Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) read off a prayer on Friday shortly after being re-elected to House speaker, but experts say he flubbed his assertion it was recited daily by President Thomas Jefferson.
“I was asked to provide a prayer for the nation," Johnson told his colleagues on Friday, according to a report in The Daily Beast. "I offered one that is quite familiar to historians and probably many of us. It is said each day of his eight years of the presidency and every day thereafter until his death, President Thomas Jefferson recited this prayer."
Johnson continued: "I wanted to share it with you here at the end of my remarks not as a prayer per se right now, but 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."
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The prayer in question: the National Prayer of Peace.
The text is as follows:
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 kindreds and tongues.
Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at 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.
But according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, there's no evidence to support the nation's third president ever recited the prayer.
"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," the foundation said on its Monticello website.
The foundation added that the prayer was later used by a 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," the foundation noted.
Even so, any tie to Jefferson appears baseless.
"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."
