[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[September 17, 2000]
[Pages 1859-1862]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Groundbreaking Ceremony for the National Constitution 
Center in Philadelphia
September 17, 2000

    Thank you very much. The final sentence of the preamble: ``We do 
ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States.'' Today we 
come to ordain and establish this Constitution Center, so I begin by 
thanking Senator Specter, Senator 
Santorum; Representatives Brady, Borski, and Hoeffel, who are here; Mayor Street and Mayor Rendell; Chairman 
Bogle; President Torsella; Judge Giles, Judge 
Becker; Park Service Director Marie 
Rust and all of your employees; President 
Rodin; and Lee Annenberg, we thank you and Walter 
so much for your continuing generosity and vision. And most of all, I'd 
like to thank the people of Philadelphia, who have contributed so much 
to make this center a reality.
    This is an appropriate thing to do, I think, in the millennial year 
and in the political season. I thank Senator Specter for the plug for First Lady, and I hope he will not be too severely rebuked at the 
Republican caucus in a few days. [Laughter]
    But if it is the season of political olympics in America, we 
shouldn't forget that we have over 600 of our athletes halfway across 
the world in Australia. And I think we ought to give a big hand to the 
female 400-meter free style relay team, who set a world record in 
winning a gold medal yesterday. [Applause] I might say, just as an 
aside, I saw a television special which said that this is the oldest 
women's swimming team we have ever fielded, and the first time the 
women's team has ever been older than the men. But I don't think they 
meant that in the same way I do. I think their average is about 21 years 
and 6 months. [Laughter]
    I bring you greetings, also, from the First Lady, who wanted to be here today, because of her efforts to 
save the charters of our freedom.
    As you may have read, and I hope you have, this weekend at the 
National Archives in Washington, scientists and engineers unveiled new, 
state-of-the-art technology to display and better preserve the 
Constitution, Bill of Rights, and

[[Page 1860]]

Declaration of Independence. We have been struggling now for many, many 
years to show it to the largest possible number of visitors without 
having the precious old paper erode and the ink bleed away into the 
mists of memory.
    This effort to preserve the documents is part of America's 
Millennium Project to save our treasures, from Thomas Edison's invention 
factory to Harriet Tubman's home, from the Old Glory that inspired 
Francis Scott Key to write the ``Star-Spangled Banner'' to Abraham 
Lincoln's summer residence at the Old Soldiers Home in Washington.
    It is the largest historic preservation effort in our history. It 
has garnered already over $100 million in public and private funds, and 
I'm very proud of the First Lady for 
thinking of it and executing it. It will complement this Constitution 
Center for you to know that the Constitution is alive and well and 
preserved for all time, along with the Bill of Rights and the 
Declaration of Independence.
    Two hundred and thirteen years ago today, a few hundred feet from 
where we stand, 39 men signed a document that would change the world. 
Some of them--Washington, Franklin, Madison--are remembered today as our 
greatest citizens. In light of the naturalization ceremony just held, I 
think it's worth noting that 8 of those 39 signers were immigrants, 
including Alexander Hamilton, born in the West Indies, and James Wilson 
of Pennsylvania, who spoke with a heavy Scottish brogue.
    Those who put their names in the Constitution understood the 
enormity of what they were attempting to do, to create a representative 
democracy with a central government strong enough to unify a vast, 
diverse, then and now politically fractious nation, but a government 
limited enough to allow individual liberty and enterprise to flourish.
    Well, 213 years later, we can say with thanks, they succeeded not 
only in keeping liberty alive but in providing a strong yet flexible 
framework within which America could keep moving forward, generation 
after generation, toward making real the pure ideals embodied in their 
words.
    How have we moved forward? Well, today, our liberties extend not 
just to white males with property but to all Americans, including those 
who were just signed in. Our concept of freedom no longer includes the 
so-called freedom to keep slaves and buy and sell them or to extract 
profit from the labor of children. And now our Constitution is the 
inspiration behind scores of other democratic governments all over the 
world, from Japan to Poland, from Guatemala to South Africa.
    Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ``The Constitution is an 
experiment, as all life is an experiment.'' The new center we begin 
today will tell the story of that experiment, showing how each 
generation of Americans has been called on not only to preserve liberty 
but to enhance it, not only to protect the institutions that secure 
liberty but to renew and modify them to the demands of the present with 
an eye to the future.
    Our generation has also begun to meet that sacred duty, for at the 
dawn of a new century we are clearly a nation in renewal. Like 
generations before us, we are renewing the promise of America by meeting 
the challenges of our time with new ideas rooted in old values: faith 
and freedom, opportunity and responsibility, family and community.
    This new center is a symbol of that broader renewal. It will use the 
latest technologies to bring alive to visitors the meaning of our 
founding documents. Perhaps the greatest testament to our national 
renewal is, we are becoming as a people simultaneously more diverse, as 
you can see from those who just became American citizens, and more 
tolerant.
    The degree of diversity in America today would probably astound the 
Founders. But if they thought about it just for a moment, they would 
recognize it as the inevitable product of their own handiwork. James 
Madison, himself, predicted America would be made stable by a strong 
Constitution that would draw from other countries ``men who love liberty 
and wish to partake of its blessings.'' Even in the beginning we were a 
diverse country, compared to most.
    A few years ago, I went to Germany on a state visit. And I presented 
to the Chancellor of Germany a copy of the Declaration of Independence, 
printed in Philadelphia on July 5, 1776, in German, for the German 
speakers who were already here.
    A newspaper way back then wrote, ``If the new Federal Government be 
adopted, thousands would embark immediately to America. Germany and 
Ireland would send colonies of cultivators of the Earth, while England 
and Scotland would fill our towns and cities with industrious mechanics 
and manufacturers.''

[[Page 1861]]

    Well, today, we benefit from the skills and drive of a new wave of 
immigrants from Nigeria and India, Poland and China, Mexico and Russia, 
and as you heard, scores of other countries. No country in the world has 
been able so to absorb large numbers of immigrants and profit by them, 
yet still somehow find a way to remain one nation.
    I believe the reason is that we base national identity in America 
not on common blood or common history or loyalty to a particular ruler 
but on a shared belief and a set of political ideas and arrangements. We 
revere the Constitution because it is at the core of who we are. And I 
would submit for all the troubling responses in the polls that were 
cited, one of the reasons that we need this Constitution Center is so 
people will come here and learn the answers to those questions so they 
will know why they already feel the way they do, because even people who 
don't know the answers to the questions at bottom are Americans in the 
sense that I just mentioned, thanks to 213 years of this Constitution.
    Since 1993, 5 million immigrants have chosen to become Americans, 
more than the total of the previous three decades. This week, 25,000 
more are being sworn in in ceremonies across our country, celebrating 
Constitution Week and Citizenship Day. They gain new rights and freely 
accept new obligations to play their part in the ongoing experiment in 
self-government that is our Nation.
    I say it again, the final clause of the Constitution's preamble 
reads, ``We do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United 
States.'' The Founders ordained it when they signed it. The American 
people have renewed it again and again: in 1789, when we added the Bill 
of Rights; in the 1860's, when hundreds of thousands gave their lives to 
ensure that a Union founded in liberty on the proposition that all are 
created equal would not perish from the Earth in slavery; we renewed it 
at the coming of the industrial age, recognizing new measures were 
required to protect and advance equal opportunity and freedom; we 
renewed it in 1920, when we ratified the 19th amendment, granting women 
the right to vote; we renewed it during the great worldwide Depression 
of the 1930's, when we saved a free economy for free people by building 
a social safety net and appropriate regulatory protections; we renewed 
it in the Constitution's finest sense during World War II and the cold 
war, when we stood up to tyrannies that did not believe people could be 
trusted with freedom; we renewed in 1963, hearing and heeding Dr. King's 
dream that one day the sons of former slaves and former slaveowners 
would sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
    Today, we enter a new era in human affairs, dominated by 
globalization--which is a fancy way of saying the world is getting 
smaller and more interconnected--and an explosion in science and 
information technology, which will change the way we live and work and 
relate to each other in ways we can only dimly imagine, at a pace that 
is truly breathtaking.
    We, therefore, must renew our commitment to the charters of freedom 
and apply their values to the challenges of this new era. Our 
Constitution protects individual integrity and privacy. What does it 
mean when all of our genetic information is on a little card and in 
someone's computer? How can we take this magnificent prosperity that the 
global economy is producing and spread it to everybody? What are our 
responsibilities to deal with our brothers and sisters half a world away 
who are still struggling in poverty and under the grip of AIDS, TB, and 
malaria, which together kill one in every four people who die every 
year? What is our responsibility to share our learning in outer space 
and the deepest oceans with all Americans and with those beyond our 
borders? How can we be a great nation of free people unless every single 
child can get a world-class education?
    These are only some of the questions the next generation of American 
leaders will have to contemplate and answer at more and more rapid 
speeds. But the great thing is, we now have over two centuries of 
experience to know that we always will need new ideas; we'll always need 
strong leadership; we'll always need to be open for change. But the 
Constitution, the Declaration, and the Bill of Rights will always be 
home base and a good place to return to know what should be the anchor 
of the changes and the challenges of any new era. That is what this 
center will give to all Americans.
    Finally, let me say, if you read the Declaration of Independence and 
its commitment to build a more perfect Union, it is easier to understand 
why the Constitution was constructed as it was. For the Founders, though 
in many ways ordinary people, were inordinately wise in the ways of 
social change and the frailties of human nature. And they knew that the 
Union

[[Page 1862]]

would never be perfect but could always be made more perfect.
    They knew that we would never fully realize the ideals of the 
Constitution and the Declaration or the Bill of Rights but that we could 
always deepen the meaning of freedom, widen the circle of opportunity, 
and strengthen the bonds of our community. That is what these young 
immigrants represent today, our future and our steadfast belief that we 
grow stronger with our diversity in a global world, as long as we 
reaffirm our common humanity and our common fidelity to the freedom and 
values of the Constitution.
    Now, my fellow Americans, about 4 months from now I will change 
jobs, and I will be restored to a title that Harry Truman once said was 
the most important title any American could have, that of citizen. No 
American citizen in this Republic's history has been more fortunate or 
more blessed. I hope for the rest of my life I can do a good job with 
that title. I hope all these young, new citizens behind me will realize 
that President Truman was right. As important as our Presidents are, as 
important as our Congresses are, as important as our judges are and our 
Governors and our mayors, our philanthropists, our artists, our 
athletes, this country is great because there are good people who get up 
every day and do their very best to live their dreams and make the most 
of their own lives and because this country has a system enshrined in 
the Constitution that gives them the maximum opportunity to do just 
that.
    You should be very proud of what you are doing here today to make 
sure everyone knows why America is a special place and being an American 
is a great gift. I thank you for that. [Applause]
    Now, we're just about done, but I'm going to ask one of our 
citizens, Susan Yuh, who was born in South Korea, 
to join me in signing, as everyone else has already done, this steel 
beam to my right, that will be the founding pillar of a building devoted 
to our Constitution. I think it's quite fitting that the beam should 
have the signature of a President, and even more fitting that it should 
have the signature of a new citizen on her first day as an American.

Note: The President spoke at 1:17 p.m. on Independence Mall. In his 
remarks, he referred to Mayor John F. Street and former Mayor Edward G. 
Rendell of Philadelphia; John C. Bogle, chairman, and Joseph M. 
Torsella, president and chief executive officer, National Constitution 
Center; James T. Giles, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern 
District of Pennsylvania; Edward R. Becker III, Chief Judge, U.S. Court 
of Appeals for the Third Circuit; Marie Rust, Regional Director, 
Northeast Region, National Park Service; Judith Rodin, president, 
University of Pennsylvania; and Walter H. Annenberg and his wife, Lee, 
founders, Annenberg Foundation.