U.S. Mint Releases 250th Anniversary Quarter - A Tribute to the Christian Roots of the Country
The United States Mint released into circulation on Monday the first of five newly designed quarters to commemorate the nation’s 250th birthday, and this one focuses on America’s Christian heritage.
The Mayflower Compact Quarter features on the front side two Pilgrims, a man and a woman, under a banner that reads “E Pluribus Unum,” which is Latin for “out of the many, one.”
It also includes the national motto, “In God We Trust.”
The other side depicts the Mayflower ship, in which the Pilgrims traveled to the New World in 1620, with the words “Mayflower Compact” and “Liberty” beneath it.
🪙Releasing into circulation today! The Mayflower Compact Quarter is the first of five new Quarter Dollar designs for 2026. Learn more about the design and #America250 on our website ➡️ https://t.co/ORcoh7lxib @America250 pic.twitter.com/g0Tl6ADCW7
— United States Mint (@usmint) January 5, 2026
The Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact on board their ship off the coast of Cape Cod in November 1620, after recognizing that they had arrived far north of their intended destination of the Virginia Colony, and therefore needed to adopt a governing charter.
The document reads in part, “Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick…”
“And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.”
In addition to the Mayflower Compact Quarter, the U.S. Mint will also be releasing the Revolutionary War Quarter, the Declaration of Independence Quarter, the U.S. Constitution Quarter, and the Gettysburg Address Quarter.
USA Today reported that the Revolutionary War Quarter features George Washington on the front and a Continental Army soldier on the back.
“The Declaration of Independence Quarter displays a side portrait of Thomas Jefferson on the front with the Liberty Bell on the back. The U.S. Constitution Quarter features a portrait of James Madison; the Gettysburg Address Quarter features Abraham Lincoln on the front, with two clasped hands on the back and the inscription ‘A New Nation Conceived in Liberty,’” the outlet said.
The New York Times noted this was a change from the designs chosen by a committee while President Joe Biden was in office.
The designs previously recommended included quarters depicting abolitionist Frederick Douglass, women’s voting rights suffragettes, and 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, who helped desegregate the New Orleans school system in 1960.
Acting Mint Director Kristie McNally said in a news release last month regarding the final selections, “The designs on these historic coins depict the story of America’s journey toward a ‘more perfect union,’ and celebrate America’s defining ideals of liberty.”
As I explain in my book “We Hold These Truths,” there is a direct line from the covenants that the children of ancient Israel entered into under the leadership of Moses in the Old Testament before God to follow the Ten Commandments and other ordinances to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the ideals Lincoln expressed in the Gettysburg Address.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia noted in 2005, citing court precedent, “The ‘fact that the Founding Fathers believed devotedly that there was a God and that the unalienable rights of man were rooted in Him is clearly evidenced in their writings, from the Mayflower Compact to the Constitution itself.’”
The Founders referenced God four times in the Declaration of Independence, and as was the case in the Mayflower Compact, they recognized that the Almighty was sovereign over all, appealing to the “Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.”
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor,” they wrote.
The framers of the Constitution entered into a biblical-style covenant, as well, writing in the Preamble, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The document concluded, “done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.”
The Year of our Lord is, of course, a reference to Jesus Christ, and the year of independence refers to the Declaration adopted on July 4, 1776.
Finally, Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address, following a decisive battle in the Civil War, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Four score and seven years is 87 years, which from 1863 takes you back to 1776, or in other words, the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Bravo to the Trump administration for acknowledging America’s Christian heritage in its first coin released for the 250th anniversary celebration!
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