The Civil War and the Republican Party’s rise to power and influence shaped Oregon’s political landscape between 1860 and 1920. The legislature ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery, in 1865, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed citizenship to all American-born people, in 1866. A revitalized Democratic Party made a futile gesture to rescind the state’s approval of the Fourteenth Amendment in an Oregon Senate resolution in 1868.
The evidence of the Christian Foundation of America is great. The Providence Foundation has presented much of this in our books and publications, including America’s Providential History, America a Christian Nation, Building Godly Nations, and others. In their Last Will and Testaments, many of our Founders testified of their strong Christian faith. Some wills are very explicit in showing their reliance upon Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; others reflect their reverence for God briefly.