In the Old Speaker’s Chamber, John Quincy Adams faced death, looked it square in the face with a full awareness of its implications, and displayed no fear. This confirmed to observers that he indeed was a Christian, for he had died as he had lived – with a firm reliance upon His Savior.
As already noted, Robert Winthrop was Speaker of the House when John Quincy Adams died, and it was in Winthrop’s office that Adams expired. Robert Winthrop’s portrait hangs in the Speaker’s Lobby along with the portraits of the other Speakers of the House.
Robert Winthrop was a statesman, an eminent historian, and a strong Christian. For example, notice this excerpt from a speech he delivered on the Bible and American government. He declared:
All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet. It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the State supporting Religion. Here, under our own free institutions, it is Religion which must support the State.
This is a powerful truth. As Speaker Winthrop observed, citizens will be controlled either by the Bible or by the bayonet – that is, either by internal self-controls applied from the Word of God or by external coercion and the threat of force. Obviously, the Bible no longer has the powerful public presence that it once did, having been removed by the courts from our schools and public life. The result – as Speaker Robert Winthrop predicted – is an attempt to coerce or force good behavior. Consequently, there has been an explosion of laws, with over 100,000 new laws introduced each session in our State legislatures and in the federal Congress. The words of Speaker Robert Winthrop should be remembered today: if men are not self-controlled through the teachings of the Bible, then the only alternative for civil government is coercion.
Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop was another of the many strong Christians who guided the deliberations within the Old House Chamber.
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