Hobby Lobby’s “In God We Trust” ad is still untrustworthy

Benjamin Franklin

“I’ve lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: That God governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We’ve been assured in the sacred writings that unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this, and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.” – Benjamin Franklin

VERDICT: Deliberately Altered

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of Men. And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without His Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it. I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring Aid we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local Interests; our Projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and Bye word down to future Ages. And what is worse, Mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate Instance, despair of establishing Governments by human Wisdom and leave it to Chance, War & Conquest.” – Benjamin Franklin

Once again, Hobby Lobby capitalizes “His” – three times in this quote – when the original shows “his”  (alongside capitalizations of many words we would not capitalize today). The founders rarely referred to the Christian god, but this devious edit makes a generic deistic god appear to be the specific Christian one. It changes the meaning of the quote.

This is part of Franklin’s prayer proposal, recorded by James Madison at the Constitutional Convention on June 28, 1787. Here’s an image of Franklin’s original handwritten speech and here’s a printed version of Madison’s recording of Franklin’s speech. (There are discrepancies between this transcription and the original manuscript, mainly in capitalization and punctuation. Our quotation is based on Franklin’s original version.)

The prayer motion was so unimportant that the Constitutional Convention did not even bring it to a vote, let alone pass the resolution. “After several unsuccessful attempts for silently postponing the matter by adjourning,” it failed. Franklin himself wrote that “The [Constitutional] Convention, except three or four persons, thought Prayers unnecessary.”

Hobby Lobby also changes a colon after “Babel” into a period. That’s because a full reading of the quote shows that Franklin did not think our government was established by god – he thought it was established by “human Wisdom.”

Source: Benjamin Franklin, Address to the Federal Convention of 1787 (June 28, 1787). More about Franklin’s views on religion and government.