Press Release, Independence Day Address Delivered at the Home of Thomas Jefferson

1215 HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE 264 JULY 3, 1947 CONFIDENTIAL : The following address of the President to be delivered at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, Virginia, MUST BE HELD IN STRICT CONFIDENCE UNTTL RELEASED. Release is automatic at 12:30 P.M., E.S.T., (1:30 P.M., E.D.T.) Friday, July 4, 7947. The same release applies to all newspapers, radio announcers and news broadcasters. PLEASE GUARD AGAINST PRENATURE PUBLICATION OR RADIO AMHOUNCESENT. CHARLES G. ROSS Secretary to the President GOVERNOR TUCK, MR. HOUSTON, DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: It is fitting that we should come to Monticello to celebrate the anniversary of our independence. Here lived Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Here Thomas Jefferson died TRUALLY NARA on July 4, 1826, fifty years from the day the Declaration was adopted by the Continental Congress and proclaimed to the world. The Declaration of Independence was an expression of democratic philosophy that sustained American patriots during the Revolution and has ever since inspired men to fight to the death for their "unalienable Rights. The standard phrase used by writers of Jefferson's day to describe man's essential rights was "life, liberty and property." But to Jefferson, human rights were more important than property rights, and the phrase, as he wrote it in the Declaration of Independence, became "Life, Liberty and the nursuit of Happiness." The laws and the of the colonies in 1776 were designed to support a monarchial system rather than a democratic society. To Thomas, Jefferson the American revolution was far more than a struggle for independence. It was a struggle for democracy. Within a few weeks after independence had been proclaimed at Philadelphia, Jefferson resigned his seat in the Continental Congress and returned to his place in the Virginia Legislature. There he began his monumental work of laying the foundation of an independent democracy. Within a few years the Virginia Legislature, under Jefferson's leadership, instituted full religious freedom, abolished the laws which had permitted great estates to pass undivided from generation to generation, prohibited the importation of slaves, revised the civil and criminal code of laws, and established a general system of public education. These acts, according to Jefferson, eradicated every fiber of ancient and future aristocracy. These acts formed the basis for a truly democratic government. Jefferson knew that it was necessary to provide in law the requisites for the survival of an independent democracy. He knew that it was not enough merely to set forth a Declaration of Independence. Two years ago. the United States and fifty other nations joined in signing that great Declaration of Inter-dependence known as the Charter of the United Nations. We did so because we had learned, at staggering cost, that the nations of the world cannot live in peace and prosperity if, at the same time, they try to live in isolation. We have learned that nations are inter-dependent, and that recognition of our dependence upon one another is essential to and the pursuit of happiness of all mankind. (OVER)