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Remarks of the President, the Vice President, Carl Albert, and Warren E. Burger [Ford Speech or Statement]
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7344818
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Remarks of the President, the Vice President, Carl Albert, and Warren E. Burger [Ford Speech or Statement]
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Digitized from Box 28 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 2, 1976
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
THE WHITE HOUSE
REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT
THE VICE PRESIDENT
CARL ALBERT
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
AND
WARREN E. BURGER
CHIEF JUSTICE
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
9:13 P.M. EDT
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Mr. President, Mr. Speaker,
Mr. Chief Justice: Tonight we will hear from the three
great Americans who each head one of the three separate
branches of our Federal Government. First, a great and wise
human being, the distinguished Chief Justice of the United
States, the Honorable Warren Burger.
CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER: Mr. Vice President, Mr.
President, Mr. Speaker, distinguished guests, ladies and
gentlemen:
The Declaration that is being honored tonight had
no binding legal effect when it was announced 200 years ago,
but it guided the men who, 11 years later, drafted the
Constitution. The Declaration was a statement of intent and
purpose. The Constitution was a compact of people, a contract,
if vou will, to carry out the Declaration. Our Constitution
created a Government in which the people have the supreme and
ultimate power. The opening words of the preamble tell us
that "We, the people, have agreed among ourselves that power
must be used in an orderly way under rules laid down in the
Constitution.
As school children, we learned that those who came
to our shores agreed to give up some of their individual
freedom for the common good. The Mayflower Compact and others
like it were in a sense the forerunners of the Constitution,
and that Constitution now stands as the greatest human compact
in history. Our form of Government differs from all others
ever devised, and ever since it was adopted the Constitution
has operated like the stars that guided the first travelers
on the open seas where there were no landmarks to guide them.
Our Constitution is not perfect, and even less so
are the mortals who must try to say what it means. But,
what is important is that it has been the guide to keep us
on the paths of freedom that were laid out so long ago.
The American people have firmly supported the Constitution
and the means established to enforce its guarantees. It has
been tested under the stress of internal and external war-
fare, by economic catastrophies and in political crises,
and on every occasion the country has emerged stronger.
MORE
Page 2
These two documents, the Declaration and the
Constitution, embark the American people on an experiment in
a new form of Government, self-government, that has survived
longer than any other kind of Government in recorded history.
In this experiment, that remarkable group of American leaders
wisely recognized the paradox of freedom that to preserve
liberty each one of us must give some of it up.
This is why we have come to call our system one
of ordered liberty, liberty exercised in an orderly way with
restraints and with respect for the rights of others. To
create and maintain such a system was the function of our
Constitution.
The problems and burdens of those 3 million early
Americans who began this experiment were so great from 1776
to 1789 that those leaders constantly called for divine
guidance in their efforts. With the complexities of a Nation
now grown to 215 million people, and the world problems that
we must share, can we survive without it?
Washington, both as a General and as President,
constantly called for divine guidance and credited all
progress and success to that source. When the Declaration
was signed, John Adams wrote his wife Abigail saying that
Uuly 4 ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by
solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God." And when the
Constitution was finally approved, James Madison observed
that "All people must perceive in the Constitution a finger
of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently extended
to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."
We have survived and prospered for 200 years now
because the strength of our Nation was not simply in the words
of the Declaration and the Constitution, great as they are,
but because of the strength of the people, of personal
integrity, of individual responsibility and of the tradition
of home and family and of religious beliefs.
Our Constitution, no constitution, can solve all
our problems. At its best, our Constitution gives the American
people the means and the opportunity to find solutions, by
their own efforts, by their dedication and by their love of
country.
The French historian de Tocqueville long ago wrote
this about America: "I sought for the greatness and genius
of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers,
and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless
prairies, and it was not there; in her rich gold mines and
her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I
went into the ehurches of America did I understand the secret
of her genius and her power. America is great because she
is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will
cease to be great."
MORE
Page 3
SPEAKER ALBERT: Mr. President, Mr. Vice President,
Mr. Chief Justice, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
The decisive act of inspiration from England
actually took place on July 2, exactly 200 years ago today,
when the Continental Congress adopted the resolution of
independence, drafted by a committee of five, headed by
Thomas Jefferson. Thus, it is especially appropriate that
we launch this Fourth of July weekend this evening, July 2.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives and the
Senate unanimously passed Concurrent Resolution 672 wherein
it was stated that "the Congress of the United States of America
does. hereby reaffirm its commitment to the ideals and
principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence
by members of the Congress assembled in Philadelphia on July
2, 1776."
The Declaration launched our quest for freedom.
Five long years would pass before the English forces, led
by General Cornwallis, would surrender at Yorktown. The
emerging Nation would struggle under ineffective Articles
of Confederation for six more years before formulating the
Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. The body of our
Constitution set up our tripartite system of Government and
gave us a mechanism of Government that would endure for
generations, that would enable us to accomplish our goals.
It was not until 1791, two years after the
Constitution had been ratified, fifteen years after the
signing of the Declaration of Independence, that the Bill
of Rights breathed life into the immortal document known as
the Declaration of Independence. It was handled in the
Congress by James Madison, but it was the inspiration of the
author of the Declaration of Independence.
The sage of Monticello wanted to make sure in his
letters to many leading Americans in many States that the
liberties which he proclaimed in 1776 would be given substance
in the Constitution. Had it not been for that leadership
there would be no guaranteed freedom of worship, no freedom
of speech, no freedom of press, no right of peaceful assemblage,
no right to petition in case of grievances.
Because of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution,
my fellow Americans, no man may cross the threshold of your
home without a search warrant, no man may cast you in prison
without a trial by a jury of your peers, These are the
concrete cornerstones of our liberty proclaimed in the
Declaration of Independence; these are the basic principles
of the ends of our system of Government.
We meet tonight to rededicate ourselves to the
perpetuation of these principles. To this end, it may be
well to repeat the closing of the Declaration of Independence
itself: "With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our
fortunes and our sacred honor."
MORE
Page 4
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker,
Mr. Chief Justice, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
I am standing here before the great charters of
American liberty under law. Millions of Americans, before
me and after me, will have looked and lingered over these
priceless documents that have guided our 200 years of high
adventure as "a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Those were Lincoln's words, as he looked to the
Declaration of Independence for guidance when a raging storm
obscured the Constitution. We are gathered here tonight
to honor both.
Even the way these parchments are displayed is
instructive: Together, as they must be historically under-
stood; the Constitution and its first 10 Amendments on an
equal plane; the Declaration of Independence properly central
and above all.
The Declaration is the Polaris of our political
order -- the fixed star of freedom. It is impervious to
change because it states moral truths that are eternal.
The Constitution provides for its own changes, having
equal force with the original articles. It began to change
soon after it was ratified when the Bill of Rights was added.
We have since amended it 16 times more, and before we celebrate
our 300th birthday there will be more changes.
But the Declaration will be there, exactly as it
was when the Continental Congress adopted it -- after
eliminating and changing some of Jefferson's draft, much to
his annoyance. Jefferson's immortal words will remain, and
they will be preserved in human hearts even if this original
parchment should fall victim to time and fate.
Listen: "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 -- That
to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men
deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed."
The act of Independence, the actual separation of
colonies and Crown, took place 200 years ago today, when the
delegations of 12 colonies adopted Richard Henry Lee's
resolution of independence. The founders expected that July 2
would be celebrated as the national holiday of the newborn
Republic, but they took two more days to debate and to approve
this declaration, an announcement to the world of what they
had done and the reasons why.
MORE
Page 5
The Declaration and other great documents of our
heritage remind me of the flying machines across the Mall in
the new museum we opened yesterday. From the Spirit of St.
Louis to the lunar orbital capsules we see vehicles that enabled
Americans to cross vast distances in space. In our archives
and libraries we find documents to transport us across
centuries in time, back to Mount Sinai and the Sea of Galilee,
to Runnymede, to the pitching cabin of the Mayflower, and to
sweltering Philadelphia in midsummer, 1776.
If we maneuver our time vehicle along to 1787, we
see the chamber of Independence Hall, where the Constitution
is being drafted under the stern eye of George Washington.
Some other faces are familiar. Benjamin Franklin is there,
of course, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Thomas Jefferson
has gone to Paris. The quiet genius of this Convention is
James Madison.
But Jefferson's principles are very much present.
The Constitution, when it is done, will translate the great
ideals of the Declaration into a legal mechanism for effective
government, where the unalienable rights of individual
Americans are secure.
In grade school, we were taught to memorize the
first and last parts of the Declaration. Nowadays even many
scholars skip over the long recitation of alleged abuses by
King George III and his misguided ministers. But occasionally
we ought to read them because the injuries and invasions of
individual rights listed there are the very excesses of
government power which the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
and subsequent amendments were designed to prevent.
The familiar parts of the Declaration describe the
positives of freedom; the dull part, the negatives. Not all
the rights of free people, nor all the necessary powers of
government, can be enumerated in one writing or for all time,
as Madison and his colleagues made plain in the 9th and 10th
Amendments.
But the source of all unalienable rights, the proper
purposes for which governments are instituted among men, and
the reasons why free people should consent to an equitable
ordering of their God-given freedom, have never been better
stated than by Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are cited
as being among the most precious endowments of the Creator --
but not the only ones. Earlier, Jefferson wrote that "The
God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time."
This better explains the bold assertion that "All
men are created equal" which Americans have debated for two
centuries. We obviously are not equal in size, or wisdom,
or strength, or fortune. But we are all born -- having had
nothing at all to say about it. And from the moment we have
a life of our own we have a liberty of our own, and we receive
both in equal shares. We are all born free in the eyes of God.
MORE
Page 6
That eternal truth is the great promise of the
Declaration; but it certainly was not self-evident to most
of mankind in 1776. I regret to say it is not universally
accepted in 1976. Yet the American adventure not only pro-
claimed it, for 200 years we have consistently sought to prove
it true. The Declaration is. the promise of freedom; the
Constitution continuously seeks the fulfillment of freedom.
The Constitution was created and continues -- as its preamble
states -- "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and to our posterity."
The great promise of the Declaration requires far
more than the patriot sacrifices of the American Revolution,
more than the legal stabilizer of the Constitution, more than
Lincoln's successful answer to the question of whether a
nation so conceived and so dedicated could long endure.
What does the Declaration declare: That all human
beings have certain rights as a gift from God; that these
rights cannot lawfully be taken away from any man or woman by
any human agency, monarchy or democracy; that all governments
derive all their just powers from the people, who consent to
be governed in order to secure their rights and to effect
their safety and happiness.
Thus, both rights and powers belong to the people,
the rights equally apportioned to every individual, the powers
to the people as a whole.
This November, the American people will, under
the Constitution, again give their consent to be governed.
This free and secret act should be a reaffirmation, by every
eligible American, of the mutual pledges made 200 years ago
by John Hancock and the others whose untrembling signatures
we can still make out.
Jefferson said that the future belongs to the living;
we stand awed in the presence of these great charters not
by their beauty, not by their antiquity, but because they
belong to us. We return thanks that they have guided us safely
through two centuries of national independence, but the
excitement of this occasion is that they still work.
All around our nation's capital are priceless
collections of America's great contributions to the world,
but many of them are machines no longer used, investions no
longer needed, clothes no longer worn, books no longer read,
songs no longer sung.
Not so with the Constitution, which works for
us daily, changing slowly to meet new needs. Not so the
Bill of Rights, which protects us day and night in the
exercise of our fundamental freedoms -- to pray, to publish,
to speak as we please.
MORE
Page 7
Above all stands the magnificent Declaration,
still the fixed star of freedom for the United States of
America.
Let each of us, in this year of our Bicentennial,
join with those brave and farsighted Americans of 1776. Let
us here and now mutually pledge to the ennobling and enduring
principles of the Declaration our lives, our fortunes
and our sacred honor.
Let us do so, as they did, with firm reliance
on the protection of Divine Providence, that the future
of this land we love may be ever brighter for our children
and for generations of Americans yet to be born.
END (AT 9:44 P.M. EDT)