|
| |
Welcome to U.S. history!
Lyndon B. Johnson's
Inaugural Address:
| My fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath
I have taken before you and before God is not mine alone, but ours together. We are one
nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one
citizen, but upon all citizens. |
| This is the majesty and the meaning of this
moment. |
| For every generation, there is a destiny.
For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own. |
| Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It
reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves in
a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from
our own, because ours is a time of change—rapid and fantastic change bearing the
secrets of nature, multiplying the nations, placing in uncertain hands new weapons for
mastery and destruction, shaking old values, and uprooting old ways. |
| Our destiny in the midst of change will
rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith. |
THE AMERICAN
COVENANT
They came here—the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened—to
find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land.
Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire
the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.
|
JUSTICE AND CHANGE
First, justice was the promise that all who made the journey would share in
the fruits of the land.
|
| In a land of great wealth, families must
not live in hopeless poverty. In a land rich in harvest, children just must not go hungry.
In a land of healing miracles, neighbors must not suffer and die unattended. In a great
land of learning and scholars, young people must be taught to read and write. |
| For the more than 30 years that I have
served this Nation, I have believed that this injustice to our people, this waste of our
resources, was our real enemy. For 30 years or more, with the resources I have had, I have
vigilantly fought against it. I have learned, and I know, that it will not surrender
easily. |
| But change has given us new weapons. Before
this generation of Americans is finished, this enemy will not only retreat—it will be
conquered. |
| Justice requires us to remember that when
any citizen denies his fellow, saying, "His color is not mine," or "His
beliefs are strange and different," in that moment he betrays America, though his
forebears created this Nation. |
LIBERTY AND CHANGE
Liberty was the second article of our covenant. It was self-government. It was
our Bill of Rights. But it was more. America would be a place where each man could be
proud to be himself: stretching his talents, rejoicing in his work, important in the life
of his neighbors and his nation.
|
| This has become more difficult in a world
where change and growth seem to tower beyond the control and even the judgment of men. We
must work to provide the knowledge and the surroundings which can enlarge the
possibilities of every citizen. |
| The American covenant called on us to help
show the way for the liberation of man. And that is today our goal. Thus, if as a nation
there is much outside our control, as a people no stranger is outside our hope. |
| Change has brought new meaning to that old
mission. We can never again stand aside, prideful in isolation. Terrific dangers and
troubles that we once called "foreign" now constantly live among us. If American
lives must end, and American treasure be spilled, in countries we barely know, that is the
price that change has demanded of conviction and of our enduring covenant. |
| Think of our world as it looks from the
rocket that is heading toward Mars. It is like a child's globe, hanging in space, the
continents stuck to its side like colored maps. We are all fellow passengers on a dot of
earth. And each of us, in the span of time, has really only a moment among our companions. |
| How incredible it is that in this fragile
existence, we should hate and destroy one another. There are possibilities enough for all
who will abandon mastery over others to pursue mastery over nature. There is world enough
for all to seek their happiness in their own way. |
| Our Nation's course is abundantly clear. We
aspire to nothing that belongs to others. We seek no dominion over our fellow man, but
man's dominion over tyranny and misery. |
| But more is required. Men want to be a part
of a common enterprise—a cause greater than themselves. Each of us must find a way to
advance the purpose of the Nation, thus finding new purpose for ourselves. Without this,
we shall become a nation of strangers. |
UNION AND CHANGE
The third article was union. To those who were small and few against the
wilderness, the success of liberty demanded the strength of union. Two centuries of change
have made this true again.
|
| No longer need capitalist and worker,
farmer and clerk, city and countryside, struggle to divide our bounty. By working shoulder
to shoulder, together we can increase the bounty of all. We have discovered that every
child who learns, every man who finds work, every sick body that is made whole—like a
candle added to an altar—brightens the hope of all the faithful. |
| So let us reject any among us who seek to
reopen old wounds and to rekindle old hatreds. They stand in the way of a seeking nation. |
| Let us now join reason to faith and action
to experience, to transform our unity of interest into a unity of purpose. For the hour
and the day and the time are here to achieve progress without strife, to achieve change
without hatred—not without difference of opinion, but without the deep and abiding
divisions which scar the union for generations. |
THE AMERICAN
BELIEF
Under this covenant of justice, liberty, and union we have become a
nation—prosperous, great, and mighty. And we have kept our freedom. But we have no
promise from God that our greatness will endure. We have been allowed by Him to seek
greatness with the sweat of our hands and the strength of our spirit.
|
| I do not believe that the Great Society is
the ordered, changeless, and sterile battalion of the ants. It is the excitement of
becoming—always becoming, trying, probing, falling, resting, and trying
again—but always trying and always gaining. |
| In each generation, with toil and tears, we
have had to earn our heritage again. |
| If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in
abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks
more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most
favored. |
| If we succeed, it will not be because of
what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but,
rather because of what we believe. |
| For we are a nation of believers.
Underneath the clamor of building and the rush of our day's pursuits, we are believers in
justice and liberty and union, and in our own Union. We believe that every man must
someday be free. And we believe in ourselves. |
| Our enemies have always made the same
mistake. In my lifetime—in depression and in war—they have awaited our defeat.
Each time, from the secret places of the American heart, came forth the faith they could
not see or that they could not even imagine. It brought us victory. And it will again. |
| For this is what America is all about. It
is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and
the harvest sleeping in the unplowed ground. Is our world gone? We say
"Farewell." Is a new world coming? We welcome it—and we will bend it to the
hopes of man. |
| To these trusted public servants and to my
family and those close friends of mine who have followed me down a long, winding road, and
to all the people of this Union and the world, I will repeat today what I said on that
sorrowful day in November 1963: "I will lead and I will do the best I can." |
| But you must look within your own hearts to
the old promises and to the old dream. They will lead you best of all. |
| For myself, I ask only, in the words of an
ancient leader: "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in
before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?" |
Back
to Lyndon B. Johnson
Executive Oath of Office
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of
President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States."
United States Constitution, Article II,
Section 1, Clause 8
nextPage
back in Time
1George Washington, 2John
Adamsl, 3Thomas Jefferson, 4James Madison, 5James
Monroe, 6John Quincy Adams, 7Andrew Jackson, 8Martin
Van Buren,9William H Harrison,10John Tyler,11James K
Polk, 12Zachary Taylor, 13Millard Fillmore,14Franklin
Pierce,15James Buchanan,16Abraham Lincoln, 17Andrew
Johnson, 18Ulysses S Grant,19Rutherford B Hayes, 20James A Garfield, 21Chester
A. Arthur, 22Grover
Cleveland,23Benjamin Harrison, 24Grover Cleveland, 25William
McKinley,26Theodore Roosevelt, 27William H. Taft,28Woodrow Wilson, 29Warren
G. Harding,30Calvin Coolidge,31Herbert Hoover,32Franklin
D Roosevelt,33Harry S.
Truman, 34Dwight D Eisenhower,35John F Kennedy, 36Lyndon
B Johnson, 37RichardN. Nixon, 38Gerald R Ford, 39James E
Carter,40Ronald
W. Reagan, 41George
HerbertW. Bush, 42Bill Clinton,
43George Walker Bush
last updated
02/19/07
|
|
|
|
