[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 85 (Thursday, May 4, 2017)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 21105-21106]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-09211]


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  Federal Register / Vol. 82 , No. 85 / Thursday, May 4, 2017 / 
Presidential Documents  

[[Page 21105]]


                Proclamation 9604 of May 1, 2017

                
Law Day, U.S.A., 2017

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                Today, we celebrate Law Day, as we have since President 
                Dwight D. Eisenhower first commemorated it in 1958, and 
                reflect upon our great heritage of liberty, justice, 
                and equality. Our Founders risked their lives, 
                fortunes, and sacred honor in defense of these values. 
                More than 240 years ago, they set pen to paper and 
                declared to the world ``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.'' The Declaration of 
                Independence thus set our Nation on its revolutionary 
                and transformative path to protecting people's 
                inherent, individual rights and liberties from the 
                tyranny of an elite few who might use the powers of the 
                state to trample upon them.

                To protect the values for which they fought, the 
                Framers of our Constitution created a government of 
                limited and separated powers that enables the rule of 
                law to prevail over the whims of government officials. 
                As the great Justice Antonin Scalia frequently 
                observed, every dictatorship has a bill of rights, but 
                paper rights alone will not preserve liberty. It is our 
                Constitution's clear division of the sovereign's 
                power--vesting the power to create laws in the 
                Congress, the power to execute laws in the President, 
                and the power to interpret laws in an independent 
                judiciary--that enables us to remain free and in 
                control of our government.

                Recognizing, as President Ronald Reagan did, that 
                ``freedom is never more than one generation away from 
                extinction,'' today we pay tribute to the government of 
                laws, and not of men, that forms the foundation of our 
                freedom. Therefore, on this Law Day, we rededicate 
                ourselves to the rule of law, to the separation of 
                powers, and, in the words of President Abraham 
                Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the preservation of 
                ``government of the people, by the people, for the 
                people.''

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the 
                United States of America, in accordance with Public Law 
                87-20, as amended, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2017, as 
                Law Day, U.S.A. I urge all Americans, including 
                government officials, to observe this day by reflecting 
                upon the importance of the rule of law in our Nation 
                and displaying the flag of the United States in support 
                of this national observance.

[[Page 21106]]

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand 
                seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States 
                of America the two hundred and forty-first.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 2017-09211
Filed 5-3-17; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3295-F7-P