IN GOD WE TRUST: The Story of How the Two-Cent Piece Changed American Coinage Forever

A Nation at War, A Nation in Prayer

The American Civil War reshaped the country in ways that extended far beyond its battlefields. The immense suffering, uncertainty, and moral reckoning of the conflict drove a renewed and intensely public religiosity across the Northern states. Churches filled. Chaplains marched with regiments. And citizens — from farmsteads to the halls of Congress — began to feel that the young republic’s coins, those small discs of metal that passed through millions of hands each day, ought to reflect the nation’s faith in a higher power.

It was Salmon P. Chase, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, who translated that sentiment into official policy. In November 1861, the Reverend Mark Watkinson of Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, wrote to Chase urging that a recognition of God be placed on American coinage, arguing that such an acknowledgment would distinguish the Union from godless tyranny. Chase was immediately receptive. He directed Mint Director James Pollock to develop a suitable motto, and over the following years, various phrases were considered — among them “Our God and Our Country” and “God Our Trust” — before the now-familiar words were settled upon. The phrase that would endure was both simple and profound: IN GOD WE TRUST.

The Act of April 22, 1864, and the Birth of a New Coin

The legal mechanism that finally brought the motto to life was the Act of April 22, 1864. This legislation authorized a new copper-nickel alloy coinage and introduced a denomination that had never previously existed in American currency: the two-cent piece. Composed of 95 percent copper and 5 percent tin and zinc, the coin was designed by James B. Longacre, the Mint’s Chief Engraver, and featured a bold heraldic shield on the obverse surrounded by arrows and a banner bearing the words IN GOD WE TRUST. The reverse displayed the denomination within a decorative wreath.

The choice of the two-cent piece as the vehicle for this historic motto was not merely symbolic. The country was experiencing a severe coinage shortage caused by wartime hoarding of precious metals, and small change of all kinds had effectively vanished from circulation. The new two-cent piece was an immediate practical solution to that shortage — but its place in history was secured not by its denomination, but by the words it carried.

Two Varieties, One Historic Year: The Small Motto and Large Motto of 1864

For numismatists and advanced collectors, the 1864 two-cent piece presents one of the more compelling variety distinctions in all of nineteenth-century American coinage. During the coin’s inaugural year, two distinct hub varieties were produced, differing primarily in the size and style of the motto lettering on the obverse.

The Large Motto variety, which became the standard used for the remainder of the series, features bold, prominent lettering with a wider, more open appearance. The Small Motto variety, produced earlier in 1864 from a different hub, displays noticeably narrower lettering with distinctive characteristics in the “WE” and “TRUST” elements — particularly the narrow profile of the letters and the different curvature of the “D” in “GOD.” The Small Motto is considerably scarcer than its Large Motto counterpart, and specimens in higher circulated grades or Mint State represent genuinely desirable acquisitions. In grades above MS-63, examples can command substantial premiums, reflecting both their limited survival and their status as the very first coins to bear the motto that would become a permanent feature of American currency.

Distinguishing the two varieties with confidence typically requires careful examination of the motto lettering itself, ideally with magnification. Reference works such as the Cherrypickers’ Guide to Rare Die Varieties provide detailed photographic comparisons that are invaluable for variety attribution.

A Short-Lived Denomination

Despite the cultural weight of its inaugural motto, the two-cent piece enjoyed one of the briefest lifespans of any regularly issued United States coin type. Production continued from 1864 through 1872 for circulation, with a final proof-only issue struck in 1873. The denomination’s decline was swift and largely inevitable. When the coinage shortage of the Civil War era resolved and small change returned to circulation, the practical rationale for the two-cent piece evaporated. Merchants and the public alike found the denomination awkward — it fit no natural role in everyday transactions that wasn’t already served by the cent or the nickel three-cent piece. Mintage figures told the story clearly: from a high of nearly 20 million pieces in 1864, production plummeted to just 65,000 by 1872.

The Coinage Act of 1873, sometimes called the “Crime of ’73” for its controversial demonetization of silver, also formally abolished the two-cent piece. It was retired quietly, a denomination that had solved a wartime problem and, in doing so, permanently altered the face of American coinage.

The Lasting Legacy of Four Words

What the two-cent piece lacked in longevity, it more than compensated for in influence. Once IN GOD WE TRUST appeared on a United States coin, the phrase proved essentially impossible to remove. Congress mandated its use on additional denominations throughout the late nineteenth century, and by 1908, legislation required the motto on all gold and silver coinage. After a brief and politically charged absence from certain denominations during Theodore Roosevelt’s coinage redesign — Roosevelt found the motto inappropriate on circulating coins — public outcry and congressional action restored it within a year. In 1956, at the height of Cold War anxieties, Congress passed a joint resolution making IN GOD WE TRUST the official national motto of the United States, and the following year it began appearing on paper currency as well.

Today, those four words appear on every coin and every Federal Reserve note in circulation — a ubiquitous feature of American monetary life that traces its lineage directly to a small copper coin authorized in the spring of 1864. Few coins in American numismatic history have punched so far above their face value. The two-cent piece did not survive, but the legacy it introduced has proven far more durable than the denomination itself.