A Vision of America

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants…

Permanence and progression are not enemies, for there can be no improvement except upon a sound foundation, and that foundation cannot endure unless it is progressively renewed.

Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation.

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.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.

And the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men…. The sacred texts declared that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough… the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness.

God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?

I never doubted the existence of the Deity; that he made the world and govern’d it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing of good to men; that our souls are immortal….

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have the United States in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another…

We lived contentedly under the Gai Eneshah Go’ Nah, The Great Law of Peace. We were instructed to create societies based on the principles of Peace, Equity, Justice, and the Power of Good Minds.

Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him [Washington], I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail.

[Lincoln was] the architect of his own fortune, and the American people… saw in him, a full-length portrait of themselves. In him they saw their better qualities represented, incarnated and glorified – and as such they loved him.

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in…

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.

Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another…

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is this goal of bringing people together under the guidance of conscience that lies at the heart of the idea of democracy in its uniquely American form.

For hope of the future surely lies in the revival of the [Vital] Center – in the triumph of those who believe deeply in civil liberties, in constitutional processes and in the democratic determination of political and economic policies.

A world civil religion could be accepted as a fulfillment and not as a denial of American civil religion. Indeed such an outcome has been the eschatological hope of American civil religion from the beginning. To deny such an outcome would be to deny the meaning of America itself.

One of the great purposes of the American nation is to shelter and guard the rights of all men and women to seek the conditions and the companions necessary for the inner search.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

I dream of the day when all Americans will be judged, not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your habitation, no evil shall befall you… For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways.