The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding - Our Lost Founding Archives

March 21: third Selma to Montgomery March Begins

On this day in 1965, the historic third Selma to Montgomery march begins, led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

First, here are some words from his address at the conclusion of the march a few days later:

“Let us march on ballot boxes until all over Alabama God’s children will be able to walk the earth in decency and honor.

There is nothing wrong with marching in this sense. The Bible tells us that the mighty men of Joshua merely walked about the walled city of Jericho and the barriers to freedom came tumbling down. I like that old Negro spiritual, “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” In its simple, yet colorful, depiction of that great moment in biblical history, it tells us that:

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho,
And the walls come tumbling down.
Up to the walls of Jericho they marched, spear in hand.
“Go blow them ramhorns,” Joshua cried,
“‘Cause the battle am in my hand.”

These words I have given you just as they were given us by the unknown, long-dead, dark-skinned originator. Some now long-gone black bard bequeathed to posterity these words in ungrammatical form, yet with emphatic pertinence for all of us today.”

Our hope, Our Nation

Finally, here are a few similar and enduringly pertinent excerpts from his famous “I Have a Dream” speech:

“Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

“And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.”

“With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”

March 21, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Constitution, Founding Documents, Founding Fathers, Presidents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

James Madison and a Pious Presidential Proclamation

On this day in 1751, James Madison is born in Conway, Virginia.

He was a key drafter of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, as well the recorder of the Constitutional Convention. Accordingly, Madison is known as the “Father of the Constitution.”
Furthermore, he was a key author of the Federalist Papers. Finally, Madison served two terms as the fourth President of the United States, from 1809 to 1817.

For all these towering achievements, James Madison stood at just 5′4″. I like him even more.

Divine Destiny

Here are portions of his Proclamation 20 – Recommending a Day of Public Thanksgiving for Peace from March 4, 1815:

“No people ought to feel greater obligations to celebrate the goodness of the Great Disposer of Events and of the Destiny of Nations than the people of the United States.”

“And to the same Divine Author of Every Good and Perfect Gift we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.”

March 16, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

In God We Trust, State Constitution, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Florida : The Sunshine State shares Our Motto

On this day in 1845, Florida, nicknamed the “Sunshine State” becomes the twenty-seventh state in the Union.

First, here’s the the Preamble of the Florida Consitution

“We, the people of the State of Florida, being grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty, in order to secure its benefits, perfect our government, insure domestic tranquility, maintain public order, and guarantee equal civil and political rights to all, do ordain and establish this constitution.”

We/our

Additionally, Florida shares the “In God We Trust” motto with the United States, and it appears on the state seal, depicted below. The state flag combines overlays the seal on a St. Andrews Cross on a field of white.
Interestingly, the state’s first motto was “In God is our Trust.”
That is how the phrase appears in the fourth and final stanza of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key.

You can find that specific verse on Our “Star-Spangled Motto” t-shirt HERE.

March 3, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

American Icons, In God We Trust, National Anthem, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding, War of 1812

From “Defence of Fort M’Henry” to Our National Anthem

On this day in 1931, President Herbert Hoover signs a congressional act making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem of the United States.

On September 14, 1814, during the War of 1812, American attorney Francis Scott Key was detained aboard a British ship in Baltimore Harbor where he witnessed the massive overnight British bombardment of Fort McHenry. Seeing the American flag still flying in the morning inspired him to write his poem, the “Defence of Fort M’Henry.” A few months later, the poem was set to music of “To Anacreon in Heaven” and renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

In God We Trust

As we (should) know, our National Motto is “In God We Trust,” and has been for over 60 years.
In fact, we find an early iteration of it in the fourth verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner”:

“Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

It is that key couplet that inspired Our Star-Spangled Motto shirt, available HERE.

My visit to Fort McHenry in April 2014 was one “key” experience that led me to start Our Lost Founding.

March 3, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

American Icons, Civil War, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Sam Houston: Soldier, Statesman, and so on…

On March 2, 1793, Sam Houston is born in Virginia.

The celebrated liberator of Texas and the first president of the Republic of Texas made it clear that Texas was to become part of the United States.

Sam Houston served for 14 years as a U.S. senator, where he argued for Native American rights.

His antislavery beliefs did not align with the southern ideology of Texas, so he resisted secession from the Union during the 1850s and refused to swear allegiance to the Confederacy when Texas voted to break from the Union in 1861.

Then, after a brief retirement from public service he died in 1863.

Interestingly, March 2 is also the day that Texas declared independence from Mexico.

Attribute Alliteration

Lastly, the inscription on his tomb reads:

A Brave Soldier. A Fearless Statesman.
A Great Orator—A Pure Patriot.
A Faithful Friend, A Loyal Citizen.
A Devoted Husband and Father.
A Consistent Christian—An Honest Man.

March 2, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Articles of Confederation signature page

Founding Documents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Confederation Ratification

On this day in 1781, the Articles of Confederation are ratified. This document guided the United States until it was replaced by the Constitution in 1789.

The Revolution brought Americans from living under a sovereign king, to living in sovereign states, to becoming a sovereign people.
Providentially, all of this happened over the course of just two decades.
This transformation was the fruit of the collective effort to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.”
This government was founded on the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” acknowledging our “unalienable rights” from our “Creator.”

The Great Governor of the World

Indeed, here is the first half of the last paragraph of the Articles:

“And Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, Know Ye, that we, the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do, by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained.”

March 1, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

African-Americans, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Hiram Rhodes Revels: From Congregants to Congress

On this date in 1870 Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the U.S. Senate, becoming the first African American to sit in Congress.

His father was a Baptist preacher, and in 1845, Revels became an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“The logical sequence”

Here is a powerful portion of the first speech Hiram Rhodes Revels gave to the Senate on March 16, 1870:

“Mr. President, I maintain that the past record of my race is a true index of the feelings which today animate them. They bear toward their former masters no revengeful thoughts, no hatreds, no animosities. They aim not to elevate themselves by sacrificing one single interest of their white fellow-citizens. They ask but the rights which are theirs by God’s universal law, and which are the natural outgrowth, the logical sequence of the condition in which the legislative enactment of this nation have placed them. They appeal to you and to me to see that they receive that protection which alone will enable them to pursue their daily avocations with success and enjoy the liberties of citizenship on the same footing with their white neighbors and friends.”

February 25, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Founding Fathers, Presidents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding, Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson : The third president on “the sum of good government”

On this day in 1801, Vice President Thomas Jefferson is elected the third president of the United States. His running mate and eventual opponent was the infamous Aaron Burr. A tie vote in the Electoral College and 35 indecisive ballot votes in the House of Representatives preceded Jefferson’s election.

“With all these blessings”

Thus, Thomas Jefferson shared this at his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801

“Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter — with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”

February 17, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Abraham Lincoln, Presidents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Abraham Lincoln born on February 12th

On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Despite growing up a member of a poor family in Kentucky and Indiana, Lincoln became one of America’s most admired presidents.

“A new birth”

Regarding another form of birth, you have likely heard this quote from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:

“this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

February 12, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Abraham Lincoln, African-Americans, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet addresses the House

On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln’s 56th birthday, Rev. Dr. Henry Highland Garnet was the first African American to address the U.S. House of Representatives.

Garnet, a former slave himself, was a pastor of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. His sermon commemorated the victories of the Union army and the deliverance of the country from slavery.

Notably, President Lincoln arranged for the special Sunday service.

“From foundation to dome”

Here’s an excerpt from Garnet’s historic address:

“The other day, when the light of Liberty streamed through this marble pile, and the hearts of the noble band of patriotic statesmen leaped for joy, and this our national capital shook from foundation to dome with the shouts of a ransomed people, then methinks the spirits of Washington, Jefferson, the Jays, the Adamses, and Franklin, and Lafayette, and Giddings, and Lovejoy, and those of all the mighty, and glorious dead, remembered by history, because they were faithful to truth, justice, and liberty, were hovering over the august assembly. Though unseen by mortal eyes, doubtless they joined the angelic choir, and said, Amen.”

…

“Then before us a path of prosperity will open, and upon us will descend the mercies and favors of God. Then shall the people of other countries, who are standing tiptoe on the shores of every ocean, earnestly looking to see the end of this amazing conflict, behold a Republic that is sufficiently strong to outlive the ruin and desolations of civil war, having the magnanimity to do justice to the poorest and weakest of her citizens. Thus shall we give to the world the form of a model Republic, founded on the principles of justice and humanity and Christianity, in which the burdens of war and the blessings of peace are equally borne and enjoyed by all.”

Henry Higland Garnet

February 12, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding

Abraham Lincoln, Presidents, The Common Thread of Our Lost Founding

The Abraham Lincoln Bible, “this great book”

On this day in 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln leaves his home in Springfield, Illinois bound for Washington, D.C.

Unfortunately, his belongings, including his Bible, did not arrive in time for his inauguration.

So, William Thomas Carroll, the clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court, provided a bible that he kept for official use, which went on to become what we know as the “Lincoln Bible,” and the design inspiration for one of Our t-shirts.

Find yours here:

Abraham Lincoln Bible “…This Great Book…”

February 11, 2021/0 Comments/by Our Lost Founding