[United States Statutes at Large, Volume 126, 112th Congress, 2nd Session]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

 
PROCLAMATION 8916--DEC. 14, 2012

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.
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


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the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-
seventh.
BARACK OBAMA