[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 244 (Wednesday, December 19, 2012)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 75357-75358]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-30740]



[[Page 75355]]

Vol. 77

Wednesday,

No. 244

December 19, 2012

Part V





The President





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Proclamation 8916--Bill of Rights Day, 2012



Proclamation 8917--Honoring the Victims of the Tragedy in Newtown, 
Connecticut
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  Federal Register / Vol. 77 , No. 244 / Wednesday, December 19, 2012 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 75357]]

                Proclamation 8916 of December 14, 2012

                
Bill of Rights Day, 2012

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                When President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the 
                150th anniversary of our Nation's Bill of Rights, he 
                called it the ``great American charter of personal 
                liberty and human dignity.'' He understood that the 
                freedoms it protects--among them speech, worship, 
                assembly, and due process--are freedoms that reinforce 
                one another. They form the bedrock of the American 
                promise, and we cannot fully realize one without 
                realizing them all. Today, as we work to reinforce 
                human rights at home and around the globe, we reaffirm 
                our belief that government of the people, by the 
                people, and for the people inspires the stability and 
                individual opportunity that serve as a basis for peace 
                in our world.

                In adopting the 10 Constitutional Amendments that make 
                up the Bill of Rights, the Framers sought to balance 
                the power and security of a new Federal Government with 
                a guarantee of our most basic civil liberties. They 
                acted on a conviction that rings as true today as it 
                did two centuries ago: Unlocking a nation's potential 
                depends on empowering all its people. The Framers also 
                called upon posterity to carry on their work--to keep 
                our country moving forward and bring us ever closer to 
                a more perfect Union.

                Generations of patriots have taken up that challenge. 
                They have been defenders who stood watch at freedom's 
                frontier, marchers who broke down barriers to full 
                equality, dreamers who pushed America from what it was 
                toward what it ought to be. Now it falls to us to build 
                on their work. On Bill of Rights Day, we celebrate the 
                liberties secured by our forebears, pay tribute to all 
                who have fought to protect and expand our civil rights, 
                and rededicate ourselves to driving a new century of 
                American progress.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the 
                United States of America, by virtue of the authority 
                vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the 
                United States, do hereby proclaim December 15, 2012, as 
                Bill of Rights Day. I call upon the people of the 
                United States to mark these observances with 
                appropriate ceremonies and activities.

[[Page 75358]]

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                fourteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord two 
                thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United 
                States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 2012-30740
Filed 12-18-12; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3295-F3