A RESOLUTION authorizing any Harlan County teacher or administrator to read or post any excerpts or portions of other Kentucky and American historical documents such as the National anthem; the Pledge of Allegiance; the National Motto: "IN GOD WE TRUST;" the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution; the Declaration of Independence; the Mayflower Compact; the writings, speeches, documents, and proclamations of the Founding Fathers and Presidents of the United States; United States Supreme Court decisions; and acts of the United States Congress including the published text of the Congressional Record, without censorship because of any Christian or religious references in these writings, documents, and historical records.

WHEREAS, Richard C. Halverson, as Chaplain of the United States Senate, expressed concern about "the methods employed in the rewriting of Americaâs history" and has further warned that: "God is being systematically removed from the foundational truths undergirding this land."

WHEREAS, since 1965, when public schools began receiving federal funds, the drive to remove every memorial, monument, plaque, symbol, emblem, or landmark which contains a historical reminder of Americaâs Christian history [see The Rewriting of Americaâs History by Catherine Millard, Horizon House Publishers, 1991]; and

WHEREAS, the Harlan County School Board, followed the example of the 248 members of the U.S. House of Representatives including all six Kentucky Congressmen/women who voted 248-180 in June of 1999 to allow states to display the commandments in schoolhouses and other state-owned facilities; and

WHEREAS, Americaâs colonial governments adopted the Ten Commandments not as a religious icon, but as the basis for their law order; which was illustrated on April 3, 1644 when the New Haven Colony Charter was adopted making:

The judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction.

WHEREAS, each of the Ten Commandments has, at some point in our history been codified in Kentucky's civil and criminal laws and similarly in the legal codes of every other state in America; and

WHEREAS, famed American educator and founding father Noah Webster, who compiled the American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828, clearly described the mindset of the Founders who favored a Biblical basis for American law:

The moral principles and precepts contained in the scriptures ought to form the basis for all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible; and

WHEREAS, William Blackstone, Esq., eminent British jurist, Professor of Law, Solicitor General to His Majesty and legal scholar, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England published in 1765 stated:

Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation (the Bible) depend all human laws; and

Blackstone's writings were extremely influential in shaping the Declaration of Independence and the other foundation documents of the American Republic, which became the authority for much of our original American system of jurisprudence; and

WHEREAS, the public gains access to the United States Supreme Court chamber through an attractive oak doorway and each door has engraved upon its lower portion, the Ten Commandments of Almighty God (Exodus 20); and the inner courtroom of the United States Supreme Court contains four marble relief panels beneath the ceiling on each of the four walls; and each has a particular story to tell; and the panel directly above the bench where the Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices are seated depicts "The Power of Government" and "The Majesty of Law."; and between these two allegorical figures, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS stand out in a position of prominence; and the seated figure representing "The Power of Government" has his elbow squarely resting upon God's Ten Commandments, thus showing the source from whence our laws and governmental power of the state is derived; and

WHEREAS, on February 16, 1993 the Special Session of the Kentucky General Assembly on Ethics acknowledged an inseparable connection between the ethical conduct of that legislative body and the Christian principles which permeate our society and institutions when the Kentucky House of Representatives unanimously adopted Majority Floor Leader Greg Stumbo's House Resolution 42 to adjourn "the 1993 Extraordinary Session on Ethics in remembrance and honor of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Ethics"; and

WHEREAS, President George Washington in his "Farewell Address" of September 19, 1796, pointed out the connection between the Faith of the nation and its political prosperity when he declared:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?

WHEREAS, President George Washington pointed out the crucial link between religion and public morality in his "Farewell Address" of September 19, 1796 where he stated:

?let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle; and

WHEREAS, the initial draft of the First Amendment which James Madison made on June 8, 1789 accurately expresses the fundamental intent of the founders:

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed; and

WHEREAS, on August 20, 1789 Congressman Fisher Ames from Massachusetts suggested the wording of the First Amendment adopted by the House in the First Session of the Congress of the United States; and

WHEREAS, on the issue of education, Fisher Ames and other Founders clearly demonstrated in their writings that they never intended that the First Amendment should be

used as a weapon of secularists to suppress and remove the Bible and the Ten Commandments from school classrooms:

Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble .... The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed lasts long, and probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.... In no Book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant, and by teaching all the same they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith; and

WHEREAS, Congressman Ames further amplified his concern that the American education should rest upon a Biblical foundation when he stated in Palladium magazine on September 20, 1789:

We've become accustomed of late of putting little books into the hands of children containing fables and moral lessons .... We are spending less time in the classroom on the Bible which should be the principal text in our schools .... The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other manmade book; and

WHEREAS, the Founding Fathersâ belief that elected officials have a duty to publicly acknowledge God as the source of Americaâs strength and direction is further shown by the fact that, on April 27, 1789, prior to the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States, Congress passed a resolution in the Senate, and later in the House, instructing that "the President, he, attended by the Vice President, and the members of the Senate, and House of Representatives, proceed to St. Paul's Chapel, to hear divine service, to be performed by the Chaplain of Congress already appointed"; and

WHEREAS, in signing the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams the "Father of the American Revolution" and the instigator of the Boston Tea Party emphasized the Biblical presuppositions of this Document when he declared:

We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come; and

WHEREAS, Samuel Adams recognized a direct correlation between the virtue of the American people and the survival of the Republic when he stated:

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader; and

WHEREAS, President Woodrow Wilson underscored the importance of understanding the Founding Fatherâs original intent when in 1913 he declared:

A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about; and

WHEREAS, the Framers of Kentuckyâs Constitution acknowledged Almighty God to be the source of the Commonwealthâs political and religious liberties in the following words:

We, the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy, and invoking the continuance of these blessings, do ordain and establish this Constitution.

WHEREAS, America's birth is a mystery to most citizens, since according to many public and private surveys over the past several decades, three out of ten Americans do not know that their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" was set forth in the Declaration of Independence; nearly a third of American children and a quarter of American adults did not know whether the "British Redcoats" fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War or World War I; more than two-thirds of America's children did not know that is was Patrick Henry (rather than Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or Paul Revere) who said, "Give me liberty or give me death", according to a survey commissioned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1996; and

WHEREAS, the Kentucky General Assembly and Harlan County School Board have declared the understanding of American history, including the Biblical origins of many of the laws of our Republic and of Kentuckyâs civil and criminal codes, to be among the reasons for displaying historic documents including the Ten Commandments and President Ronald Reaganâs declaration on how important the Ten Commandments are to any system of just law as contained in Wednesday, February 2, 1983 Congressional Record:

They say that man in his entire history has written about four billion laws and with all the four billion they havenât improved on the Ten Commandments one bit.

WHEREAS, the Harlan County Board of Education has declared the teaching of American history, including the Biblical origins of many of the laws of our Republic and Kentuckyâs civil and criminal codes, to be prominent among the goals of the Harlan County Public Schools; and

WHEREAS, the Harlan County Board of Education has determined that there is valid educational purpose in teaching history from original sources and documents and that this educational goal will be advanced by displaying in the entry hall in common areas of each school of the district a copy of the Mayflower Compact, the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution, President Lincolnâs National Day of Prayer Proclamation of March 30, 1863; President Reaganâs Proclamation of 1983 as the Year of the Bible; and Congressman Philip M. Craneâs remarks in the Congressional Record of February 2, 1983; and

WHEREAS, in 1997, when the KRS 158.195 had not begun to be implemented in or made widely known to the public school teachers of the Commonwealth since its adoption in 1992, Governor Brereton Jones as a private citizen called for a diverse committee of Kentucky state leaders and educators (PERK) to study the problem of reintroducing portions of American and Kentucky history which had previously been ignored or even censored, because most students are still unaware of the extent to which the Biblical foundations of our nation and state are reflected throughout our history; and

WHEREAS, for two years the Public Education and Religion in Kentucky (PERK) Committee met in Frankfort, Kentucky and eventually reached a consensus in which the public and private colleges and universities as well as school boards and school based decision making councils have been asked to review and implement the letter and spirit of KRS 158.195, and to add to their curricula courses which would utilize those fundamental historic materials and original documents as a minimum starting point, and;

WHEREAS, the PERK committeeâs meetings over the 1997-1999 period revealed some disturbing findings including a classroom teacher on the committee who acknowledged that she and other teachers are intimidated and even fearful about the use in the classroom of original historic documents which had Christian content. The PERK committee unanimously condemned the attitudes and/or behavior of any school officials or others creating any such spirit of fear or censorship and took as its guiding principle for its two years of deliberations the Declaration of the Kentucky General Assemblyâs KRS 158.195 enacted in 1992 which provided in part that;

There shall be no content-based censorship of American history or heritage in the Commonwealth based on religious references in these writings, documents, and records. KRS 158.195

Equally disturbing was the fact that during the PERK meeting it was stated that after 1965 when the first major federal public education funds came to Kentucky under the Johnson administration, teachers, librarians, and public school administrators believed that the use of such historic documents with religious content violated some federal guidelines, and consequently, many of these documents gradually fell into disuse:

THEREFORE, be it resolved that copies of the foregoing historical documents may be prominently displayed in the entry hall or foyer and classrooms where history is taught in Harlan County Public Schools; and that, each such display shall be accompanied by clearly legible copies of this resolution and of KRS 158.195 and the words: "This display of American and Kentucky historical documents is authorized by KRS 158.195"; and that the cost of posting and maintaining such displays may be defrayed in whole or part, by voluntary private contributions.

DONE at the City of Harlan, County of Harlan, Commonwealth of Kentucky, pursuant to and in furtherance of the policy adopted by the Harlan County Board of Education at its Special Meeting on December 14, 1999, regarding the "Reading and Posting of Text and Documents of American History and Heritage" in accordance with and in implementation of KRS.158.195, on this 30^th day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine, and of the Republic the two hundred and twenty-third, and of the Commonwealth the two hundred and seventh, in witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands.

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