|
Home >
News & Policies >
April 2007
|
Printer-Friendly Version
Email This Page
For Immediate Release
April 17, 2007
Mrs. Cheney's Remarks at a Special Naturalization Ceremony
National Archives
Washington, DC
(As prepared for delivery)
MRS. CHENEY: Thank you, Mr. Scharfen, and let me express my gratitude to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services for that organization's fine work. Let me also acknowledge the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bruce Cole, and the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Goia, who do so much to preserve and extend knowledge of our nation's cultural heritage.
It's a great pleasure to be here with you today on this happy occasion.
And it is altogether fitting that we celebrate citizenship and your
citizenship in particular at the National Archives, so ably led by
Archivist Allen Weinstein, and a place that holds so much of our nation's
history. Here in this magnificent building you can see the Declaration of
Independence, the work of patriots who met in Philadelphia in 1776 and
asserted to the world that "all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
We sometimes forget that the journey on which the Declarations signers embarked was not an easy one, not one that was sure to turn out right. Britain was a mighty power, and we were not. George Washington's ragtag army was pushed out of New York by the British, all the way across New Jersey and across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania in the first months after the Declaration was signed. Washington pushed back in a daring campaign that began by recrossing the Delaware on Christmas night in 1776 and dealing two defeats to Britain, one at Trenton and another at Princeton, but even after that, the going was very tough. Valley Forge, a cold and starving time for the American army still lay ahead.
I tell this story often to help me remember and to encourage others to remember how fortunate we are to be citizens of this great country. The United States did succeed in our Revolution, but there were many times when it was a very close thing, and it might have turned out otherwise. There was nothing inevitable about the path that brought us here-and there is nothing inevitable about the future. The blessings that we enjoy are not merely a privilege but a responsibility. We have to work at freedom and defend it-and I know you like me are grateful today to the fine men and women in our military who fight to keep our nation safe and secure.
There's another document upstairs less eloquent, perhaps, than the Declaration of Independence, but even more important, and that is the Constitution of the United States, which you have just sworn to support and defend-just as my husband and President Bush swore to support and defend it when they were inaugurated in 2000 and 2004. The Constitution wasn't created until 1787, eleven years after the Declaration of Independence, and by the time it was written, our new nation was in a perilous state. Although we had defeated the British, we had no president, no independent judiciary, only a Congress that was so weak it could not raise money to pay the government's debts. Henry Knox, who had helped Washington cross the Delaware in 1776, wrote, "Our present federal government is a name, a shadow, without power or effect." States were fighting with one another, foreign powers were taking advantage of our weakness, and, most frightening of all, citizens were rising up against the government. In Massachusetts, farmers prevented courts from convening and staged a bloody raid on the arsenal at Springfield.
Which is why there was a convention in Philadelphia in 1787. A new form of
government was needed, one that could strengthen the Union. The delegates
to this convention met through a long, hot summer, and many times their
deliberations threatened to come to an end before they succeeded in
agreeing on a new course for the country. About the middle of July George
Washington himself was despairing of any successful outcome. The delegates
are "scarce held together by a hair," a Maryland delegate declared. But
they struggled on and by September 17th did have a Constitution, but then a
long battle ensued to get the states to accept it. It was a close thing-as
it has often been for the United States of America, and I think it is good
to remind ourselves often of that, to remind ourselves how fortunate we are
that events have turned out well for our great country and to remember the
role that committed citizens have played.
It takes work to create a country and work to keep a country, and part of that work lies in appreciating our history-and it is our history, whether our ancestors were here or not in the early days. Some of my forebears were Mormon immigrants from Wales who came in the middle of the nineteenth century, long after George Washington and the other founding fathers had departed from this life, but what the founders accomplished affected those immigrants mightily. The one I know most about was a woman, who, though she lost many loved ones, managed the long trek to Utah, a frontier wilderness then, but before she died it became a state. Before she died she was a citizen of a state that was the equal of all other states already in the Union-and that was because of the Constitution and the form of government the founders created. This was not to be a country where states created later would be considered lesser. Equality was the driving idea, and although not every person in this country had equal rights when the Constitution was written, the founders gave us a document that could be changed. And so, even though my Mormon ancestor could not vote and neither could women whose families had been here since the Mayflower, the female descendents of these women voted-because the Constitution was amended in 1920, just as it had been earlier amended to end slavery and extend the vote to African American men. The Constitution, the framework for our government, has made it possible over the past 220 years for the United States to make the circle of equality in America greater and ever greater, ever and ever more inclusive.
The document that you have just sworn to protect and defend is worth your
attention, as are so many other aspects of your American heritage, and I am
so pleased that today you will be receiving this booklet, the Citizen's
Almanac. You are the first group to receive this publication, but
henceforth all new Americans will, and it is a treasure, full of
information on basic American documents, as well as classic speeches,
songs, and poetry marking important events in our national life.
In just a minute now, you and I will join in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing "God Bless America," both of which are in this wonderful booklet. Then I look forward to congratulating each of you personally on becoming citizens of this remarkable country, our country, the United States of America.
# # #
