stages in the evolution of the motto.
Some patterns used variants such as “GOD OUR TRUST.”
Others explored related formulations.
The progression shows that the final phrase was not created in one instant.
It developed through administrative discussion and design experimentation.
Treasury Secretary Chase remained involved.
As legislation and coin designs moved forward, the wording evolved toward the phrase known today.
“IN GOD WE TRUST” proved concise, dignified, and adaptable to the limited space available on coins.
The Civil War's shortage of small change led Congress to authorize a new bronze two-cent coin in 1864.
The denomination provided the Mint with a fresh design rather than requiring the motto to be squeezed immediately onto an existing coin type.
Chief Engraver James Barton Longacre created the two-cent piece.
Its obverse featured a shield, arrows, laurel elements, and a ribbon above.
That ribbon provided an ideal place for the new motto.
The 1864 two-cent coin became the first regular United States coin to bear “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
The phrase appears prominently above the shield.
What had begun as correspondence during the first year of the Civil War was now struck into circulating metal.
The denomination was new, so its design could be created around contemporary requirements.
That made it easier to incorporate the motto naturally.
Existing denominations would adopt the phrase later as laws and designs changed.
The two-cent piece was itself a response to the economic disruption of the Civil War.
It was made of bronze rather than precious metal.
Its introduction reflected the government's search for practical substitutes as gold and silver vanished from everyday commerce.
There is an interesting irony in the motto's debut.
One of the most enduring inscriptions in American coinage first appeared not on a grand gold eagle or silver dollar but on a modest bronze two-cent piece.
The denomination lasted only a decade.
The motto outlived it by generations.
Congress Expands the Authority
Subsequent legislation broadened the Treasury's authority to place the motto on additional denominations.
During the later 1860s, “IN GOD WE TRUST” began appearing on more United States coins.
Its expansion was gradual rather than instantaneous.
Larger silver coins eventually received the motto, commonly on a ribbon above the eagle.
Seated Liberty quarters, half dollars, and dollars were modified during the 1860s.
The change created major collectible design types within those long-running series.
Collectors distinguish Seated Liberty coins without the motto from later versions carrying “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
A political and cultural decision therefore created visible numismatic varieties.
History became a design change that collectors can hold side by side.
Several gold denominations also adopted “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
On the Liberty Head double eagle, the motto was added to the reverse in 1866.
This created the Type I and Type II distinctions familiar to double-eagle collectors.
Adding a few words can create an entirely new numismatic type.
The surrounding devices often have to move.
Ribbons, rays, stars, or lettering may be altered.
Thus the motto affected far more than ideology; it changed die layouts across American coinage.
Despite its spread, “IN GOD WE TRUST” was not immediately universal.
Some denominations and designs continued without it.
The motto's presence depended on legislation, available space, and decisions made during redesigns.
One of the most famous controversies came during President Theodore Roosevelt's redesign of American gold coinage.
The new Saint-Gaudens double eagle and Indian Head eagle initially appeared without “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
Roosevelt had religious objections to placing God's name on money that might be used for immoral purposes.
Many Americans disagreed strongly with Roosevelt.
The missing motto became a national political controversy.
Congress responded by requiring its restoration.
Later 1908 Saint-Gaudens double eagles and Indian Head eagles carried “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
Collectors therefore recognize “No Motto” and “With Motto” varieties within those series.
Again, a debate over national symbolism produced major collectible coin types.
From Coin Motto to National Motto
The phrase's importance eventually expanded beyond numismatics.
In 1956, Congress declared “IN GOD WE TRUST” the national motto of the United States.
By then the wording had been associated with American money for more than ninety years.
The motto also appeared on United States paper money.
Its adoption on currency occurred much later than its first appearance on coins.
This broadened the phrase's visibility across the nation's monetary system.
More than a century after Pollock's letter, the motto became the center of another coinage controversy.
The Presidential $1 Coin Program introduced edge lettering that included “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
The words were present, but they were no longer on the obverse or reverse.
Production errors made the controversy worse.
Some 2007 George Washington Presidential dollars escaped the Mint without their edge lettering.
Because the motto was among the missing inscriptions, the error coins acquired the popular nickname “Godless dollars.”
Public criticism contributed to legislation requiring “IN GOD WE TRUST” to appear on the obverse or reverse of Presidential and Native American dollars rather than on the edge.
That legislation was enacted on December 26, 2007—exactly 146 years after Pollock's December 26, 1861 letter.
The date creates an extraordinary numismatic symmetry.
On December 26, 1861, Pollock wrote one of the foundational letters advocating a religious motto on U.S. coinage.
On December 26, 2007, federal law again addressed where that same motto should appear on dollar coins.
The original master-calendar event therefore remains relevant as a later chapter in the story.
The two December 26 events are separated by nearly a century and a half.
The first concerned whether American coins should recognize God at all.
The second concerned whether the established motto was sufficiently visible.
Together they show how deeply the phrase became embedded in American monetary culture.
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History preserves Pollock's December 26, 1861 letter among materials documenting the history of “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
That surviving document allows historians to follow the motto's development from administrative correspondence to circulating coinage.
Original Documents Matter
Numismatic history often depends on coins themselves, but archival records can be equally important.
Letters explain why designs changed.
Mint reports reveal production decisions.
Legislation establishes legal authority.
Newspapers record public reaction.
A collector examining an 1864 two-cent piece can see “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
The coin cannot explain why those words are there.
Pollock's letter and related Treasury correspondence provide that missing context.
The motto was only one of many monetary changes driven by the war.
Precious-metal hoarding altered circulation.
Federal paper money expanded dramatically.
Fractional currency appeared.
Bronze cents and two-cent pieces replaced older copper-nickel formats.
“IN GOD WE TRUST” therefore belongs to the broader story of wartime reinvention.
The Union was changing its financial system while simultaneously defining what the nation represented.
The motto joined economics, politics, religion, and national identity on a tiny metal surface.
Pollock's Mint directorship deserves attention beyond the motto.
He oversaw the institution during one of its most difficult periods.
Branch mints in the South had fallen outside federal control.
Metal supplies, coin demand, and monetary policy were all disrupted by war.
Chase also occupies an important place in American monetary history.
As Treasury secretary, he helped oversee the creation of a vastly expanded federal financial system during the Civil War.
His instruction to Pollock helped set the motto process in motion.
The story also demonstrates how an individual citizen could influence national coinage.
Watkinson was not a Mint official, engraver, congressman, or Treasury bureaucrat.
He was a minister who wrote a letter.
His suggestion reached the right official at a historically charged moment.
No single letter alone created “IN GOD WE TRUST.”
The motto resulted from a sequence involving Watkinson, Chase, Pollock, Congress, Mint engravers, and later lawmakers.
But the scale of the outcome is remarkable.
Words debated in correspondence during 1861 eventually appeared on billions of American coins.
Modern Americans often handle coins without consciously reading their inscriptions.
“LIBERTY,” “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” and “IN GOD WE TRUST” can become visual background.
Studying their origins restores their historical meaning.
A Collector Can Trace the Motto's Evolution
A specialized collection could tell the entire story.
It might begin with Civil War-era patterns using experimental wording.
An 1864 two-cent piece would mark the first regular appearance.
Seated Liberty and gold types could show the motto spreading across denominations.
Later type pairs provide especially clear evidence of change.
A collector can compare a Liberty Head double eagle without the motto to a later version with it.
The same is possible with 1908 Saint-Gaudens double eagles.
Physical coins preserve political history.
The Presidential dollar episode proves that the motto remained capable of generating public debate in the twenty-first century.
Its placement on the edge was legally valid, but many people interpreted the move as diminishing the inscription.
Congress responded by restoring it to a principal face of the coin.
That both the 1861 Pollock letter and the 2007 placement law fall on December 26 is a striking coincidence.
For a day-by-day history of American coinage, it makes December 26 unusually rich.
The date captures both the motto's origin story and a modern debate over its visibility.
On December 26, 1861, Mint Director James Pollock wrote Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase recommending that United States coins include a declaration recognizing God.
The letter did not instantly create “IN GOD WE TRUST,” but it was a crucial step.
Congress subsequently authorized changes to coin inscriptions, Mint officials experimented with wording, and the new bronze two-cent piece introduced the final phrase in 1864.
The motto spread across American coinage, survived controversy, became the national motto in 1956, and remains on U.S. money today.
Remarkably, exactly 146 years after Pollock's letter, another law enacted on December 26 required “IN GOD WE TRUST” to move from the edge of Presidential and Native American dollar coins to a more prominent position.
Few dates reveal the long continuity of American coin symbolism so clearly.
The story began not with a coin rolling from a press, but with words written on paper during the Civil War—words that helped change what Americans would see on their money for generations.
ALSO ON THIS DAY
2007 — Presidential and Native American $1 Coin Inscription Legislation — Federal legislation revised placement of IN GOD WE TRUST on Presidential and Native American $1 coins and authorized D.C./territory quarters provisions.