[United States Statutes at Large, Volume 131, 115th Congress, 1st Session]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

 
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.

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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.
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.
DONALD J. TRUMP