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Ronald
Reagan Second Inaugural Address
January
21, 1985.
Senator Mathias, Chief
Justice Burger, Vice President Bush, Speaker
O'Neill, Senator Dole, Reverend Clergy, members of
my family and friends, and my fellow citizens:
This day has been made
brighter with the presence here of one who, for a
time, has been absent--Senator John Stennis.
God bless you and welcome
back.
There is, however, one who
is not with us today: Representative Gillis Long of
Louisiana left us last night. I wonder if we could
all join in a moment of silent prayer. (Moment of
silent prayer.) Amen.
There are no words adequate
to express my thanks for the great honor that you
have bestowed on me. I will do my utmost to be
deserving of your trust.
This is, as Senator Mathias
told us, the 50th time that we the people have
celebrated this historic occasion. When the first
President, George Washington, placed his hand upon
the Bible, he stood less than a single day's journey
by horseback from raw, untamed wilderness. There
were 4 million Americans in a union of 13 States.
Today we are 60 times as many in a union of 50
States. We have lighted the world with our
inventions, gone to the aid of mankind wherever in
the world there was a cry for help, journeyed to the
Moon and safely returned. So much has changed. And
yet we stand together as we did two centuries ago.
When I took this oath four
years ago, I did so in a time of economic stress.
Voices were raised saying we had to look to our past
for the greatness and glory. But we, the present-day
Americans, are not given to looking backward. In
this blessed land, there is always a better
tomorrow.
Four years ago, I spoke to
you of a new beginning and we have accomplished
that. But in another sense, our new beginning is a
continuation of that beginning created two centuries
ago when, for the first time in history, government,
the people said, was not our master, it is our
servant; its only power that which we the people
allow it to have.
That system has never
failed us, but, for a time, we failed the system. We
asked things of government that government was not
equipped to give. We yielded authority to the
National Government that properly belonged to States
or to local governments or to the people themselves.
We allowed taxes and inflation to rob us of our
earnings and savings and watched the great
industrial machine that had made us the most
productive people on Earth slow down and the number
of unemployed increase.
By 1980, we knew it was
time to renew our faith, to strive with all our
strength toward the ultimate in individual freedom
consistent with an orderly society.
We believed then and now
there are no limits to growth and human progress
when men and women are free to follow their dreams.
And we were right to
believe that. Tax rates have been reduced, inflation
cut dramatically, and more people are employed than
ever before in our history.
We are creating a nation
once again vibrant, robust, and alive. But there are
many mountains yet to climb. We will not rest until
every American enjoys the fullness of freedom,
dignity, and opportunity as our birthright. It is
our birthright as citizens of this great Republic,
and we'll meet this challenge.
These will be years when
Americans have restored their confidence and
tradition of progress; when our values of faith,
family, work, and neighborhood were restated for a
modern age; when our economy was finally freed from
government's grip; when we made sincere efforts at
meaningful arms reduction, rebuilding our defenses,
our economy, and developing new technologies, and
helped preserve peace in a troubled world; when
Americans courageously supported the struggle for
liberty, self-government, and free enterprise
throughout the world, and turned the tide of history
away from totalitarian darkness and into the warm
sunlight of human freedom.
My fellow citizens, our
Nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we
know is right and do it with all our might. Let
history say of us, "These were golden
years--when the American Revolution was reborn, when
freedom gained new life, when America reached for
her best."
Our two-party system has
served us well over the years, but never better than
in those times of great challenge when we came
together not as Democrats or Republicans, but as
Americans united in a common cause.
Two of our Founding
Fathers, a Boston lawyer named Adams and a Virginia
planter named Jefferson, members of that remarkable
group who met in Independence Hall and dared to
think they could start the world over again, left us
an important lesson. They had become political
rivals in the Presidential election of 1800. Then
years later, when both were retired, and age had
softened their anger, they began to speak to each
other again through letters. A bond was
reestablished between those two who had helped
create this government of ours.
In 1826, the 50th
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, they
both died. They died on the same day, within a few
hours of each other, and that day was the Fourth of
July.
In one of those letters
exchanged in the sunset of their lives, Jefferson
wrote: "It carries me back to the times when,
beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow
laborers in the same cause, struggling for what is
most valuable to man, his right to self-government.
Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever
ahead threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing
harmless ... we rode through the storm with heart
and hand."
Well, with heart and hand,
let us stand as one today: One people under God
determined that our future shall be worthy of our
past. As we do, we must not repeat the
well-intentioned errors of our past. We must never
again abuse the trust of working men and women, by
sending their earnings on a futile chase after the
spiraling demands of a bloated Federal
Establishment. You elected us in 1980 to end this
prescription for disaster, and I don't believe you
reelected us in 1984 to reverse course.
At the heart of our efforts
is one idea vindicated by 25 straight months of
economic growth: Freedom and incentives unleash the
drive and entrepreneurial genius that are the core
of human progress. We have begun to increase the
rewards for work, savings, and investment; reduce
the increase in the cost and size of government and
its interference in people's lives.
We must simplify our tax
system, make it more fair, and bring the rates down
for all who work and earn. We must think anew and
move with a new boldness, so every American who
seeks work can find work; so the least among us
shall have an equal chance to achieve the greatest
things--to be heroes who heal our sick, feed the
hungry, protect peace among nations, and leave this
world a better place.
The time has come for a new
American emancipation--a great national drive to
tear down economic barriers and liberate the spirit
of enterprise in the most distressed areas of our
country. My friends, together we can do this, and do
it we must, so help me God.
From new freedom will
spring new opportunities for growth, a more
productive, fulfilled and united people, and a
stronger America--an America that will lead the
technological revolution, and also open its mind and
heart and soul to the treasures of literature,
music, and poetry, and the values of faith, courage,
and love.
A dynamic economy, with
more citizens working and paying taxes, will be our
strongest tool to bring down budget deficits. But an
almost unbroken 50 years of deficit spending has
finally brought us to a time of reckoning. We have
come to a turning point, a moment for hard
decisions. I have asked the Cabinet and my staff a
question, and now I put the same question to all of
you: If not us, who? And if not now, when? It must
be done by all of us going forward with a program
aimed at reaching a balanced budget. We can then begin reducing the national debt.
I will shortly submit a
budget to the Congress aimed at freezing government
program spending for the next year. Beyond that, we
must take further steps to permanently control
Government's power to tax and spend. We must act now
to protect future generations from Government's
desire to spend its citizens' money and tax them
into servitude when the bills come due. Let us make
it unconstitutional for the Federal Government to
spend more than the Federal Government takes in.
We have already started
returning to the people and to State and local
governments responsibilities better handled by them.
Now, there is a place for the Federal Government in
matters of social compassion. But our fundamental
goals must be to reduce dependency and upgrade the
dignity of those who are infirm or disadvantaged. And here a growing economy and support from family
and community offer our best chance for a society
where compassion is a way of life, where the old and
infirm are cared for, the young and, yes, the unborn
protected, and the unfortunate looked after and made
self-sufficient.
And there is another area
where the Federal Government can play a part. As an
older American, I remember a time when people of
different race, creed, or ethnic origin in our land
found hatred and prejudice installed in social
custom and, yes, in law. There is no story more
heartening in our history than the progress that we
have made toward the "brotherhood of man"
that God intended for us. Let us resolve there will
be no turning back or hesitation on the road to an
America rich in dignity and abundant with opportunity for all our citizens.
Let us resolve that we the
people will build an American opportunity society in
which all of us--white and black, rich and poor,
young and old--will go forward together arm in arm.
Again, let us remember that though our heritage is
one of blood lines from every corner of the Earth,
we are all Americans pledged to carry on this last,
best hope of man on Earth.
I have spoken of our
domestic goals and the limitations which we should
put on our National Government. Now let me turn to a
task which is the primary responsibility of National
Government--the safety and security of our people.
Today, we utter no prayer
more fervently than the ancient prayer for peace on
Earth. Yet history has shown that peace will not
come, nor will our freedom be preserved, by good will alone. There are those in the world who scorn
our vision of human dignity and freedom. One nation,
the Soviet Union, has conducted the greatest
military buildup in the history of man, building
arsenals of awesome offensive weapons.
We have made progress in
restoring our defense capability. But much remains
to be done. There must be no wavering by us, nor any
doubts by others, that America will meet her
responsibilities to remain free, secure, and at
peace.
There is only one way
safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of
national security, and that is to reduce the need
for it. And this we are trying to do in negotiations
with the Soviet Union. We are not just discussing
limits on a further increase of nuclear weapons. We
seek, instead, to reduce their number. We seek the
total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from
the face of the Earth.
Now, for decades, we and
the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual
assured destruction; if either resorted to the use
of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either
logic or morality in believing that if one side
threatens to kill tens of millions of our people,
our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of
millions of theirs?
I have approved a research
program to find, if we can, a security shield that
would destroy nuclear missiles before they reach
their target. It wouldn't kill people, it would destroy weapons. It wouldn't militarize space, it
would help demilitarize the arsenals of Earth. It
would render nuclear weapons obsolete. We will meet
with the Soviets, hoping that we can agree on a way
to rid the world of the threat of nuclear
destruction.
We strive for peace and
security, heartened by the changes all around us.
Since the turn of the century, the number of
democracies in the world has grown fourfold. Human freedom is on the march, and nowhere more so than
our own hemisphere. Freedom is one of the deepest
and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. People,
worldwide, hunger for the right of
self-determination, for those inalienable rights
that make for human dignity and progress.
America must remain
freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best
ally.
And it is the world's only
hope, to conquer poverty and preserve peace. Every
blow we inflict against poverty will be a blow
against its dark allies of oppression and war. Every victory for human freedom will be a victory for
world peace.
So we go forward today, a
nation still mighty in its youth and powerful in its
purpose. With our alliances strengthened, with our
economy leading the world to a new age of economic
expansion, we look forward to a world rich in
possibilities. And all this because we have worked
and acted together, not as members of political
parties, but as Americans.
My friends, we live in a
world that is lit by lightning. So much is changing
and will change, but so much endures, and transcends
time.
History is a ribbon, always
unfurling; history is a journey. And as we continue
our journey, we think of those who traveled before
us. We stand together again at the steps of this
symbol of our democracy--or we would have been
standing at the steps if it hadn't gotten so cold.
Now we are standing inside this symbol of our
democracy. Now we hear again the echoes of our past:
a general falls to his knees in the hard snow of
Valley Forge; a lonely President paces the darkened
halls, and ponders his struggle to preserve the
Union; the men of the Alamo call out encouragement
to each other; a settler pushes west and sings a
song, and the song echoes out forever and fills the
unknowing air.
It is the American sound.
It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring,
decent, and fair. That's our heritage; that is our
song. We sing it still. For all our problems, our
differences, we are together as of old, as we raise
our voices to the God who is the Author of this most
tender music. And may He continue to hold us close
as we fill the world with our sound--sound in unity,
affection, and love--one people under God, dedicated
to the dream of freedom that He has placed in the
human heart, called upon now to pass that dream on
to a waiting and hopeful world.
God bless you and may God
bless America.
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