BOOK REVIEW: IN GOD WE TRUST

In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking and Religion
by William Bierly, Whitman Publishing, 2019, 336 pages, $29.95.

This book reveals very many facts, some deeply interconnected, others tangential to each other, some presenting intersecting truths, others delivering congruent validations. The central story appears in the middle of the book—Chapter 11: The Mint Act of April 22, 1864; and Chapter 12: Why the Words "In God We Trust"?. After a Preamble, Chapter 2: The Letter exposes the Reverend Mark R. Watkinson, the Baptist minister who wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase suggesting that our coinage should carry an appeal to the Almighty. Watkinson also took his plea to Mint director James Pollock and eventually to President Lincoln. But Watkinson was complicated. He started out as a rebel in support of secession; and he abandoned his congregation in Portsmouth, Virginia, when a different truth was revealed to him.

But it doesn't stop there. William Bierly has given American numismatics an important and lasting history. To put that statement into context, very few nations have been able to maintain their political traditions as long as we have. Most were changed and some were destroyed by wars and revolutions. Ours was born in a revolutionary war, and the War Between the States can be understood as the Second American Revolution. It was at once social, political, economic, financial, military, and technological. As an artifact of culture, money is speech; and for over 150 years, American money has declared liberty, union, and our trust in God.

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
NEW BOOK: IN GOD WE TRUST (https://www.coinbooks.org/v22/esylum_v22n41a04.html)
AUTHOR: WHY I WROTE 'IN GOD WE TRUST' (https://www.coinbooks.org/v22/esylum_v22n45a05.html)
BOOK REVIEW: IN GOD WE TRUST (https://www.coinbooks.org/v22/esylum_v22n42a07.html)

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