State Motto Of Ohio

State Motto Of Ohio

“With God All Things Are Possible” Is The Official State Motto Of Ohio. “With God All Things Are Possible” Adopted as The Ohio State Motto on October 1, 1959.  An old boy Named James Mastronardo recommended this quotation from the bible during a contest in the early 1950s to select a State Motto (sponsored by the Ohio legislature). Ohio’s first State Motto was the short-lived expression. After the Civil War Ohio adopted “Imperium In Impeno” as its motto which translates to “An empire within an empire.” This was like saying Ohio is the center of the nation. For some, this was just about right. Others weren’t so sure. 

 

The next General Assembly quickly corrected the situation by disavowing the official State Motto Of Ohio for No motto at all. So just 1 year later, that motto was officially dropped from the official state documents and Ohio went without an official motto for the next 90 or so years. That’s when they got a plea from a young man in Cincinnati asking the legislature to come up with a new Ohio State Motto. Ohio just couldn’t be the only state in the Union without an official motto.  Sensing growing unrest among the voters, the Ohio Legislature decided Ohio just wasn’t complete without a state motto. The Ohio Legislature let it be known that they would be accepting ideas for a new motto.

 

The young man who made the request responded to the legislature with the recommendation to use a verse from the Book of Matthew, Chapter 19, Verse 26. Today, the idea of using a Bible verse might seem impossible, but in the 1950s, life in Ohio was a little simpler and religion played an important role in daily life. Young James Mastronardo’s recommendation made the top of the new Ohio State Motto list. He came up from Cincinnati and spoke before the General Assembly on why this particular verse was worthy of being the official State Motto Of Ohio. Whether or not he made this fact known to the legislators or not is unknown, but it should be pointed out that if the General Assembly accepted his idea, it would mean that Ohio would be the only state in the Union to actually use a Bible verse for its Slogan.

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