_"The Founding Fathers expressed in words for all to read the ideal of Government based upon the dignity of the individual. That ideal previously had existed only in the hearts and minds of men. They produced the timeless documents upon which the Nation is founded and has grown great. They, recognizing God as the author of individual rights, declared that the purpose of Government is to secure those rights.
To you and to me this ideal of Government is a self-evident truth. But in many lands the State claims to be the author of human rights. The tragedy of that claim runs through all history and, indeed, dominates our own times. If the State gives rights, it can—and inevitably will—take away those rights. Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first--the most basic—expression of Americanism. Thus the Founding Fathers saw it, and thus, with God's help, it will continue to be. ...Veterans realize, perhaps more clearly than others, the prior place that Almighty God holds in our national life.
And they can appreciate, through personal experience, that the really decisive battleground of American freedom is in the hearts and minds of our own people.... The path we travel is narrow and long, beset with many dangers. Each day we must ask that Almighty God will set and keep His protecting hand over us so that we may pass on to those who come after us the heritage of a free people, secure in their God-given rights and in full control of a Government dedicated to the preservation of those rights..."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
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