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.
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