Government and the Bible
The Continental Congress, in 1777, recommended and approved that the Committee of Commerce "import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere," because of the great need of the American people and the great shortage caused by the interruption of trade with England by the Revolutionary War.[14]
Under British law it had been illegal to print a Bible in the English Language in America; after Surrender of British at Yorktown 1781, Congress approved the plan and established a committee to oversee the printing of America's very first very own English Bible. The endorsement in the front of it read, "The United States and Congress assembled recommends this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States."[15]