It’s was a nice prayer Mike Johnson, but Thomas Jefferson probably didn’t pray it

In case you missed it, Mike Johnson was re-elected Speaker of the House today. Watch his speech here:

At the fourteen minute mark, Johnson said:

…I was asked to provide a prayer for the nation. I offered one that is quite familiar to historians and probably many of us…It is said that each day of his eight years of the presidency and every day thereafter until his death, President Thomas Jefferson recited this prayer. I wanted to share it with you here at the end of my remarks not as a prayer per se right now, but as really as a reminder of what our third president and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence thought was so important that it should be a daily recitation. Let me just read you that prayer. It goes like this:

Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage, we humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners.

Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindred and tongues.

Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those who in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government that their may be justice and peace a home, and that through obedience to Thy law we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth.

In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness and in the day of trouble suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

It’s a nice prayer. But there is no evidence Thomas Jefferson ever prayed it.

Here is the Monticello website:

We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson. It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer, and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919.

Interestingly, although we can find no evidence that this prayer has a presidential source, it was used by a subsequent president in a public speech. Several months after his 1930 Thanksgiving Day Address as Governor of New York, it was pointed out that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech bore a striking resemblance to the very same prayer discussed above.

Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Jefferson would have composed or delivered a public prayer of this sort. He considered religion a private matter, and when asked to recommend a national day of fasting and prayer, replied, “I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the constitution from intermedling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”

A quick search of a few databases suggests that parts of this prayer have been floating around since the late 19th century.

Johnson may have pulled the prayer from William Federer’s America’s God and Country, a book of quotations popular with the Christian Right. On page 327, Federer says that Jefferson offered this “National Prayer for Peace” on March 4, 1805, the day of Second Inaugural Address. He cites Adrienne Koch’s and William Paden’s 1944 collection, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Random House). But the citation is wrong. Koch and Paden do not include this prayer in their collection.

By the way, the dean of the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. references the prayer, but attributes it to the Book of Common Prayer.